my story needed a bit more drama

There is no doubt that failure adds drama and as such, creates value. Just how often do chase films resort to the the old cliche of the driver choosing the wrong road, failing to acknowledge the sign reading "DANGER, works in progress", and ultimately flying off the side of a cliff. Just imagine how lifeless that scene would be if the road had just lead to a perfectly usable road. BORING! Of course the Hollywood version, airborn vehicles land on their feet and carry on, leaving those in pursuit scratching their heads, but in reality, I can imagine a far less opportune ending. So whereas the Feedback Toolkit I was gunning for might be extremely useful for a wide range of companies, I picked the wrong company, like choosing the wrong fork at an intersection. For the purposes of this study, it set off a panic because I was not so certain that I could land my a new concept in the small window allotted. Admitedly, thats my fault for not approaching my case study until the end of the project. With more time, feedback processes IKEA uses could have been more closel examined to uncover the undeliing issues, and why it is staff feels like they have feedback coming out of the yazzoo. But Covid is also partly to blame, as this rookie mistake is not one I would have made if I had been researching failure from from within IKEA as the IRP originally called for, and not simply connecting via text messages. As far as Im concerned, its a major fuck up, but inasmuch as this is a paper about fuckups, I am at least able to get some mileage off it.

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running a startup

brian sent me a text mesage saying i could interview him on his way to work. in a nour. sure, right, whatever. the only guy i know that runs a startup, this was pretty exciting. oh shit, no questions written, so i put some down quicjk so i wouldnt be fumbling when we spoke. good thing, his walk to work is just 15 min, and while he let me go over by around 8 min, by the end, i could tell he was in the office and had to attend to far more important stuff. so this is what i got. this is his first vc backed startup, the business he grew and sold in austin was bootstrapped. hes doing a kind of bio engineering biz to grow meat from cells. theyre on the 3rd round of funding, and i think i recall that it was some millions of dollars. so thats pre-seed and seed and then whatever comes after. they have just moved from dontown SF to berlkley, as they needed a bigger space. the team has grown to 16, and hes very confident speaking about all the stages of development like hes a pro. i just kind of ...

iterative

the first team that i was on at hyper island came up with the name looop, to signify the iterative process of design thinking. unfortunately, we were inexperienced, lacked leadership, and were frustrated by differences of opinion on just about everything. as susan wheelan would say, we were stuck in stage 2 of team development. so now im workingalone, and while there are fewer disagreements, the lack of alternate perspective is frustrating. what i am beginning to see is that the learning is more painful, but faster in a group environment, that when you are a one man band. i recall seeing the guy on the street corner of brtatislava, with contraptions allowing him to play at least a hald dozen instraments. while he can keep all the coins thrown into the hat set before him, he never gets the benefit of flow while playing with other musicians. anyway, a i approach the stage where i propose an experience design solution, i must now need to return to the books to get theory on trust, and f...

making a plan

reviewed transcript from a meeting with the program leader. thank god for otter, which makes this possible, otherwise, i wouldnt rememebr half by this morning. in terms of structure, im feeling a bit better, i can see how i much of the work ive already (interviews with 4 small business owners, and feedback from a half dosen starups) is applicable, provided i pivoy from IKEA and stick with original concept of chasing starup community. while i think it would be super interesting to investigate why IKEA are so slow to learn, and could use examples from my own experience working there for nearly 2 years, i lost sight of the experincial part of this project. i just couldnt visualize it, with Tash's help, now I sort of can. next steps: 1. find a thesis that is well organized and follow their format. 2. make contact with MEC amd MINC, incubators in Malmo. David from dojo is probably my best connection, though Magnus from Media Evoulution City of course knows everyone. 3. viewing startu...

on failing

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