Last month I had the dubious — yet delightful — position of leading the discussion to follow Randi Zuckerberg on the stage of ImagiNATION2013. It is not every day I meet a 30-something with a net worth exceeding $100 million.
I knew she would rock her talk and wondered how we would keep the audience alive afterward.
Fortunately, we put together an “A” team with SCAD’s Scott Boylston, University of South Carolina’s Peter Swift and David Nelems of Clemson’s Don Ryan Center of Innovation. On a preparation call, I inquired, “What would happen if we did introductions about our failures and not our successes?”
Naturally there was some skepticism, but I pushed on, suggesting something like, “Bea Wray is the executive director for The Creative Coast. The Creative Coast nurtures members of the Savannah community engaged in creative and innovative endeavors and cultivates an environment in which they can thrive.
“Prior to joining The Creative Coast, Bea attempted to lead an innovation center but was not selected for the final round of interviews. Bea has played a significant role in launching four startup companies. One had a successful exit; the others suffered painful, long deaths.
“Bea received a 13 percent on her university biology dissection exam, flunked German, and secured no roles through numerous musical auditions. We are delighted to welcome Bea Wray on Iterative Innovation and Cultural Challenges.”
Scott joined in with, “Scott Boylston is the program coordinator for the design for sustainability program at SCAD and president of the nonprofit organization Emergent Structures. Before settling on sustainable design as a career, Scott was summarily rejected by the MFA in creative writing program at Brown University.
“Between each of the more than dozen successfully published short stories in his career as a fiction writer, his work was rejected by an average of 18 publications. Scott’s surf wear business caught a 5-year wave of raging success before crashing onto the shores of reality; it broke just as surely as his neck did on impact.
“Scott will discuss strategies for a sustainable future.”
Soon, the others were also illustrating “ice-breaking” yet inspiring visions of comeback.
Last week, my Twitter feed lit up with VentureBeat and other accounts of what I thought at first glance was “FallCon.” Sounded like a fine name for a technology conference during the fall season. But wait? That is an “i-l” not a double “l.”
FailCon is a one-day conference for technology entrepreneurs, investors, developers and designers to study their own and other’s failures and prepare for success. Robert Siegel, general partner of XSeed Capital, encourages us to make “new mistakes” and avoid repeating the ones others have displayed for us.
Thanks to some logical and visionary writers such as Brad Feld and Reshma Saujani, failure parties are a trend. They are sweeping the national startup community as a great opportunity for closure, sharing ideas and releasing energy to prepare for the next venture.
What about at home? I am certain the most important thing I do as a mom is openly discuss my mistakes and apologize for them. Today’s culture insists that everyone is a winner and must bring home a trophy. Yet, that hasn’t been my personal experience, so I try to be more realistic with my children.
So far, my kids squirm a bit and haven’t jumped into the dinner discussion with “let me tell you about today’s failure.” Yet, I am hopeful this taboo word is one that can evolve to mean opportunity, growth and learning in such a way that risk taking is comfortable, not constricting.
Time for confession. I sat down three times to write this week’s column. My attempts at addressing Global Entrepreneurship Week, a recent tour of the amazing Savannah Port and our launch of the 2014 FastPitch business plan competition all failed to produce an engaging story, thus “failure” itself emerged as the topic.
Perhaps you will join me this week on Twitter with your own tales of failure at #taleofail.
Bea Wray is the executive director of The Creative Coast, a not-for-profit organization that promotes the creative and entrepreneurial community within the region. Bea can be reached at 912-447-8457 or bea@thecreativecoast.org.