Myth: Failure is Sexy
If you are around the online world long enough, one overriding factor starts to seem pretty darned exciting. You know what it is?
Failure.
You see a lot of quotes like this:
“Here are six random ideas that will help you fail better, more often and with an inevitably positive upside…”
A search on google for “failing is good” reveals a wealth of results:
You see a lot of tweets like this: The only way to truly fail is to never try. You don’t hit 100% of the pitches you don’t swing at. #NeverQuit
In fact, the romanticization of failure is such a thorn in my side that I actually ended up getting up on my soapbox about it in my review of Seth Godin’s Poke the Box.
To be fair, a lot of the blog posts and tweets and quotes out there are, I’m sure, meant to be inspirational. But it seems like we’ve gotten a little carried away, or a little separated from reality. The fact is that if you are in the business world, or if you are a marketer who is working with successful companies who want to stay successful, failure can actually be a really huge problem.
Consider this post from 2007 outlining some of the most famous product failures of all time. As the post aptly points out, failure in this case is not about a learning experience. These companies spent millions of dollars creating and then promoting these products. Would you want to say to your boss, “Well…at least we went for it!”? I am thinking that might not go over too well.
The personal versus the professional
A lot of folks in the world of social media talk about “Just going for it.” In your own personal life, that can be a fantastic philosophy. In fact, for a lot of people that push to try new things or to go out on a limb in some way can be almost lifesaving. If you’re worried about meeting new people, for example, pushing yourself to get involved in an organization can be very empowering for you. If you are worried about exercising, pushing yourself to do that can improve your life in all sorts of ways. If you don’t succeed in meeting a friendly person your first time out you can analyze why. If you don’t keep up with your exercise regimen, you can evaluate what you did to hold yourself back. You can learn from failing. You can learn from your mistakes. To a point.
Of course, there are even limits here. If you push yourself to a point where failing means that you lose a limb or fall to your death, learning from the experience is going to be a bit tricker, I’d wager.
But professionally, these days, going out on a limb can be considered reckless in a lot of scenarios.
In the world I come from, the agency world, failure is definitely not something that you want to equate with “a lesson well learned” or “a golden opportunity to grow.” In fact, that’s the reality for a lot of businesses today. The world is competitive. If you fail at your job, you know that there are literally thousands of people who will apply if you need to be replaced. Is that sexy? If your company fails to win a huge new partnership or a huge new product deal and your competitor wins, is that sexy? Will you reflect on what you learned from that experience? Maybe eventually, but it will take a long time for that dust to settle, right?
Of course, the biggest failure myth is that trying a new social media platform for your marketing campaign is a lot better than not trying at all, regardless of the final outcome. The latest splurge of posts on this topic focuses on Pinterest. Just as we heard with Foursquare and Quora and Google Plus, the posts are out there saying that if you are not claiming your Pinterest presence now, you will probably blow up. Spontaneously. It doesn’t matter if you fail there. It just matters that you try it (darn it)!
Of course, the teeny weeny problem with this online philosophy is that trying those new platforms still takes time, and as we all know, time equals money. If you or one of your employees dumps 3 months into trying a new platform and you don’t get a single lead, not to mention a single sale, what have you accomplished? Well, you lost a heckuva lot of money paying that person’s salary, for one thing. Your company might look kind of like a doofus, and many experts agree that a company looking like a doofus is not a good thing. In a worst case scenario, your efforts could really blow up thanks to a lack of knowledge or expertise and you could end up with a costly PR disaster on your hands.
Is this sounding particularly sexy to you? I’m kind of shaking in my wee boots right about now just thinking about it.
So what am I missing here? Is failure really sexy and I’m just not getting it? Is there some other angle that I am failing to understand?
Fill me in!
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaxsilver/4766356883/ via Creative Commons
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I think the idea (that I whole-heartedly subscribe to) is that the logical alternative to being willing to fail is atrophy. Perfectionism is the road to stagnation–personally and professionally. And you’ve got to move fast or you’ll get left behind. I don’t kniw uf failure is sexy, but I do know that stalling isn’t a strategy.
