I have a secret to share…

Hello, my name is Angela. And I’m an addict.

I’m addicted to entrepreneurial action.

I get emails from customers through the HP Consumer and Small Business Community Wikis, and they motivate me into action. I’m so proud of the little wins we earn as HP continues to adopt social media and social networking. Often, though, these little wins are sandwiched between little bouts of failure.

That said, you should know that I am addicted to flagrant and noble failures.

Why? Failure means I’m innovating and inventing. When something new fails, I don’t stop. I just tweak and move forward if the idea merits the effort.

Which brings me to my next admission: I’m addicted to ideas.

I love the feeling when an idea bounces off the back of my skull and starts to come to life. That it holds enough promise that I share it with friends, family and colleagues.

Which brings me to another admission: I’m addicted to potential.

That’s probably the reason I worked for startups year after year (including CNET and Netflix) and had my own business for more than 5 years. Potential is definitely why I joined HP. We have the potential to do something truly amazing with our community of loyal customers to create value and create more loyal customers from authentic adoption and immersion into social media.

It’s not easy moving nascent concepts from ideation into adoption at a large company. But the folks gathered here in this community want to help you learn how to do so by using our experience, our case studies, and our noble failures as examples.

Here’s a nugget from a conversation I had with Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix and Stanford man back in 2000 (I’m paraphrasing):

Be brave enough to try.
Be willing to fail.
Fail fast. Fail often.
Because the next big idea is out there waiting to be found.
It might as well be us who creates it or finds it.

It’s great to hear that from your boss. It’s even better when he backs it up.

But don’t wait for your boss to do the same. Go try, succeed or fail at something and learn from it. If you don’t believe me, watch the video.

A big shout-out goes to Bob Sutton at Stanford University who encourages his students (and class visitors like me) to keep “failing” at creating stickiness and infectious engagement.

    |      Email This Page
Did you enjoy this post? If so, please subscribe to our RSS feed