I’ve spent the last few years settling into the university environment.
Sometimes successfully. Many times not. I’m fairly certain that even if I end my career in the academy, I’ll never truly feel integrated into this system. It’s not worth getting into the specifics of my seven years trolling around the edges (which includes 3 years on the tenure track), suffice it to say that the values within the walls of academia are different than those that exist in the far reaches of the real world (insomuch as I know the real world).
That’s one of the nice aspects of Ball State University, which is where I’m teaching now. There’s a very large section of the world here that while attached to the university is separate from academia. This is where I live much of my life, bopping around with the researchers, storytellers, designers and media types who are paid to conceptualize, create, test and release.
I like it there. It mirrors the meritocracy of the technology world from where I come. You don’t win arguments with these folks with a handbook, a dictionary and an arbitrary set of “rules.”
You win through failure.
I breathe much easier around these folks.
***
It’s strange that I’ve already gone off the rails with this post, but these things happen. When I sat down, I expected to write about my great concern with the lack of fundamental education in the country. That was what “My Gig As A Failure” was about. Because I’ve been thinking about that a great deal this weekend.
Then again. Maybe it’s not so far off. If you’ll indulge me, anyway.
***
Many years ago, when John and I were working on Dungeons and Dreamers, we flew out to MIT to meet with Henry Jenkins, the man who built the Comparative Media Studies program there. It is – without a doubt – the pre-eminent program in this country. And Henry is among the top thinkers in this field.
Of course, MIT is also a Mecca. (Not the Mecca. Just a Mecca.) A place where I would work a few years later at Technology Review.
So when Henry told me the horror stories about launching that department, I was taken aback. How, praytell, could MIT fight Henry and this program?
He never gave me the specifics. And I never asked. I know a few things. He was beset by those who didn’t exactly understand what he did or the technologies (and philosophies) behind it. But they were dead-set against nurturing it. The fight certainly wore him down, even after writing several wonderful books, launching the careers of many well-respected folks in the Serious Games business and generally defending remix and read-write culture across the country.
He is now teaching at USC
***
Which brings me to my gig. At Ball State University. Part of the reason I came to this school is the Center for Media Design, a weirdly wooly place where strange things happen. If you’ve never seen Eureka, you won’t understand. Suffice it to say, weird magic happens around that place.
Surely there is some real business that goes on. Companies from across the globe pay the CMD good money to do some fascinating research that you’ll not be privy to. You’ll just have to trust me on this.
For me, they have assembled a group of mad scientists from different fields and turn us loose. (For instance, I am not working with two folks in the English Department, a 3d Animator and soon the Chair of the Architecture department.)
What’s going to happen? Well, there is certainly a plan. But the plan is unimportant. What’s not unimportant is the amazing freedom I have to interact with people in very loose environments, supported by a network of people who – while they don’t always understand what we’re doing – trust that what we are doing is important.
Of course, we have to justify it eventually (or they send our Merry Prankster asses along the way). But we don’t have to justify it initially.
Which is great. Because we can’t. The bleeding edge doesn’t have much research to back it up. Just thoughts and theories. And if we spend all of our time trying to convince people who don’t get what we do (and in many cases don’t care to get what we do) to understand that what we are doing is worthwhile…well, the doing never actually happens.
***
Which finally brings me to my point. At 12:34 am on a Monday morning. Sitting in my office. My point that has sadly been lost in a ranting, rambling and raucous celebration of the folks at Ball State who just seem to get it. Even within the walls of my once very traditional department.
This university definitely seems to get that in order to succeed wildly you have to encourage failure. And lots of it.
Often.
They get that the rules of the road aren’t exactly the best way to get to every destination.
I’ve had the administrators ask me about my projects (and support my two-year Fellowship that will enable me to finish several huge projects). I’ve had faculty members from across the campus come for my presentations. (In fact, more faculty members showed up for my first Emerging Media Initiative Fellows talk about the weird natures of Web-specific storytelling than showed up in aggregate for all my presentations at my previous job.) I’ve had faculty members from other schools – who were once attached to the CMD – reach out to me. I’ve had faculty members from other departments seek me out to collaborate with them.
It’s quite simply amazing to be in a culture that embraces failure as the road to success.
***
Which now brings me to my actual point: Failure.
Because it’s a concept that I try to instill in my students. That failure isn’t actually failing. It’s the road to success.
If you simply wait to try something until you are sure you are right. You will never do anything worth doing. But if you embrace challenges. If you strive to do that which you aren’t sure about. You will surely have a rougher road than others before you.
But the payoff will be far greater than you can ever know.
Henry Jenkins can tell you that. My writing partner John sure can. Any of the folks at the CMD will tell you that.
So can these folks: