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It is widely believed that Alexander Fleming, sometimes called 'the father of modern medicine', discovered Penicillin by a chance observation of mold growing in a discarded petri dish. In fact it could be argued that the whole of modern medicine was founded on serendipitous moment. If he hadn't looked at something he wasn't expecting to see, hadn't spent a few minutes considering whether that gross, green stuff growing on the glass might actually be something useful, we might never have benefitted from the antibiotics.

Whether this example is true or not, it's fair to say the history of mankind is based on fortuitous coincidences. From the caveman who just happened to be rubbing some stick together and caught his loin cloth alight to the discovery that dropping a piece of your raw mammoth steak into the resultant fire would improve the flavor, luck has always played a part in our development.


But is the internet and our modern reliance on Google and Bing destroying our ability to see the wood for the trees? We go online. We key in some words or a phrase about the answer we seek. Presto! 20 of the closest matches spring up on screen before our very eyes. All these computer-generated results are based on what an algorithm thinks we want to see. The answer will be in there somewhere. Or it might not. But the likelihood is that there will be some content in those urls that will help us on our way to THE ANSWER.

The problem is that because our imperative is THE ANSWER, we miss a load of really quite interesting stuff in our pursuit of it. We filter out the serendipitous discovery. The only thing that matters is THE ANSWER.

Before the web became the font of all knowledge, the place to go if one was seeking wisdom was the library. There, thousands of tomes lined endless shelves, each one offering a wealth of knowledge on myriad subjects.

Let's take an example.

Say we went into our library looking to find out who was the first Egyptian Pharaoh. You would be very lucky to find a book entitled - "Narmer - The First Egyptian Pharaoh'. More likely, you would scan all the history subject titles working back through Tudors and Romans and Greeks and Gauls until you discovered the Egyptian section. And then thanks to the wonders of the Dewey Decimal system you would be able to find out about life in ancient Egypt; the geography of the place, customs and practice, all before you actually found a book with a list of the Pharaohs in it - and then...bingo! There he was: Narmer!

Now I can type 'First Egyptian Pharaoh' into my search engine and his name comes up in a fraction of a second. Yes it's much faster. But my opportunity to learn has been lessened. And therefore my opportunity to make chance discoveries, piece them together and make something original.

Today, I get THE ANSWER. Before, I got THE INFORMATION.

The searching for information on Google is like visiting a library with only ten books in it. When I've checked out check those 10 books, I get to see the next ten. It's a very linear process. In a library all my senses are engaged in the search for knowledge. The size, weight, color and typography are right there before my eyes on the shelves in their hundreds. There is a sense of excitement and discovery. Google destroys that feeling of adventure and anticipation. Or rather, sanitizes it. The pleasure of learning - and creating - has been demoted in place of our modern preoccupation with efficiency (which I suspect is closely related with our preoccupation for making money).

In advertising, there is currently a debate raging about the validity of 'brainstorming', an ancient advertisers art of clearing the mind, creating diverse associations and not filtering the answers with logic. In many ways it's the polar opposite of Googling an answer and I use it everyday. It gives clients a chance to step a way from their relentless focus on THE ANSWER - because the joy of advertising is there is no THE ANSWER. There is a range, a multitude of POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS and all can be equally engaging and workable. How they are executed is the test of their strength but that's a different part of the process for another day.

Brainstorming is something I encourage clients to do when they come to our agency. It may be old fashioned but for today's entrepreneurs hell-bent on tunnel-thinking their way to THE ANSWER after a lifetime of internet queries, it's surprisingly liberating. The best answers aren't always the ones we want. They're often the ones we weren't expecting.

Rick Davis is a freelance copywriter who has been producing informed copy for clients for over 25 years. Creative Director or Davis Davis and a Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing in the UK he takes great pleasure in helping his client raise their profile through every channel.