@dougricesmbiz Agree, Doug – failure vs. sitting on the sidelines is a “win.”
I subscribe more to the theory that failure needs to be something to learn from. I failed with my first startup – it was a real startup, a real business called U Sphere with actual paying customers and the like. I failed because it didn’t make it long-term; folding after three years.
BUT, I learned from it – TONS. I tell folks it was much better for me than getting an MBA would have been – I learned operations, I learned customer service, I learned finance – and some of these lessons were painful.
I see most of the “romanticization” of failure stuff amongst the “hey, join my team, buy my stuff, enter my downline” world – which might work as a scare tactic.
Great post, though – very thought-provoking. NOT a failure as a blog post.
@davevandewalle @dougricesmbiz One thing to point out here, I think, is that this was a company you started. You were working for yourself. That kind of scenario is very different from working for another person. As your own boss, your life is always on the line, but you don’t have to punish yourself if something goes wrong. If you have the economic room to learn from your failures, then that’s cool.
On the other hand, if you are a boss, or if you are in the service industry as I am via our agency, failure is not so easily forgiven.
Moreover, I think that while the folding of your start-up may have been good from your perspective, there are a lot of people out there who are really looking for a silver bullet in their lives. They have been unemployed for years, maybe, and are hearing all of these people talk about how great and powerful entrepreneurship is. But without proper training or perspective, isn’t it possible that these folks can go down a path that would only lead them into murkier waters? I am very worried about that. A lot of super trusted people are preaching that failure is a great learning experience, but if you are trying to make one last desperate attempt to change/improve your life, failure can literally be a killer, right?
For me, it’s a lot about context.
@dougricesmbiz To me that is a false dichotomy. I can see the logic behind what my pal Yoda says – “Do or do not. There is no try.” But I think that is different from the idea of being cautious instead of barging ahead, willing to fail so that you aren’t called a wallflower.
The problem with this kind of logic being passed around in the social media world is that I think it is misleading a lot of people. “If you aren’t willing to try this new platform, you are probably just lazy and/or scared.” Well, that’s not really true. Some platforms are really NOT good matches for all companies. Trying a platform just because not trying makes you feel bad can be a waste of time and a waste of resources. In a worst case scenario it can even cause harm where you are trying to do good. Look before you leap can be okay in some scenarios, but I think that setting up “Ok to fail” as the opposite of atrophy is kind of dangerous.
Thanks for commenting, Doug! I value your viewpoint!
@margieclayman “Fail with purpose” feels more like it. Fails within bounds. I don’t think it’s Ok to fail. I don’t set out to fail. If I do fail I take from the experience.
I don’t think failure is a trophy. I learn then bury the experience. I save the learnings not the pain or embarrassment. I’ve never made a list of my top 10 dumbest moves! That will require a very cool bottle of wine to uncork that story
@nickkellet
Nick, I like something writer Toni Morrison said, something like “The past is the only thing you can change. You cannot change the present or the future” We have to live in such a way that we redeem our failures of the past. This is personally, of course, but also in business. We call this “learning” from mistakes, but it is more than this. It is having your mistakes, your failures, show in the mortar of the building you build, if you look closely enough.
Margie says: “Of course, the biggest failure myth is that trying a new social media platform for your marketing campaign is a lot better than not trying at all, regardless of the final outcome”
my thought: This is pretty much overstated Margie. In fact “regardless of the final outcome” disqualifies almost any venture, personal or otherwise. I do LOVE that you bring this up. There is a weird social-media-speak out there that is very hard to go against, and the inspirational dimension of it is a big part of it. I happened to be very partial to failure. My wife who is an amateur fighter who has lost 6 straight fights just posted about it in a way that very much moved me: http://bit.ly/y62kqg . And I’m not sure if I believe in the personal vs. company dichotomy either. What matters, whether it be a person or a company, is the the ability, the flexibility to read, react, learn and adjust. If you have tight learning loops failure can be a very good thing. But many companies/industries are rigid in structure – and so are many people. Failure indeed can be catastrophic in such instances (what you are calling unsexy).
