1. A time I failed: It's not a complete failure, or anything near that, more of a work in progress. I started an Open Source club (Open Source is software that anyone is free to view the source code, modify that, and share their changes with the world) this semester, and though we do have active members, it's still fairly small and I'm having trouble getting people to contribute to the coding projects. I assumed that people would feel comfortable working on it, even if they had little previous experience. So far it seems only people with experience on similar projects have contributed. As part of what we initially planned, we've gone over several tutorials during our meetings to help familiarize people with what we're doing. I thought that would be enough, but it doesn't seem to be the case. So I'm still at it, trying different methods and to be as helpful as possible.
2. What I've learned: I knew that starting a club (kind of like a business) would not be easier, and would require a lot of extra time commitment. The mistake I made, was assuming everyone would feel comfortable after a tutorial or two. I now know I need to hold off on being ambitious until I know how people will react.
3. Failure reflection: It's hard to deal with failure. Especially when it's about something you really care about. But because you care about it, you need to get pass the failure, and learn what you need to fix, in order for it to succeed. I try to do this as much as I can, though that is easier said than done. I know if I want to make what I want to come true I need to push for it, even if it means hurting on the way.
Matthew,
ReplyDeleteAlthough we experienced very different failures, I think that you do have a very good idea in mind and should stick with it. For me, I am not doing as well in my financial accounting course because it was my first, true, online business class, which I ended up getting behind in and not doing well on my exams. Yours is different because this is something you purely brought upon yourself for the possible successes, and although we learned different lessons from our failures, I think that these will be valuable experiences we can take in the future. I try and think of failure in the same way as you, which is that initially it might hurt, but you have to see the long-run outcome and how you will become better in the end. You didn't really touch on it, but I think this class helped me overcome my failures, especially with the assignments when we had to interview customers and other entrepreneurs.
You can check out my post here:
http://jamesdonigan.blogspot.com/2016/04/celebrating-failure.html
Hello Matthew I think that your post was very relatable even though my post was not about starting a club. I also started my own entertainment group and it was hard trying to find people that are committed and will put in as much effort as you expect them to. I agree with you that you cannot let failure stop you though especially if it is something that you really care about. The more you care about something and the more you want that thing to be successful the more you are going to keep trying no matter the obstacles. Good job overall ahttp://markemiablogs.blogspot.com/2016/04/celebrating-failure.html
ReplyDeleteHey Matthew,
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that you created such a sophisticated club. I am sure as time progresses, more members will contribute with the coding projects. My question to you is what is your next step with the Open Source Club since it didn’t have the start you wanted? My blog post was about a different scenario and talked about my failure with a course I took. You can check it out at http://entrepreneurshipblogs.blogspot.com/2016/04/celebrating-failure.html