Thereare a few cases pending that will be added either to successes or to failures soon enough. But in the vein of acknowledging failures, I thought this article about Google Project X, a/k/a the Moonshot Factory, was interesting and worthwhile. To wit:
Recently, X has gone further in accommodating and celebrating failure. In the summer of 2016, the head of diversity and inclusion, a Puerto Rican–born woman named Gina Rudan, spoke with several X employees whose projects were stuck or shut down and found that they were carrying heavy emotional baggage. She approached X’s leadership with an idea based on Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. She suggested that the company hold an annual celebration to share stories of pain from defunct projects. Last November, X employees gathered in the main hall to hear testimonials, not only about failed experiments but also about failed relationships, family deaths, and personal tragedies. They placed old prototypes and family mementos on a small altar. It was, several X employees told me, a resoundingly successful and deeply emotional event.
The first of November is nearly upon us, and I will take the opportunity to expound a little further on the idea of celebrating failure. Though I'm not quite to celebrating death yet.