I do like your reference to Pinterest. We have a very visual product, and a demographic that matches up well with Pinterest. But we have zero additional hours to devote to a new platform. And being on a platform half-assed is worse that not being on it at all. What did we do? Well, on a sister site just added Pinterest buttons to all our profile pages. We found someone in the company who would love Pinterest and told them about it. We also drop a few comments about Pinterest on our FB page, or link to the wall of all the pins from our page. This really didn’t take much work at all. We are, I guess, exploring it. It is not the “failure is sexy” approach. But I can also tell that it is the kind of thing a lot of other companies who have a fear of failure wouldn’t do. Pinterest is too big, to unwieldy, we have no time etc. etc.
One reason why social media – as a whole – has such pro-failure messaging I believe is that the medium itself is the result of experimentation. Even to this day businesses don’t quite know how to qualify it, to value all its actions. In a certain regard social media requires experimentation. I do have sympathy for your rebuttal against mindless risk. But then again in business (and in life), I don’t really like mindless anything.
@mediasres Boy, there’s a lot to respond to here! Thanks for such a great comment!
Point one – fair enough. I might have over-stated. However, I’d argue that many people in the world of social media send out that message which I was just echoing. Scary, eh?
I think you raise a good distinction – doing something mindlessly versus not trying. That rings more true to me. My fear is that people hear the “failure is sexy” message and say, “Oh, well okay. Let’s jump full throttle into everything.” They do it mindlessly.That is dangerous, and when you fail in that kind of scenario, you might not even understand how you failed or THAT you failed. That can be highly problematic.
There is a point of inspiration to be had. If you fail, you can’t let it destroy your soul or your desire to live. You have to keep on going, and during these hard times, that’s a really important thing for people to hold on to. But throwing spaghetti against the wall because you feel that’s better than testing to see if the pasta is cooked – not sure that’s a real good approach.
@margieclayman
Margie, I do agree with the spaghetti analogy, especially when it comes to platform investment. The way I see it there are two major or basic pools of energy you have build flows from (using a hydraulic metaphor). There is your audience pool and your labor pool. You need to build funnels that maximize effectiveness both ways. You don’t just hop on every platform because you will bleed out your audience pool, it will be unfocused. And you don’t hop on every platform because your labor pool will be strained and your connections and communities can never grow rich. If you can’t restrict and focus what is happening on a platform, in a meaningful way, you shouldn’t be there.
I do believe that there are modest ways to build small exploratory niches in platforms without going full bore though. YouTube can be done in increments for instance. But this of course is case by case. It is something that requires a lot of thought.
I agree. No spaghetti, and no shotguns.
There is a skill to failing. And it’s not about spending 3 months on something like pinterest. #Lean is the way. If you are going to fail fail fast. Fail for less. Fail in ways you can afford. Fails in ways that let you keep on playing the game.
My flip Tweet comment to Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu “Failure is Foreplay” is so true. Failure gets you closer to the big prize. But you have to still be in the game when the winner is declared. There is a way to fail and learn that doesn’t get you fired or take down the company or lose the account.
For me , this post covers two topics this wisdom of failure and the first mover advantage on tools like Pinterest. They are very different topics.
I signed up early for email, Twitter and Pinterest – Can’t say I really for any of them at the time. But being in on the experience, looking for their meaning – that was valuable.
For me signing up for these things are like first-dates. You got to do it. You don’t need to stay long. You can always come back for me (or want to – ha). Better to date and decline. You have way better data from inside the experience than from the sidelines.
