The road to treasure is literally littered with the trash of failure.

Seth Godin deconstructs this notion in his post, “Most people, most of the time (the perfect crowd fallacy)” which makes the case for open systems.

• “That means that the old systems, the ones where just a few people were anointed to be the chosen authors, chosen contributors, chosen musicians–that system left a lot of people out in the cold. The new open systems embrace waste. They understand that most people won’t contribute and most contributions won’t be any good. But that’s fine, because this openness means that the previously unfound star now gets found. The curated business, then, will ultimately fail because it keeps missing this shoulder, this untapped group of talented, eager, hard-working people shut out by their deliberately closed ecosystem. Over time, the open systems use their embrace of waste to winnow out the masses and end up with a new elite, a self-selected group who demonstrate their talent and hard work and genius over time, not in an audition. Go ahead and minimize these open systems at your own peril. Point to their negative outliers, inconsistency and errors, sure, but you can only do that if you wilfully ignore the real power: some people, some of the time, are going to do amazing and generous work… If we’ll just give them access to tools and get out of their way…The curated block isn’t reality, it’s merely what the curator claims–that his magical powers will find all of the great talent, without error or waste. Of course, a quick look at Hollywood or even an expensive mutual fund shows that this is a fable. The ‘open’ block includes the low-quality stuff as well, but since that work is created without a lot of expense, pruning it is no tragedy. The secret is embracing the talented and dedicated people who choose themselves.”

I find Godin’s point particularly true in the field of journalism. I have many good friends who are “professional journalists” and I in fact started my career as ‘one’ as a travel writer in Togo, West Africa. I worked especially closely with the profession during my time in Microsoft which involved lots of press work. I constantly witnessed the ‘pros’ phoning it in with regurgitated press releases, prostituting their column inches with sponsored supplements, and churning out anodyne features on demand for a quick stipend. I started my own website, Maldives Complete, mostly out of utter frustration for the pervasively tedious copy more shallow than their characteristic lagoons. So the “pros” who decry the rise of independent, amateur, long-tail, and ‘wasteful’ content creators doth protest too much methinks.

As it happens, this week has been a bit of a run on the subject of “trash” and the topic has come up many times prior. Embracing failure by turning trash to treasure. So much so that I’ve decided to add a new category for “trash” to the blog. Or a “Trash Tag” if you will.

“The best thing a child can do with a toy is break it.” – Arvind Gupta

Arvind Gupta’s TED talk on “Turning Trash Into Toys for Learning” is an catalogue of innovations inspired by need, powered by creativity, and resourced by, well…trash. No words do it justice so you really have to watch the video. But the Velcro slate for the blind is pure genius.

I particularly his message of taking things apart as a remedy to creeping “black boxism” in the world. But his trash to treasure message was the highlight.

Gupta’s story of “trash into toys” was one I experienced first-hand living in the “Third World” myself. This ‘Failure’ blog stemmed from a talk (“sermon”) I gave at my father’s church years ago titled “Embracing Failure,” but the talk was not my first time at the pulpit. That would be after I returned from a year living in Togo, West Africa and I gave a talk titled “Poor People, Rich Lives.” I recounted many observations about the vibrant and full lives I immersed myself in. I told the story of our “guardien”. He was the watchman for the “Village du Benin” residence area where ex-pat students lived at the University du Benin. He was a kindly, older man who always greeted me with a warm enthusiasm and engaged me with a bit of repartee. He also volunteered to take out my trash for me. This sort of task was well outside his job description and I felt self-conscious about taking advantage or shuffling off unpleasant jobs to local staff. But eventually, given the persistent requests, I relented. A few weeks later I discovered the motivation to his initiative. I saw his kids playing with a number of “toys” cleverly crafted out of some packaging and other debris I had discarded. They were as charming as they were innovative.

One man’s trash is another man’s toy.

Happy Garbage Man Day!

