Stuntmen, Failure and Learning

I saw this picture in an article is about a stuntmen and I was captivated by the wheel on the roof.  To me, it’s all about the process of failure and learning. This wheel demonstrates how failure has been built (in this case, welded) into the process of teaching stunt drivers to get the car on two wheels.

With budgets under increased scrutiny, everyone is being asked to cut corners. Anything that can be trimmed from a budget, will be. To my mind, cutting prototyping or research from a project is akin to removing the wheel from this roof. Sure, you can do it, but the stakes are a lot higher.

So how to you get your clients to understand the value of what you do? I think you need to get them more involved in the process of design. In the abstract, explaining things like failure, prototyping or research is like trying to convince them to weld a 5th wheel to their car while it’s parked in a driveway. The need is just not that convincing. But bring them along for the ride, when half the wheels are up in the air, and you should have a much more compelling arguement.

This was written by Tom. Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009, at 8:10 am. Filed under Inspiration, Process. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.