“失败大会”的成功学

    坦然面对自己的重大失败。如果你是一位创业家或投资者，有一天你可能会得到一个机会让你在成千上百的同道面前讲讲自己的滑铁卢。

    这就是本周一在旧金山召开的第十五届FailCon大会，以及从悉尼到新加坡、再到西班牙越来越多的大会分会。

    失败不再不可告人，而且不只是在硅谷。“这种事不再那么讳莫如深。FailCon的共同创始人戴安`洛维格里表示，现在，越来越多的人开始聊”失败。她的第一个创业公司在成立四年后倒闭。“现在，我们终于能在墨西哥和欧洲讨论失败了。”

    洛维格里和她的业务合伙人们希望打造一个能分享和学习失败的经验教训、甚至互相获得鼓励的场所。大会“非常活跃，”洛维格里说。“人们觉得深受启发，充满信心。”

    这场为期一天的失败大会吸引的主要是创业家，以及少数学生、顾问和公司人士——他们中的一些人希望能学习经验教训，将来创业时少走弯路。

    迄今为止，FailCon大会已在10个城市举行，由各地分会举行。FailCon的共同创始人兼执行组织人卡珊德拉•菲利普斯表示，其他还有大约15个团体正在筹划FailCon会议。这些地区会议筹划者根据授权运作，就好像TedX之于TED会议体系。菲利普斯表示：“地方组织人对会议有一定的控制力，可注入一些独特的个性和地方文化。”

    明年，FailCon将登陆印度，接着是约翰内斯堡、特拉维夫和东京。这些会议已经赢得了一些包括微软(Microsoft)、亚马逊(Amazon Web Services)和科技业招聘网站Dice等公司在内的大赞助商。

    会议的成功也引来了一些模仿者。巴尔的摩的一家科技理事会去年组织了一场类似的会议，2011年在马德里召开的另一场类似的会议名为“失败的优势”(The Advantages of Failure)。他们还必须与一系列创业企业和商业研讨会竞争，这些研讨会大多数专注于成功经验的学习。

    FailCon自称是第一个聚焦失败的商业会议。它的处女秀是在2009年，即雷曼兄弟(Lehman Bros.)倒闭一年后，同年克莱斯勒(Chrysler)和通用汽车(General Motors)也申请了Chapter 11破产。当时似乎是一个讨论失败的绝佳时机，但洛维格里回忆称，“我们当时有点担心，我们可能推销不出去。”结果他们成功了，并且一而再、再而三的举行这些会议：450多人每人每年支付约219美元，与他人分享自己的挫折、失误以及灾难。

    “在其他地方和其他会议上，人们只分享成功，”洛维格里说。“在这里，他们会说，啊，我们在招人上搞砸了。当你知道其他人也没有答案时，你会感觉好受一些。”  

    Get comfortable with your big failure -- and if you're a startup or an investor, someday you may be offered the opportunity to describe your defeat to hundreds of your peers.

    That's what's will happen on Monday at the fifth FailCon conference in San Francisco -- and at a growing number of spinoff failure sessions from Sydney to Singapore to Spain.

    Failure is coming out of the closet -- and not just in Silicon Valley. "It is becoming less taboo. More people are talking" about failure, says FailCon co-founder Diane Loviglio, whose first startup failed after four years. "We're finally able to talk about this in Mexico and Europe."

    Loviglio and her business partner are eager to create a place where failures can be shared, learned from, and even serve as encouragement to others. "There's just a lot of energy" at the conferences, says Loviglio. "They feel inspired and empowered."

    The one-day failure conferences draw mostly entrepreneurs, along with a smattering of students, consultants, and corporate types -- some of whom are hoping to learn lessons and avoid mistakes when they launch their own startups.

    So far, FailCon events have been held in 10 cities, each by locals. About 15 other groups are planning FailCon meetings, says Cassandra Phillipps, FailCon co-founder and executive producer. The regional event planners operate as licensees, the same way TedX relates to the TED conference system. "The local producers can take some control of it and give it a flair of their own personality and local culture," Phillipps says.

    Next year, FailCon will land in India, and after that, it will go to Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo. The conferences have landed some major sponsors, including Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon Web Services (AMZN), and Dice, the technology jobs site.

    Success has encouraged some imitators too. A technology council in Baltimore produced one such imitation last year, and another called The Advantages of Failure was held in Madrid in 2011. They also must compete with an array of startup and business seminars, most of which focus on learning from successes.

    FailCon claims to be the first business conference centered on failure, and it debuted in 2009, a year after Lehman Bros. collapsed and the year both Chrysler and General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It seemed a great time to talk about failure, yet Loviglio recalls, "We were a little nervous we wouldn't sell out." They did, and did again with more than 450 people a year paying around $219 apiece to share their setbacks, mistakes, and all-out disasters with others.

    "At other places and conferences, people only share what worked," Loviglio says. "Here they say 'We totally screwed up on hiring.' You feel good knowing that other people don't have the answers either."