I’m not sure what the traditional celebration is, but if it involves entertainment, then a bit of Trash Dance would seem to be the most apropos. Not ‘Trashy Dancing’ like you would find in a seedy part of town, but “Trash Dance” as featured in Failure Mag…

• “’This lady’s crazy. How are we going to make trucks dance?’ exclaimed gap-toothed sanitation worker Don Anderson when he heard about choreographer Allison Orr’s idea. What Orr had in mind for the Solid Waste Services Department of Austin, Texas, was a ‘trash truck ballet,’ one which would feature the choreographed movements of sixteen garbage trucks and twenty-four employees. Predictably, the sanitation workers weren’t the only ones who were skeptical. The concept was publicly ridiculed, and critics claimed the project would be a waste of the taxpayers’ finite resources. Orr was unfazed. ‘When I bring any of my ideas to anyone, the first reaction is: ‘What are you talking about? There is no way this will work. Nobody will want to participate.’ I am used to people giving me a negative response,’ she says. But Orr ultimately achieved buy-in from all parties, and each of three public performances (one in 2009, and two in August 2011, all at an abandoned airfield in Austin) were wildly successful, witnessed by capacity crowds of up to two-thousand people and drawing rave reviews in the local media.”

One man’s trash…

And even though he came in last
With head bowed low, unproud
You would have thought he’d won the race
To listen to the crowd
And to his dad he sadly said,
“I didn’t do too well.”
“To me, you won,” his father said
“You rose each time you fell.”
- Dee Groberg, The Race

A literal embrace of failure for Father’s Day (thanks Eileen), life imitating art.

Happy Birthday Queen!

No not the Scissor Sisters above, but the “real”  one.  Though not her “real” birthday.  An eccentric celebration like so many quirky things in British culture.  It is less about R.E II and really an occasion to celebrate that culture. A quirkiness that fosters so much artistic and creative innovation. As Ana Matronic describes in the article “Scissor Sisters:  Eccentric Britain made us stars” by Jonathan Prynn…

“London’s love of eccentrics helped propel the band to stardom. ‘In London when someone is confronted with eccentricity or something strange, they run towards it to better understand it, whereas in the States, if you’re confronted by something different, you recoil in terror and run from it.”

It’s a curious cultural observation. Most assessments of national cultural tendencies for risk taking and failure embracing commercially herald the USA as the paragon, while the UK is decried as somewhat more demure and cautious. And yet from an artistic and creative perspective, I think that the tendencies are indeed reversed. Another case in point is Danny Boyle’s Olympic ceremony (where the Queen herself makes a tongue-in-cheek contribution), possibly the most bizarre and pioneering hodgepodge of imagination and innovation . Just like Britain.

• “He was in the grip of something else—a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did… This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.”

You can also choose not the play the game. Games people play…to resolve their personal, relationship, and emotional conflicts. Including the death of dreams.

Laura Munson recounts an odyssey of coping with her husband’s mid-life crisis in her article “The last word: He said he was leaving. She ignored him” (thanks Debbie). In it, she illustrates so many lessons shared here – embracing failure, concentrating on solving problems rather than ‘being right’ and of could grieving over the death of dreams.

• “And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore. When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: It’s not a spouse, or land, or a job, or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal. My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out and think they can escape. My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me. But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked.”

The Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope strategy to relationship conflict.

Lori and I picked up the game of golf and few years ago, but this year we have actually been able to take the clubs out with some frequency. So to mark the start of the US Open, I have a few quotations on this obsessive and typically frustrating pastime and the embrace of failure…

• “You can’t win the game, you can only play the game;” (thanks Ronald, mentoring Lori above) Golf as a metaphor for life as Bagger advises Junuh and his young protégé Hardy
• “Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you’re the best.” Jack Nicklaus (thanks Aidan)

Olivia went to sleep for her last time last night after suffering an acute infection following a string of other ailments in her very old age.   It still caught me a bit off guard because she had weathered those ailments well and always seemed to emerge from them unflappably.  When her recent symptoms started last week, I just assumed that this would be another bout she would find her way through.