@nickkellet
Nick, do think there is a lot of finesse needed in the answer to these kinds of questions. And some of it is personal (and yes, business is personal). I always equate it to edge of chaos, finding the appropriate line between frozen-in stability which is a kind of death, and disintegration, which is another kind of death. And for situations, companies, persons, locating yourself along that spectrum is not a one-size-fits all.
I do like how Margie is calling attention to a kind of Nike mindset in social media, and drawing awareness to real world consequences. But part of what makes failure meaningful is that it is real. It doesn’t feel good, it can be really “not good”.
On the Pinterest point I remember this really cool analogy from Behavioral Science. Someone was experimenting with trying to keep a mouse from sticking its nose in certain places in a maze via an electric shock and they couldn’t understand why the mouse kept sticking its nose where the shock was coming from – varying circumstances under the control. It turns out that the mouse was understanding that getting a shock in those scenarios was actually a good thing. It said: “Don’t go there.” That is kind of how I see failure. Lots of testing little ones, and then a sensitivity for where there is a game-changing move, something that is worth the risk to make the possibilities all different.
So as for Pinterest let us not all be lulled into the “Pinterest is the next Facebook”, but let’s keep sticking our early adopter noses in.
@nickkellet Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Nick, you really did a good job bringing Agile/Lean into a relevant social-media perspective for this audience. Thanks! Reading over my own comment makes me realize just how different the viewpoints and stakes really are.
@cynthiaschames Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Lean isnt just for Software. You can have lean anything. Lean is a feedback driven mindset. Lean make sure you invest where there is least friction and most support – just my thinking, Huge fan!
@nickkellet I see what you mean, Nick. I guess I am more an analytical person, and this is because my background is that I am not usually recommending things for myself – I’m recommending things for our clients. I can’t just go to a client and say, “Hey, you should totally try this. It’s hot. I promise it’ll be worth your time to at least learn it.” I need to have some proof for that statement. I need to show some knowledge. I need to illustrate that I’m not asking our clients to be guinea pigs for us. If you are doing things for your own company or for your own self, I’d imagine the situation would be a bit more flexible.
I think it’s a bit like how google allows 10-20% of time to be spent on speculative works. I sense you can establish a culture with clients – directly or indirectly. Either they pay knowingly or you invest selectively. Trick is to leverage value from your investment – imho – even as an agency.
Imagine Fred is a client.
“Hey Fred, mind if we use you as a guinea pig to explore Pinterest! We’ll blog what we find, OK. This one’s on us, We’re looking for 1 client for this 1st project to evaluate the value of the platform and to think about building services around it. I thought of you because …”
I bet you’ll get other clients saying “Margie, why not us?”. Especially if you blog the experience. You elevate Fred to special status.
Some tools you have to learn regardless, right. Everyone has R&D costs- You have to explore. It makes so much more sense to try them with a purpose in mind.
So one guy gets a “Paper.li”, one get a “Pinterest Page”, one get a “4SQ account fully managed and designed”. Oh and one gets a Listly list. You get the drill.
They become showcases to sell from (and to blog about). A win win.
We each create our own cultural boundaries and barriers. We made the box that we then try to step out of. We own the culture and our client norms. We also own shifting those boundaries.
I’m thinking in my head – is your agency rationale valid. So I thought I’d just talk it through – just for fun:)
“Fail fast, fail often”.
This is a great question and discussion. The failure mantra comes from the world of startup software companies.
I think the easiest and most concise way I can speak to it is to talk a little bit about “agile” environments. Agile is a term for a development method that espouses constant hypotheses, testing, iteration in product development, design, and in many other facets of a business. As we all know, experiments don’t always (often?) work out the way we expect or intend. So, in order to test hypotheses effectively and LEARN from them, you have to be willing to embrace failure.
