Enhancing Industrial Inspiration and Resilience
Fail Forward: Sharing Failure to Build Cross-Sector Trust
Cross-sector storytelling night connecting industry, makers and creatives through failure culture
Overview
What has been done
The local action tested failure storytelling as a low-threshold way to build trust between industry, makers and creative actors. At Lehngericht Augustusburg, participants from SMEs, maker and creative contexts, higher education, business support and local interest groups came together for a Fail Forward evening. The event combined an informal setting with three personal failure stories from different professional fields: design and makerspace practice, nomadic maker work, and technical education / engineering. Each story showed how setbacks can become learning moments around motivation, responsibility, communication, expectation management and project choices. After the talks, the audience started sharing their own experiences, which quickly lowered barriers and opened honest exchange acro
Why was it needed locally
The action addressed a weak failure culture in the region, where setbacks are often hidden instead of used as learning opportunities. This limits honest reflection, trust-building and experimentation across professional fields. At the same time, makers, creatives and SMEs often face similar challenges but rarely speak openly about them together. The event aimed to create a safe, informal space where failure could become a shared starting point for learning, connection and future collaboration.
Target Groups: How were they activated and their benefits
Other SME – SMEs from industrial and creative sectors; makers and makerspace actors; creative professionals; research and higher education actors; business support organisations; public-sector / regional innovation actors; local interest groups and community stakeholders interested in cross-sector collaboration.
Activation: The target group was activated through personal invitations, a low-threshold evening format, and the familiar community setting of Lehngericht Augustusburg. The Fail Forward framing made participation attractive because it offered honest storytelling, relaxed networking, and a safe way to discuss failure, learning and collaboration across sectors.
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Through personal invitations, and the clear link to failure culture, innovation and learning
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Through the hosting venue a familiar setting and location.
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through online event-sharing (instagram, limked-In)
Benefit: The target group benefited from a safe, low-threshold setting to reflect openly on failure, learning, responsibility and collaboration across sectors.
Participants gained new perspectives, personal connections and a better understanding of how makers, creatives, SMEs, education actors and local networks face similar challenges in different context
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reflectin on failure, risk and learning outside formal business settings
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sharing practical experiences from project work and community building
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honest exchange about unfinished projects, motivation and responsibility
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gaining insight into informal learning, experimentation and maker-based education
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experiencing storytelling as a tool for cross-sector dialogue
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strengthening local connections and openness for future cooperation
Resources Required
Staff
Facilitators with moderation, community-building and event-hosting competence; able to create a safe atmosphere
Approx. 2 staff days in total, including preparation, invitations, speaker coordination, event hosting, documentation and follow-up for a simple event
Space
Informal event room / community space suitable for storytelling, exchange and relaxed networking
Equipment
Basic event setup: chairs, simple lighting, optional speaker system, optional screen, drinks/snacks; no special technical equipment required.
Budget
Small: below 2,000 €
Starting below 1,000 €, covering staff time, venue, drinks/snacks, basic event materials and communication
Methods & Steps
Core Mechanism
Formats applied
Conference:
A low-threshold evening format where participants from different sectors shared personal failure stories and reflected on what they learned from them. The storytelling was followed by open exchange and informal networking to build trust between SMEs, makers, creatives, education actors and local networks.
Methods used: Fail Forward Storytelling: Three speakers from different professional backgrounds shared personal failure stories and reflected on what they learned. The method used honest storytelling to make setbacks discussable and turn them into learning material for others.Cross-Sector Presenting & Listening Circle: Participants listened to and shared stories from industry, maker, creative and educational contexts in one shared setting. This helped reveal similar challenges across sectors and lowered barriers between professional groups. Peer pressure was eliminated and resulted in lively feedback from the participants on both sides.
Informal Trust-Building Exchange: After the stories, participants continued the conversation in an open and relaxed networking setting. This supported personal connection, honest dialogue and first steps toward future collaboration.
Steps taken
Concept & Speaker Curation
5 hours
- Define Fail Forward frame: Set the focus on failure culture, learning, trust-building and cross-sector exchange.
- Select diverse speakers: Invited three speakers from design/makerspace, nomadic maker work and technical education/engineering.
- Brief speakers: Prepared speakers to share honest personal stories with clear learnings, not polished success cases.
Target Group Invitation
1 hour
- Activate local networks: Invited SMEs, creatives, makers, education actors, BSOs and local interest groups.
- Use personal outreach: Addressed participants directly to lower barriers and encourage trust-based participation.
- Communicate low-threshold format: Framed the evening as informal, open and accessible rather than as a formal conference.
Welcome & Shared Framing
15 min.
- Create safe atmosphere: Welcomed participants in a relaxed community setting with drinks and snacks.
- Introduce failure culture: Explained why honest reflection on setbacks is relevant for learning and innovation.
