Comments on: LoserCamp

By: 106 Miles to Chicago

106 Miles to Chicago — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 03:32:20 +0000

Celebrating Failure…

A week or so ago, Tara Hunt posted a thought-provoking blog entry. That isn’t really a shock since most of……

By: Nollind Whachell

Nollind Whachell — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:54:46 +0000

Great idea. Far too often companies try to hide their mistakes in striving to appear perfect, even going so far as to believe these mistakes never happened internally (i.e. strike this event from our records and thoughts). Well chalk this up as another bad mistake. There is so much opportunity to learn and grow from our mistakes and more importantly share these experiences with others so everyone can evolve and grow.

I’ve done a lot of online web work related to the video game industry (computer games) and I’ve seen this happen quite a bit in that industry. Thus you have game developers creating a new game, yet they often repeat the same mistakes others have made. It is changing though. Gamasutra has been posting postmortems by game developers for quite a while now, so others can learn from those willing to share their mistakes.

By: clive

clive — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:11:35 +0000

Interesting idea, but if you assert that The Valley embraces failure so much better than the rest of the world, than maybe the first of these camps should be in the Valley?

I think it’s a lot to ask to someone to try get a bunch of people in Paris or New York to willingly attend an event and celebrate failure.

Maybe if you do it successfully in Silicon Valley the idea will spread?

By: kelley muir

kelley muir — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:38:29 +0000

I can definatly see how it would fit in Manchester- but in the same token I see how precise people are in their actions and how afraid they are to take the unsafe route (yes… I’m talking about you -Ian as well as myself)

Maybe this would help us to jump in with out holding back…

By: Fred Hundt

Fred Hundt — Wed, 30 May 2007 16:25:57 +0000

Your LoserCamp idea reminds me of a meeting I attended, in the early 1980′s, of Wal-Mart store managers and executives. A store manager stood up and told the story of a promotion he tried that was a disaster. My first thought was that he had lost his mind, admitting failure in front of the top brass. Then another manager stood up and said “If you thought that was bad, listen to how we screwed up.” Much of the afternoon was taken up by graphic descriptions of mistakes and failures. When I asked one of the store managers about this at the break, he said “this way we don’t all repeat the same mistakes.” That’s when I knew this was a company that would continue to be successful.

By: Celebrating Learning, Failure and Success « Joy Of Innovation

Celebrating Learning, Failure and Success « Joy Of Innovation — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:05:20 +0000

[...] failures. In this context, Tara Hunt who has magical cures for (Marketing) virus is proposing a LoserCamp in the anecdotal BarCamp structure. I like the way it is named( no attempt to dress up, show of sincerity/humility), and Tara has more [...]

By: Ian Muir

Ian Muir — Tue, 29 May 2007 04:28:40 +0000

I promise to get LoserCamp started in Manchester. This seems like a great idea that a lot of people around here can learn from.

By: Joshua Schachter

Joshua Schachter — Tue, 29 May 2007 04:13:49 +0000

Yeah, I’ve wanted to organize something on failures and lessons learned. Too many conferences are about what’s currently hot, but I feel that it’s failure that teaches, not success. I’d rather learn from other people’s mistakes instead of guess at what might have made them successful.

By: Roger Wilks

Roger Wilks — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:29:47 +0000

You did it again Tara hit the nail on the head or at least stuck a pin in my rear end. I’ve failed(? what do we mean ?) so many times in so many different things. I’d like,love to learn about other peoples failures and how they dealt with them. Go of and cry ina corner then come raging back keep on flogging a dead horse until it smells too bad sit down and dream up another crazy (according to your friends idea) Yeah lets have a loosers camp wanta better name how about “Dust off Camp” from the idea of falling of a horse or bike as a kid and being told get up dust of the seat of your pants and get on again.
If the location makes it practical I will be there. I’ve got a million ideas for failing again.
Best
Roger

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:16:03 +0000

I love the idea of loser camp – we’re told so often to win at all costs, never give up, etc but we can learn so much from failures.

Actually Seth Godin has a book out called The Dip, I haven’t read it but I think the general premise is sometimes it’s best to give up and fail so you can move on to bigger things rather than flogging a dead horse.