Museum of Failure - 13th October 2023

When is a failure not a failure? According to Johanna Guttmann, organiser of the Museum of Failure exhibition in Washington DC, what we consider a failure is really a matter of personal opinion.

Johanna Guttmann: "The products that we are saying that they are failures are subjective, debatable, but it is about that conversation. So we are sort of having fun with it, we want to take away the stigma from it. So I think the fun factor makes it much more attractive to people."

The idea for the first Museum of Failure exhibition originated in Sweden in 2017. It showcases products and innovations from a variety of countries but the majority are from the US. Even major brands have been known to get things wrong.

Starbucks introduced a coffee and olive oil drink that had customers rushing to the toilet - that didn’t last long. Under the Trump brand, a Monopoly style game was just too complex for anyone to play, and even the popular Oreo biscuit ran into problems when it decided to introduce some new flavours.

Johanna Guttmann: "I’ve heard that one of the most disgusting things, not featured here, is the barbecue chicken wings - it’s rather vile."

Failing is frequently an important step on the path to success and innovation. Guttmann believes understanding this is one of the goals of the exhibition.

Johanna Guttmann: "The goal of the exhibition is the conversation about failure, and destigmatizing failure and to a certain extent, embracing it and understanding that it is a very important component if we want to innovate and solve big problems in the world, we're going to have to take some risks and try different things."

Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to share their failures, whether large or small, adding notes to a board.

However, people still appear reluctant to share their failures or their lack of success. Could it be that these days failure can become all too public through social media?

Johanna Guttmann: "Today with social media, I believe that it's harder to fail. I think that people feel their failures are sort of amplified on social media. And it sort of follows you and it seems maybe larger than it actually is."