She was more than just a cat. She was born on my birthday in 1995.  Her long 18 years of life basically coincided with the children Isley and Chase growing up.  She was ‘childhood’ for our family. Her seniority had earned her the esteemed title of “The Cat”.  My wife Lori did occasionally call her “Nuisance Cat” because she pestered you for affection at the most importune times (another thing I shared with Olivia). One of the cardinal rules of the household was “Don’t disturb the cat” (if she crawled up onto you for a cuddle, you were compelled by house protocol to not make her stir…you could move, but only if you did it delicately enough, like defusing a bomb, to keep her unruffled).

In my characteristically deconstructionist way of trying to make sense of life, I’ve managed the mourning with reflection and analysis.  I miss her dearly already and I’ve tried to figure out exactly what it is that I miss…

• Affection – Soft cuddles sleeping on our chest.  Pets are creatures of love.  Aside from eating, sleeping and pooing, their primary purpose is to give and receive affection.  It is a very pure and innocent calling.
• Ritual – Greeting us at the bedroom door every morning and front door every evening.  These rituals give rhythm and tidbits of constancy to our lives.
• Presence – Sleeping in the corner or perched on the landing surveying the comings and goings of the household.  Tufts of black hair on the carpet.  All persistent reminders of this precious part of the family sharing our space, our energy and our lives.

I found it curious that these were the near identical feelings and the same things I missed when our children left home (though with our daughter Isley, the hair was red).

The loss reinforces my biggest piece of parental advice that I share regularly – “Capture the Ordinary”. Lori and I have piles of pictures of all sorts of special occasions – birthdays, holidays, performances.  But what my wife and I reminisce about most are the simple, mundane, every day memories.  “Do you remember how Chase always used to do…?”  So the photographic advice is to ‘capture the everyday’.  And the corollary to that rule is ‘capture affection’.  Much as the special occasions were important at the time, what we miss most, and hence what images we savour and like to recall most in our years of the empty nest, are those weekend morning cuddles, those welcome-home-Daddy wild abandon hugs, and holding joy in your arms on a quiet morning.

We have lots of images of just those sort of pictures of Affection and Presence for Olivia, Realising that these were likely Olivia’s final hours, Lori and I took a few final photos and videos before leaving for the vet. But in retrospect, there is one video I neglected to get. A sequence of shots of her clockwork daily routine. The greetings, the cheek scratches, jumping on the bed, the hallway sleeping and surveying. All of the smallest things…that we will miss the most.

‘Loss’ is a very unforgiving form of ‘failure’.  It is ‘failure’ without redemption.  Without lessons, without morals, without silver linings.  It is pure downside.  And I am very sad to lose her.

Some presentations have a lot more at stake than a bit of personal or corporate PR for the speaker. Sometimes exposure of problems outweigh publicity exposure. The risks of law suits, cut-off funding and embarrassment can overwhelm even the most lesson-packed failures.

A culture of embracing failure starts by nurturing the conversation about it in the first place. As Sam Lowenberg describes in his New York Times piece “Learning From Failure” (thanks Mom)…

• “Beyond simply doing good, there’s an impetus to show success: nongovernmental organizations, contractors and researchers want a good track record, funding officials must show they are spending wisely, and journal editors want to highlight breakthroughs. But ‘success stories’ are rarely the whole story. Global health and development projects frequently go off course, and it’s not unusual for them to fail outright. What is unusual is for researchers to openly discuss their failures. That’s a shame, because it’s a basic principle of science that you get things right by analyzing what went wrong. So it was a pleasant surprise when, last summer, researchers at Mumbai’s City Initiative for Newborn Health published, in the journal PLoS Medicine, the disappointing results of their three-year effort to implement a community-based maternal- and infant-health initiative in the city’s slums.”

Lowenberg refers to David Damberger’s TEDxYYC talk ‘Learning from Failure’…

• “When you look at the system, you can start to see some of the challenges. A development sector that focuses more on pleasing the donors and making them happy and communicating to them as opposed to understanding the needs of the beneficiaries. And because of that systematic challenge, it is very slow to innovate, there is very little change, and you get exactly the same project built ten years later that fails in exactly the same way…Engineers Without Borders have this culture of embracing failure openly and letting us talk about it. And it was only through a bunch of us talking about failure that we really got to see that we were really making a lot of mistakes. And we were making the same mistakes. And we could actually learn from these mistakes. We started to innovate and we started to change…For the past three years, Engineers Without Borders has published an annual ‘Failure Report’ citing our biggest failures. At first people asked, ‘how do your donors think?’ How would they feel if the money that they had spent and generously donated had had no impact? That’s tough [to take]. And our donors felt that too. But once they started reading the failures, they understood the power of those lessons learnt. They realised that it is an injustice not to be sharing these.”

