Learning from Biology as to how innovation works in the natural word   http://www.infoq.com/presentations/managing-serendipity

Adaptation is useful, however Examptation is often faster to innovate

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE5cExaptations.shtml

Exaptations

An “exaptation” is just one example of a characteristic that evolved, but that isn’t considered an adaptation. Stephen Gould and Elizabeth Vrba¹proposed vocabulary to let biologists talk about features that are and are not adaptations:

• Adaptation—a feature produced by natural selection for its current function (such as echolocation in bats, right).


• Exaptation—a feature that performs a function but that was not produced by natural selection for its current use. Perhaps the feature was produced by natural selection for a function other than the one it currently performs and was then co-opted for its current function. For example, feathers might have originally arisen in the context of selection for insulation, and only later were they co-opted for flight. In this case, the general form of feathers is an adaptation for insulation and an exaptation for flight.