FastCompany.com has a two part interview with Sir James Dyson—a design-engineer who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner. He talks about the importance of failure in the process of innovation.
I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.We’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that’s very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It’s exciting, actually. To me, solving problems is a bit like a drug. You’re on it, and you can’t get off. I spent seven years on our washing machine [which has two drums, instead of one].
In the Sustainability and Climate Change debate there is extensive discussion about the solutions to solve the big issues of energy generation; carbon reduction; environmentally friendly products etc.
Sir James Dyson’s ideas and experience suggests that we cannot know everything that is needed to know and to create solutions. For example; studies which talk about the role of plug in hybrids in 2050 if 60% of the cars where using that technology are going in the wrong direction. Communism and socialism failures around the world has proved that central planning does not work. The sustainability solutions are slowly going in the same direction where some energy sources, some technologies, some ways of doing things are being suggested as the best solution.
Considering the time frames that we are working on (50 yrs to 100yrs) it is not sensible to stick and commit extensively to a few ways of doing things. The better way is to create economic incentives to let entrepreneurs innovate and create the solutions. Facilitating this process is the important part.