That’s why “fail fast, fail often” is such a slogan in the startup world, and particularly in software. You have to test and measure and tweak every single tiny thing when you espouse agile development. But when you get it right, the results are amazing. The key here is that it’s not like old school “waterfall” development, where you had a release schedule for versions of your product. Today, you’re constantly (literally daily) writing new snippets of code, constantly fine-tuning based on user feedback, metrics, testing, performance and any one of a million other pieces of insight. Some of those fine tunes you push WILL fail. Many of your hypotheses WILL fail. Love the failure, because it’s instructional.
To go back to your example, @margieclayman , you mentioned investing three months into trying a new platform. For a startup, three months is not a short amount of time. So, failing fast to them means less than a week. Is it sometimes dangerous to make quick decisions? Yes. But you should be making data-driven choices, and if you’re constantly iterating, you have the chance to fix your stupid decision next week or next month or whenever the data tell you it’s a stupid decision.
@cynthiaschames Very interesting, Cynthia. The software industry is something I am not well steeped in, nor am I steeped in the entrepreneurial environment, so these are all good perspectives for me to learn about.
I would add this to your point, however. If a week is considered a long time, can you really explore everything there is to know about something new in that length of time? Going back to the world of social media, could you say after a week whether or not Twitter or Facebook or whatever was working for you? I’m thinking that would barely be enough time to dip your foot into the water.
@margieclayman I should clarify. A week might offer a great test of a single iteration in a software-as-a-service setting. A marketing parallel might be “OK we’re going to launch an F-commerce store, so for week 1 let’s do it this way, with this kind of product and focus, then step back and measure”. Then you immediately iterate on the failures of week 1, meaning, play with the product mix or focus or one single facet, based on some knowledge gained from the metrics. Then just keep doing this. The concept is that you’re never truly “done”. You keep building, even if you have a good thing going. It’s all about experimentation, done in a measurable way, with the intention of adding more value long term–but the knowledge that most things you try *will* actually not turn out as you expect and thus: fail.
Apple is a familiar example of agile, iterative culture. In traditional terms, there’s no real market-driven reason why the iPad 3 needs to come out right now; they could sit on their laurels for a year or more, confident in the knowledge that their tablet is killing the marketplace and has no peers. But they don’t. Instead, internally, they are constantly examining ways in which the iPad 2 is a FAILURE. They’re iterating on features, hardware, scope, look, feel, etc. One by one, they’re improving an already solid and clearly successful product.
So, when we’re talking about failure, let’s be clear that no one thinks failure on a Yahoo! scale is sexy–because that’s just FAIL. We think failure in terms of Apple making small but meaningful, constant changes to their products is sexy–because those are tiny fails to add up to a big WIN.
Such a great discussion here, but I’m slammed this morning, so I know I’m not going to be able to really read everyhing carefully. I can say, from my own experience, that there are certain endeavors in which we can be too careful. No matter how much I interview people, and go over resumes, and call references – failure in hiring still occurs. This is one area where I’ve determined it’s better to fail, and fail quickly – so that we can cycle through to success.
@mediasres – don’t have time for Pinterest? You gotta be kidding? 16-20 hours to get it up and running would probably be plenty sufficient. But one thing I’m finding is that for those of us with websites, or making recommendations – we need to make sure our sites are Pinterest-friendly. I’m fairly sure mine isn’t.
John Boyd felt that there weren’t enough accidents in military training – that if there wasn’t an accident rate at a certain level, it meant that commanders were playing it too safe, and our people weren’t going to be adequately prepared (thus saving more lives in the long run). In business, what’s an acceptable accident rate?
Margie; congrats on another thought-provoking post.
@RicDragon I was – you know – completely thinking of OODA loops in this!
We definitely are on the “make your website Pinterest friendly” path. I can’t believe how much 30 minutes of button adding has helped us on Doll Duels. There are of course difficulties with non SoMe people even understanding what Pinterest is, and why we should care (just another button, right, like the Google +1s that haven’t yet been added, right?). But that is part of our responsibility in SoMe. We are advanced scouts that have to figure out what is coming 6 months or 1 year from now.
