Individual Failure Offers as a Chance for Community Success

Expertise and specialization can create a mind focus that stubbornly ignores anomalies and misses potential paradigm shifts that arise from seeking explanation of unexpected data.

Wired's (Jan-2010) article on failure reports that "classic outsiders" --  those who are new to a field or lack certain specialized focus --  are often the ones who can acknowledge the anomaly and whose less vested position allow them a creative flexibility to seek solutions. 

In the setting of scientific research, labs who emphasized the broadest review of experimental results achieved better results. During peer reviews it was not the presentations that created better results, but the sometimes heated debate that followed. As the article suggests: "questions asked during the group sessions frequently triggered breakthroughs; a single bracing query was enough to turn scientists into temporary outsiders, able to look at their work anew."

Can a social media platform function as "community lab," providing the benefit of "outsider's insight?" The infrastructure is certainly there, but the frame of mind is currently focused elsewhere. The social web's tendency to focus on anonymity and snark impedes progress that comes from the honest sharing of, and learning from, failure.

Let's build some better examples. The best we could do is fail! ;)