The Digital Commons Retreat - Mistakes & Creativity

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

                                                                                  Henry Ford

A few weeks ago, lots of colleagues from around the university joined in an intensive two day 'Digital Commons Retreat'. Academics come to the retreat with a specific learning & teaching problem, and supportive teams are formed with expertise from around the institution - such at the library, careers service, 301, CiCS, University of Sheffield Enterprise etc. The teams are tailored towards the aim of the individual learning and teaching problem, but it's really useful to have such a broad range of experts available in one room, and typically there is lots of cross - pollination between teams.

This video gives an insight into the inaugural Digital Retreat in 2016

What I personally find really interesting about this exercise is how quick and (easy!) it is to make mistakes, learn from them and move on - often coming up with creative solutions to the problem. 

Working with such a relatively short lead time ensures that problems and failure points are quickly identified. Typical fail often, fail fast concepts are often associated with software development, or startup companies, but I think this approach shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to sparking creativity in a whole range of fields and professions. 

These concepts reminded me of a talk I recently attended by TV executive Wayne Garvie, who spoke about how failure can inspire creativity. It struck me that we shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes. 

Wayne is the Chief Creative Officer at Sony Pictures Television, and has been involved in phenomenally successful TV shows in his career like Top Gear, Strictly Come Dancing & The Crown.

What was most interesting though was how candidly Wayne discussed his failures - pointing out that "most times in TV we fail". Wayne said what's really important though is "using this failure to spark creative renewal"; using failure as a motivation to try something different next time. This concept of failure being a key ingredient for creativity is quite familiar in the TV & Film industry, and is something that Pixar President Ed Catmull has discussed extensively. 

I think the Digital Commons Retreats are a really effective, low stakes environment to experiment with new ideas, experience failure and look for creative solutions to problems. 

Keep your eyes peeled for updates about the latest Digital Retreat projects over the next few months - we will share some of the outcomes on this blog. 

I'll finish off with another thought from Wayne - he said "we typically analyse our failure, but do we analyse our success.....?"