@mediasres @RicDragon I would say this about Pinterest for business…With all of the concerns about copyright, pictures being sold, and an already growing pornographic content problem, I would be hesitant to jump into that stew. That’s just me though 🙂
@margieclayman @RicDragon
I think those concerns Margie may be missing part what is different about Pinterest. There is a brand of thought that Pinterest represents the next evolution of Social Media: “Structured Sets” https://plus.google.com/u/0/108802069053908824216/posts/fuSv5zaLEcV – there is a way in which Pinterest relieves people from social media overload (there is very little commenting), and taps into the general browsing, shopping, buying impulse that drove the Internet growth in the first place. Yes, pornography, copyrights, etc. are part of that picture, but in fact they have been part of the picture since Internet “you can see anything, find anything” ethos came into existence. There is something about Pinterest that tells us that things are changing, again.
@RicDragon I see your point, but to play devil’s advocate, couldn’t one argue that going through new hires fast is a huge time-suck and money-suck in terms of training?
I would not accuse you of this but I feel sometimes when people promote the idea of sexy failure they do not measure the actual cost of a) trying something b) the cost that success will bring and c) the cost of that potential failure. Gets into that whole “Well, the platform is free” kind of thing, ya know?
Thanks for popping in, sir 🙂
Yes, a great discussion. Since they are only 140 characters it does not give room to add much to an inspiring tweet. Personally over 30 years in biz I have seen WAY too many people diminish themselves and play small. Does failing mean not preparing or not finding a framework in which to apply what you want to do, accomplish and learn? Nope and yet, many folks will hang onto these quips when going into business, with “the hopes” they will succeed.
Where is your clearly articulated purpose? Where is your plan ( even if you have to shift, deviate or make a right turn) If you did not start with a good vision and create some road map that has a real objective tied to it, then you will deservingly ( is that a word?it is now) fail.
Yet, in social media we have to be willing to test and try new things that could lead to failure or we do not know what are the possibilities and be able to give sage advice. ( since that is our business-well at least mine-failure has to happen).
Clients appreciate it when I tell them I do things online to push it and find fail points, but that does not insulate them from never failing.
A fascinating weekend in #spaceup with engineers and space folks ( NASA etc…) I learn one really interesting thing that has stuck with me, we would never have gone to the moon had we been as risk adverse as we are today. I learned how many products and even medical solutions and devices have come from space exploration that the average public is not even aware of, had not spent the money we did with NASA.
If America wants a chance of becoming that leading nation again, we will have to get off the risk adverse fear box to reach another breakthrough
@prosperitygal Great points!
I think there is certainly a time and a place for taking risks. The whole “everybody is a winner” thing is having a negative impact on our society as a whole, I do believe. But you raise a very important point that I think a lot of people miss.
You have to have a good *reason* to try what you are going to try. Otherwise, it’s just a stupid risk, right? For example, if you want to jump out of a plane because it’s important to you that you conquer your fear of heights, great. Go for it. If you do something like that because people make chicken sounds at you, that’s not such a great reason to risk failure.
The same holds true in the world of social media. If it’s your job to sniff out new opportunities, then sure. Try to build an account and find success with it. If you fail, you can still teach other people what you learned. On the other hand, if you are trying everything because you are flailing around like a whirling dervish, that’s not going to be so good. Intent is important.
Learning is sexy. Learning by succeeding is really sexy.
Learning by failing… well, at least its sexier than just failing, but wouldn’t you be better served to test things with confidence they will be successful at some level? I think we all would…
Great post, thanks for sharing.
@Wittlake That’s what I’m sayin! Thanks, Eric 🙂
You can die from paralysis of analysis too. I happen to blog about failure today in part because I have had multiple conversations with my children about learning how to fail.
I am not a fan and I don’t particularly like failing but sometimes it is the best learning process we have. You have to take some risks to gain bigger rewards and you have to learn how to recover and or deal with adversity.
