To Go Digital, We Must All Experience Failure

Here is a podcast featuring Jesse Wiley who works on digital and new business initiatives at John Wiley & Sons, Inc..  In the podcast he discusses the challenges of digital for the 200-year-old company.  The simple message of his presentation is that success in digital will require that companies must accept failure and move on.  He says, “Learning to fail is not an established concept in publishing, but in the technology world, innovation is built on doing pilots and testing — learning to fail and expecting to fail, and learning from both the successes and the failures."

Well put, Jesse.  We have been trying to encourage pilots and the "fail and fail fast" mentality among college stores for the past several years.  It takes time for established, mature companies and industries to get more comfortable with the idea that managed failure is actually a risk-reduction strategy for organizations.   Regardless, the podcast provides for interesting listening.