Mistakes are unavoidable. Take the criticism, shrug your shoulders and come up with something better.
by Meaghan Ziemba, Associate Editor, PD&D
We’ve all had those moments where we could not find a hole deep and dark enough to crouch in shame from some embarrassing situation or mistake. When eyes that stared at you; making some type of judgment or critical comment towards the cluelessness that was distributed because for a moment, the brain decided to stop functioning and look past the obvious. One of my moments occurred last week.
I had viewed a video on a new innovational device from Apple - or so I thought I did. The video was made by The Onion, which turns out to be a news station that basically pokes fun at the industry and certain products that enter into the market. This episode: the Apple MacBook, Wheel – a revolutionary laptop that ditched the keyboard and replaced it with a touch sensitive wheel.
I thought the idea was ridiculous, thinking to myself ‘Why replace something that’s been around for decades, with something that has to be relearned?’ The Onion thought the idea was ridiculous as well – hence the video poking fun at it – but I missed the joke completely and composed an article criticizing companies that try to take traditional concepts and designs and add their own flavor to them and messing up a classic idea. I even incorporated hamburgers – trust me it all made sense.
My editor informed me of my misunderstanding, and I would have loved to hear what he was actually thinking as I looked at him for a brief moment with a feeling of stupidity and utter embarrassment. But, like all the other times I found a way to entertain people with my cluelessness, I shrugged it off (pretended it didn’t happen) and thought about what else I could write about.
I came up with this: Industries across the board have brought so many innovational, revolutionary and just plain cool products to the market, but they wouldn’t have been possible without those moments of running away with the tail between the legs bit.
Designing always has room for upgrades, editing and improvements. Sometimes the first draft is filled with embarrassing assumptions or kinks that are only obvious when an important presentation is scheduled. If a design fails to be perfect once it hits shelves, the company that distributed it, risks having its reputation slandered by the majority. Products that come after the mistake will suffer extreme criticism, and it usually takes time for a company to recover once they have found a hole to quietly cry in.
Mistakes are excellent tools for self-improvement. In fact, I think they are the best tools. They help give us the best products that have come into the market. The companies that can shrug their shoulders and pretend like nothing ever happened are the ones that come out with the best merchandise.
A lot of engineers and designers have flopped, but the ones who have admitted defeat and moved on, have produced thinner laptops, faster computer chips, sleek futuristic cars that don’t run on gas and touchless video games that only need body movement and sound to work.
I support mistakes – the bigger the better – and I welcome criticism that follows. It not only helps designers and engineers across the board come up with better devices, it helps technology advance and increases competition.
What are some of your embarrassing mistakes? Share your thoughts below, or e-mail the really embarrassing one to meaghan.ziemba@advantagemedia.com.