Damberger practiced what he preached by not just talking, but building. Building a website where people from all over, not just EWB, could share their failure – “Admitting Failure.” You will find there a well of deep insights that slake the thirst of the most creative innovator.

TED Global starts today in our own backyard. One of the best Ted lectures in the world that I just came across last month is Phil Lansen’s “Embrace the Shake” (thanks Isley). Quite a lot excerpted below, but frankly one of the best failure embracing TED lectures of all time…

• Death of Dreams – “When I was in art school, I developed a shake in my hand, and this was the straightest line I could draw. Now in hindsight, it was actually good for some things, like mixing a can of paint or shaking a Polaroid, but at the time this was really doomsday. This was the destruction of my dream of becoming an artist….
• Embracing Limited Ability - I decided to go to a neurologist about the shake and discovered I had permanent nerve damage. And he actually took one look at my squiggly line, and said, "Well, why don’t you just embrace the shake?" So I did. I went home, I grabbed a pencil, and I just started letting my hand shake and shake. I was making all these scribble pictures. And even though it wasn’t the kind of art that I was ultimately passionate about, it felt great. And more importantly, once I embraced the shake, I realized I could still make art. I just had to find a different approach to making the art that I wanted…I discovered that, if I worked on a larger scale and with bigger materials, my hand really wouldn’t hurt, and after having gone from a single approach to art, I ended up having an approach to creativity that completely changed my artistic horizons. This was the first time I’d encountered this idea that embracing a limitation could actually drive creativity
• Embracing Limited Resources - So I got out of school, I got a job, I got a paycheck, I got myself to the art store, and I just went nuts buying supplies. … And I was in a dark place for a long time, unable to create. And it didn’t make any sense, because I was finally able to support my art, and yet I was creatively blank. But as I searched around in the darkness, I realized I was actually paralyzed by all of the choices that I never had before. And it was then that I thought back to my jittery hands. Embrace the shake. And I realized, if I ever wanted my creativity back, I had to quit trying so hard to think outside of the box and get back into it. I wondered, could you become more creative, then, by looking for limitations? What if I could only create with a dollar’s worth of supplies? …I took this approach of thinking inside the box to my canvas, and wondered what if, instead of painting on a canvas, I could only paint on my chest?…Or, what if instead of relying on myself, I had to rely on other people to create the content for the art?
• Embracing Destruction - Or what if instead of making art to display, I had to destroy it? This seemed like the ultimate limitation, being an artist without art. This destruction idea turned into a yearlong project that I called Goodbye Art, where each and every piece of art had to be destroyed after its creation. In the beginning of Goodbye Art, I focused on forced destruction, like this image of Jimi Hendrix, made with over 7,000 matches. Then I opened it up to creating art that was destroyed naturally. I looked for temporary materials, like spitting out food sidewalk chalk and even frozen wine. … As I destroyed each project, I was learning to let go, let go of outcomes, let go of failures, and let go of imperfections. And in return, I found a process of creating art that’s perpetual and unencumbered by results. I found myself in a state of constant creation, thinking only of what’s next and coming up with more ideas than ever.
• Summary - When I think back to my three years away from art, away from my dream, just going through the motions, instead of trying to find a different way to continue that dream, I just quit, I gave up. And what if I didn’t embrace the shake? Because embracing the shake for me wasn’t just about art and having art skills. It turned out to be about life, and having life skills. Because ultimately, most of what we do takes place here, inside the box, with limited resources. Learning to be creative within the confines of our limitations is the best hope we have to transform ourselves and, collectively, transform our world.”

Leaders think outside the box, Managers get back in it. Both together inspire artistic creativity.