In his new book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky explores a lot of the same kinds of web 2.0 phenomena that we've seen in Wikinomics and countless other books and sources. Wikinomics is a classic, but Shirky's works has a bit of a different spin that may be of interest.
Shirky looks at the social implications of groups of people coming together with the support of technology. An interesting notion (one of many) that he explores is the impact of user generated inititiatives on the perception of failure.
As web 2.0 applications hit the web and user-base running, much of the filtering and fine-tuning happens after they are in the public eye. Incomplete, sometimes bare products are introduced into the marketplace, and willing nerds (I make no apologies for the term, as I myself am a nerd and therefor have free license to label thusly) join the beta cause and experiment. Given their feedback and even their charitable coding and other efforts to refine their own experience, the product evolves to match the user's desirable outcome.
This has become the standard process, so the many failed intermediate applications that lead to a successful 2.0 application are accepted by the masses as necessary steps. We need those failures to achieve something we want.
Hopefully this mentality is a pervasive one and expands beyond the 2.0 space. Although that is a great place for it, it would be ideal if in meetings, work, and learning environments we were able to tolerate and even appreciate failures as a necessary function of progress.
It's been argued by cognitive science experts that humans are better able to learn from failures than from successes, which is where a lot of business authors focus their attention. What is the greatest learning you've mobilized from a personal success, and what's the greatest you've taken from a personal failure?
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2 comments:
In this concept of 'beta testing', I see the important concept as less about the successes and failures of certain applications, and more about the value of feedback. I find that I learn best with an external mirror in the form of an individual I respect keeping me in check with reminders to "keep up the good work", or to "shape up right now!". Now, I am not sure if this means that I have a good ability to collaborate, or if it's simply that I am in need of a better method of self-evaluating, but it is what it is. And I feel that any collaborative effort should have such a social awareness.
There is a concept out there of assigning a "feedback partner" (actually, it's "feedback buddy", but I can't stomach that term so we'll change it right now) whereby every individual in an experiential learning activity or would have their person assigned to them that would provide them feedback throughout. This would follow a sharing session where both individuals indicate where they want to make improvements and what they want to be aware of, and the other holds them accountable to this. I think we could do the same in meetings and any collaborative effort if appropriate.
Great point, but don't underestimate the value and far spanning implications of a shift in the perception of failure.
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