Elaina Buzzell

Tag: failure

February 21, 2016

When Tech Fails Hit Close to Home

Android-erasingI can’t count the number of times I’ve told people to pay attention to their backups. In tech, it was a common refrain to emphasize not only the importance of backups, but testing and retesting them. We shared sad stories of lost member databases, photos, stories. We told how recovery services can only find so much.

In short, I knew better.

Then, yesterday, my toddler hands me my phone with this on the screen, and I tried not to panic. I believed that, despite my next few hours were obnoxious, I’d get back to normal soon. Read the rest of this entry »

May 16, 2012

The Power of Failure

Yesterday I participated in the #npcons (Twitter chat for nonprofit consultants) chat on cranking up creativity, and a frequent theme was that true creativity results, at least occasionally, in failure. I had failing on the brain already after a recent job interview when I was asked about my biggest failure.

I’ve long seen that failure is a natural part of the learning process, and that something isn’t a complete failure if valuable lessons are learned. I also believe that the world needs more stories of failure – especially lessons learned and growth from failure – as they encourage others to risk and try new things. In that light – drumroll please – here is the story that I shared with my interviewer about my biggest fail: Read the rest of this entry »