What I think is important is being aware of what you are doing and the consequences. You shouldn’t just run try everything without regard for what could happen. There is no doubt that some risks aren’t necessary or need to be more carefully measured.
Two quotes come to mind
“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down ”
Ray Bradbury
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Thomas A. Edison
Anyhoo, the point I am making is that measured risk is necessary. You might fail but if you don’t try than how do you know.
@TheJackB I think we’re saying the same thing, for the most part. Try when you have good reason to try. Be okay with failing if it isn’t reckless. Don’t be paralyzed. But also, don’t be foolish. That can be a fine line for some folks.
As a brief aside, what a great example of an open-ended piece of content being filled in by an outstanding comments section. Props to you for lighting the fuse, Margie!What I read from the comments is that agility and smart, data-backed risk taking is the way to approach changes or decisions that could end in failure. Learning on the fly, reacting, and reaping all one can from the experience of smaller failures can help to prevent the show stoppers that you raise in your original post. Where I do think a distinction needs to be made is the environment in which failures occur. The contrast between the start up and software worlds exemplified by @nickkellet and @cynthiaschames , relative to the example of an established agency employee rolling out an expensive marketing campaign, is a stark one. The former groups MUST develop and adapt as their industries demand, lest they be washed away in the rapidly moving tides of the tech waters. Agencies do indeed need to be on the cutting edge of new marketing channels but have more scope to take cautious steps when introducing them, as we can see in the subtle adoption of social media icons and QR codes in traditional, broadcast and print advertising. Some do push the boundaries with a significant focus on non-traditional projects, like Pepsi and Levi’s in recent years, yet the vast majority also have a tried and trusted element to those campaigns, on which they can fall back if things go awry. Again, it comes back to qualified risk-taking…understanding the potential pitfalls from the outset and ensuring the key players are on board with the possibility of failure. Some environments force failure, others fear it. In the case of the latter, failure will never be “sexy”. But it will be necessary, at times, if the ultimate failure of long-term stagnation and a descent into irrelevance is to be avoided. Just ask the major record labels….but that’s another post!
As a brief aside, what a great example of an open-ended piece of content being filled in by an outstanding comments section. Props to you for lighting the fuse, Margie!
What I read from the comments is that agility and smart, data-backed risk taking is the way to approach changes or decisions that could end in failure. Learning on the fly, reacting, and reaping all one can from the experience of smaller failures can help to prevent the show stoppers that you raise in your original post.
Where I do think a distinction needs to be made is the environment in which failures occur. The contrast between the start up and software worlds exemplified by @nickkellet and @cynthiaschames , relative to the example of an established agency employee rolling out an expensive marketing campaign, is a stark one. The former groups MUST develop and adapt as their industries demand, lest they be washed away in the rapidly moving tides of the tech waters. Agencies do indeed need to be on the cutting edge of new marketing channels but have more scope to take cautious steps when introducing them, as we can see in the subtle adoption of social media icons and QR codes in traditional, broadcast and print advertising. Some do push the boundaries with a significant focus on non-traditional projects, like Pepsi and Levi’s in recent years, yet the vast majority also have a tried and trusted element to those campaigns, on which they can fall back if things go awry. Again, it comes back to qualified risk-taking…understanding the potential pitfalls from the outset and ensuring the key players are on board with the possibility of failure.
Some environments are fed by failure, others fear it. In the case of the latter, failure will never be “sexy”. But it will be necessary, at times, if the ultimate failure of long-term stagnation and a descent into irrelevance is to be avoided. Just ask the major record labels….but that’s another post!
But the question is, How much will those environments that fear the failure be left behind? There is a double fear going on, fear of failing and fear of being left behind. You can see this in how slow PR agencies were to even understand what the new rules of social media are – have they even caught up now? I feel you open up a very interesting industry question when you talk about environments.
