So where do we find these waves of possibilities?
They appear in the conversations,
moods, and emotions of a community.
Every conversation opens new possibilities
and is affected by the moods
and emotions of its participants. The
innovator looks for signs that a possibility
has many followers (or does not)
and which emotions are manifested
in the conversations and in people’s
behaviors. Conversations and moods
that continue over time within a large
group are big waves worth watching.
Some of the new social media, such
as Twitter, are cultivating many new
observers of shifting waves of moods
in social communities. Since the conversations
and the commitments they
fulfill cause a little bit of history to be
made, we can say that the waves of conversations
are making history. That is
why we can say that innovators are
surfers of history.