Ran across this during my daily reading, a post by Jeff Stibel on Why I Hire People That Fail. The post is worth reading just for that, but the piece that caused me to flag it to share was his mention of his failure wall. He’s posted a large board at his office with a bunch of inspirational quotes related to success/failure and waited to see what would happen. Turns out a lot of people fail, in interesting and sometimes humorous ways.

It’s a targeted take on the Chalkboard at the Office I mentioned back in November (though his implementation preceeds it!).

I really like this idea. Lots of variations possible. The totally open chalkboard, the more focused failure wall, and in between a “focus of the week/month/quarter” type thing. It’s analog, it engages people, it’s a little bit Post Secret (unless you sign your post), and it’s low effort. I think the one thing I’ll add the next time I build one is a reminder to take a photo before erasing and starting fresh, that’s nice stuff for an internal web site and good for some smiles looking back over time.