The Estate of André Steiner via Archive of Modern Conflict

This week’s Sunday Magazine in the New York Times has a focus on the role of failure on the path to successful innovation. It is not lost on us, having recently designed, built and opened two properties– one at the beach and the other in a historic cultural urban zone–in the state of Kerala, India that sometimes it seems you take two steps sideways and sometimes even one step backwards in order to get where you are going.  We kept telling ourselves: failure is not an option.  But in the back of our mind we knew it was not enough to just say it. Fortunately in the case of both properties we got exactly where we wanted to get: beautiful places where people will have awesome experiences.

Still, this article is a reminder that the sidesteps, the moonwalk, and other diversions sometimes feel like failure but put in context they can aggregate to the common good:

A Brief History of Failure

By RYAN BRADLEY

From the longbow to the Dvorak keyboard, the road to innovation is paved with failed designs and forgotten artifacts.