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Manufacturing Snapshot Of The Week: Intentional Fails At SXSW

“Failures are cheap if you do them first...Failures are expensive if you do them at the end.”

Mnet 43486 Snapshot Of The Week B 9

Each year, tech, film and music enthusiasts flock to Austin, Texas to attend keynote speeches, concerts and exhibitions at South by Southwest.

SXSW 2015 takes place over two weeks, beginning on March 13 and wrapping up this Sunday.

The event featured a keynote from the “Captain of Moonshots” of the semi-secret Google X Laboratory, Astro Teller. The keynote, entitled “Moonshots and Reality,” dealt with the inevitability of failure in innovation.

Teller spoke on his method of asking his team to fail intentionally to learn from their mistakes. “Failures are cheap if you do them first,” Teller said. “Failures are expensive if you do them at the end.”

Teller used Google Glass as a prime example of an early failure. By pushing the product to the market before completion, the team was able to gather immediate feedback from the public.

What do you think about Teller’s theory of failure? Comment below or tweet @MNetBridget.

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