With the focus shifting from districts, clusters, and sectors to a more self-referential reclassification of enterprises, we now use supply chains as our reference points. We measure them by the products they produce, the technologies they employ, and the markets they serve.

We look for intersections among these elements. Yet, noteworthy achievements often come from those who diverge from the common path and, by chance or error, forge new ways, much like wandering salmon.

WANDERING SALMON

After three or four years at sea, an adult salmon returns to its river of origin to reproduce, laying eggs precisely where it began its journey years earlier. This remarkable journey, distinct from that of ordinary sea bass, is what makes the salmon an extraordinary creature.

To locate its birthplace, the salmon seems to use its sight, smell, and sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetism. However, among the millions of salmon destined to return home each year, some, for reasons unknown, get it wrong.

By chance or error, these salmon may end up in a different river or, even if they reach their original river, veer off into a side valley or upper tributary. This can lead them to uncharted territories—places never before visited by them or their genetic strain.

These wandering salmon, despite they fail right in the quality that define them, play a crucial role in nature: they colonize new waters, bringing life and fertility to the ecosystem.

Unfortunately, we often overlook this because we tend to follow and classify those who conform. For certain endeavors, success truly lies outside the norms: the most valuable and fertile ventures are those that wander.

This is why such enterprises are so valuable and deserving of continuous observation.

CROSS-BOUNDARIES ENTERPRISES

We are generally familiar with enterprises that excel in a specific market, use a particular technology, or produce a specific product. It is natural to track their common traits to identify success factors, replicate them, and disseminate them.

But do we understand the secrets of those who discover new technologies, colonize unexplored ecosystems, or create previously non-existent services or products?

These are the enterprises that cross boundaries.

Today, we have advanced technological and intellectual tools to identify these boundary-crossing enterprises more effectively. Ironically, these are the same tools used to classify the mainstream group, those who move in the same direction as others.

When trying to understand and select enterprises, we often look for common trends, similar effects, and contiguous behaviors that, when combined, form a model.

This obsessive and often lifesaving search for models helps us frame, manage, and overcome changes.

SEARCHING OUTSIDE THE MODELS

Because changes can be intimidating, we seek models to make the world—including the business world—safer, more predictable, and manageable.

Erica Thompson stimulates this line of reasoning with her book Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It (Basic Books).

We are naturally inclined towards patterns; we recognize repetitions and things we’ve seen before. However, the groundbreaking work of innovative enterprises, like a salmon venturing into a side stream, is often found in what is seen for the first time.

This might seem like a subtle distinction, but it is profound.

As a philosopher might say, it’s “the difference between knowing and recognizing.” On one side, there are enterprises that conform to established rules and standard characteristics, while on the other, there are those that defy the model.

In the former case, identifying success involves looking for indicators, values, and requirements.

In the latter—more challenging cases—we must seek out sudden deviations, departures from the norm, and anomalies, often arising from external forces.

Wandering enterprises create and innovate through the serendipity of chance and error, leveraging constraints and limitations posed by sudden and adverse contexts. They emerge from scarcity and are almost always products of uncertainty.

Factors that are certainly prevalent today.