@Steve Birkett @nickkellet @cynthiaschames
@mediasres @Steve Birkett @nickkellet Kevin, that’s a great point. Fear of failure is probably much more dangerous in the long term. At least in my reckless startup brain 😉
@Steve Birkett @nickkellet @cynthiaschames Why would I ever pass up a chance to let such great people comment? That woud just be silly 🙂 I can learn much more if you all teach me than if I just sit here and talk at ya. Right?
You are exactly right (in my opinion) Steve. Qualified risk-taking is a great phrase to use! Thank you 🙂
Just thinking out loud here: Do the “failure” posts come from “younger people” in the workforce who maybe haven’t had a lot of time in business or have some sort of safety net? When your home, family, etc are on the line, the option to “fail” isn’t ok. We should be treating our business world the same way, it really isn’t ok to deliver failure to our customers.
@smmanley No, they don’t come from just young people.
The thing that’s being missed here is this: if you are trying and failing at small, iterative changes every single day, and then responding by altering your offerings accordingly, then theoretically at least “failure” on a big scale is not in the cards. That’s the theory. The practice is a lot harder than it sounds.
@Steve Birkett , as usual, is both insightful and correct in his long comment below. The key is qualified (informed) risk-taking, followed on by stringent measurement and assessment of those metrics. Marketers can learn a lot from the failures (and successes!) of agile environments such as those in tech startups.
@cynthiaschames Cynthia it seems like you (and Steve) would really like the thinking of John Boyd and his OODA loops. If you don’t know him he was a military theorist who proposed fast turning loops of Observer Orient Decide Act cycles as the key to success, and a lot of his thoughts are applied to business strategy. Here is an post from my old blog talking a little bit about him/it: http://socialmediamediasres.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/fluffy-social-media-words-and-the-ooda-loop/ – @RicDragon is a big fan of Boyd’s too. Boyd’s approach puts a whole different meaning on failure which is quite in line with what you and Steve are talking about. (forgive me if we’ve talked about this somewhere else in the ethersphere!)
@smmanley @Steve Birkett
@smmanley Quite the contrary. A lot of these posts are from people who are very credible and are very well-respected. It’s downright puzzling!
Margie,
I really enjoyed this piece. And, I agree that the online community is chock full of “make nice” to everyone postings. Hell, I have seen some over the top, positive comments about work that was absolutely dreadful!
I also agree about failure. While failure is inevitable, sometimes, I don’t think it is cause for celebration. Can we learn from failure, sure. Should that be the goal? I don’t think so.
Thanks for pointing out what some folks might not want to hear.
Cheers,Marc
@MZazeela I don’t think that failure is the goal we should strive for. The distinction is that we shouldn’t let fear of failure prevent us from trying things. Nor should we allow failure to define us or be used in pejorative terms.
Failure sucks and I hate it but I don’t fear it and I always try to learn from it. Just my two cents.
@TheJackB @MZazeela Agreed!
@MZazeela Thanks sir. Honesty is hard in the online world sometimes because people are so ready to defend themselves – sometimes we hear attacks when there is only conversation. However, I still believe that civil conversation can happen 🙂 I’ve seen it!
And yes – learning from failure I get. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. But striving cuz failure is awesome? Meh. Not so sure about that one.
Failure. Guess it is better than Fail, as a 4 letter word. In advertising as an agency you fail, you lose … the account. Not always but a lot of the time. I am not the everyone gets a trophy and while I do believe that if we fail at something we do learn but what we learn is to never do that again with a whole lot of insight. Insight is great but there are other things tied to the failure that I think are masked. If we fail at a business are we going to be able to recover and jump back in? Sometimes. If we fail a client and lose them, can we sustain? Not always.
If we are seeing/hearing/sending out the vibe that failure is ok in SM doesn’t that set the precedent? Failure may happen and we rebound depending upon what the situation is. We turn the key and the car does not start – failure. Not as catastrophic if we lose a big client. It’s ok, you will rebound and come back from this is great for the emotional well being but at the same time if you surround yourself with it is ok, then can you ever grow? Do the hard questions of WHY you failed ever happen?