The behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken seperately.
--Synergetics, by Buckminster Fuller, 1975.
The term is abused as widely as it is used effectively.
A few tips for supporting its effective use:
- It's not synergy if it's not a surprise, but
- Novelty itself is not novel. It's omnipresent. So cheerleading with the term is somewhat irrelevant.
- To be used technically, it must be articulable in detail without reference to the behaviors of the component parts taken separately. Otherwise, it is mention, hope, or hype.