My friend Pat works with a group of engineers. Never having worked in an engineering firm before, Pat thought that engineers developed products by perfecting an idea into a precise drawing which was then made into a perfect prototype and, from there, put on the market. Now, after seeing the experimental methods that are basic to creating new products—oh, maybe this material, oh, that didn’t work, let’s connect the fastener to the plate, what about not using a plate?—she finds the process more random, more exploratory. “That’s how my life has always been,” she says. “I’m an explorer meandering forward and discovering random opportunity.”

We are constantly creating ...