The museum’s organizer told CBS News she wants the exhibit to echo the sentiment that failure can be your greatest teacher.
Imagine failing so spectacularly that you end up in a museum.
An exhibit in Brooklyn, New York, is paying tribute to all the inventors who shot for the stars and fell on their faces.
It’s called the Museum of Failure and it features a lot of bad ideas, like a chair that lets you exercise while you work at your job by moving your abs the way a hula hoop does.
How could one get anything accomplished?
The museum’s organizer told CBS News she wants the exhibit to echo the sentiment that failure can be your greatest teacher.
Johanna Guttman, the Museum of Failure organizer, told CBS News, “It's not really about the products. It's about having that conversation about failure. What do we learn from failure? How does the fear of failure hold us back from innovating, trying new things, taking meaningful risks?”
So while the New Coke, purple ketchup, and the pen “designed specifically for women” weren’t best-sellers, they can still serve another purpose by encouraging others to embrace failure as part of the creative process.
The items were all rounded up for display by a Swedish psychologist who says companies that embrace failure are often on the right track to eventual success.
“People can feel comfortable trying different things, experimenting and ultimately innovating,” Guttman said.
There’s even a wall for museum visitors to admit to their failures on a Post-it note — which was also a product failure before it became known for what it is now — if they’re brave enough.
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