Fail Forward Storytelling
1 hour - 1,5 hour
- Three failure stories: Speakers shared real experiences from creative, maker and technical education contexts.
- Learning focus: Each story highlighted lessons around motivation, responsibility, communication or expectation management.
- Cross-sector relevance: Stories were chosen to be understandable and useful beyond the speaker’s own field.
Open Exchange & Reflection
1 hour - 1,5 hours
- Audience sharing: Participants were encouraged to share their own experiences and reactions.
- Informal networking: Open conversations helped lower barriers and create personal connections.
- Collect learnings: Key observations were documented for reporting and future replication.
Results
Measurable and Direct Outcomes
The local action brought about the following concrete results:
- Follow-up projects: The event created a tested format that can be repeated in other maker hubs such as Plauen, Lößnitz or Chemnitz. It also opened the possibility to develop a small regional Fail Forward series connecting SMEs, makers, creatives and innovation actors through shared learning from failure.
- Stakeholder awareness / network extensions: The event brought together SMEs, makers, creatives, education actors, business support organisations and local interest groups in one informal setting. This created new personal contacts and lowered barriers for future cooperation.
- New / enhanced cooperation: The Fail Forward format created first trust-based connections between actors who do not usually meet in such an open setting. While no formal partnership was established immediately, the action opened concrete potential for follow-up formats and collaboration.
Indirect Impacts
The action helped make failure discussable as part of learning and innovation. It lowered barriers between SMEs, makers, creatives, education actors and local networks through honest storytelling. No formal structure was established yet, but the format can be reused for further cross-disciplinary Fail Forward evenings.
Local Outlook / Follow-up
- Repeat Fail Forward in other creative locations: The format can be repeated in regional maker hubs such as Plauen, Lößnitz, Zwönitz or Chemnitz. Each edition should invite speakers from different sectors to strengthen local trust and exchange.
- Build a small regional Fail Forward series: Kreatives Chemnitz and regional partners can develop the format into a light event series connecting SMEs, makers, creatives and innovation actors. This would make failure culture a recurring topic in the regional innovation ecosystem.
- Use the format as a soft-skill best practice: The pilot can be used as a practical example in x-Inno Radar transfer work and regional strategy discussions. It shows how reflection, empathy, communication and trust-building can be activated with very limited resources.
- Link future editions to companies and intermediaries: Future events should involve chambers, business support organisations or industry networks more directly in outreach. This could help reach companies that are usually harder to activate for creative or maker-based formats.
Evaluation
Satisfaction - Overview
Participants were very satisfied with the open and honest atmosphere of the Fail Forward evening. The format quickly encouraged audience members to share their own experiences, which showed that the barrier to participation was low. Participants valued the personal stories because they were relatable, educational and different from usual success-oriented networking events. The strong informal exchange after the talks indicated that the format created trust and interest in further conversations.
Satisfaction - Details
- Honest atmosphere lowered barriers: Participants reacted strongly to the personal and unpolished nature of the failure stories. The audience started sharing their own experiences, showing that the format quickly created trust and openness.
- High educational value of diverse stories: The three stories came from different fields: design/makerspace practice, nomadic maker work and technical education. This made the learnings transferable across sectors, especially around motivation, responsibility, communication and expectation management.
- Strong potential for repetition: The evening showed that Fail Forward can work with very limited resources and in many different local settings. Participants’ active exchange indicated that similar formats could be repeated in other maker hubs or regional innovation spaces.
Transfer Hints
- Use failure stories as entry point: Start with honest personal stories instead of success cases. This lowers barriers quickly and makes learning, risk and uncertainty easier to discuss across sectors.
- Invite speakers from different fields: Combine voices from industry, maker practice, creative work, education or community contexts. Diversity of perspectives makes the learnings more transferable and avoids a closed peer-group atmosphere.
- Keep the setting informal and safe: Choose a relaxed space, provide simple hospitality and avoid a conference-like setup. People are more willing to speak openly when the atmosphere feels personal and non-judgemental.
- Focus on learning curves, not fail-exposure: Make clear that the aim is not to expose mistakes, but to understand what can be learned from them. This helps build trust and turns failure into a shared resource for innovation.
- Leave time for audience exchange: Do not end directly after the talks. The strongest connections often happen when participants start sharing their own stories informally afterwards.
- Adapt the venue: The format can work in a makerspace, community centre, company, school, coworking space or cultural venue. The core is a safe and informal, creative atmosphere, not a specific room type.
- Vary the speaker mix: Speakers can come from industry, creative work, maker practice, education, public administration or civil society. What matters is that different perspectives meet and that stories include clear learnings.
- Change the event size: The format can work as a small intimate evening or as a larger public event. Smaller groups may support deeper exchange, while larger groups can raise wider awareness for failure culture.
- Use different facilitation styles: The exchange can be moderated as an open discussion, short Q&A, table conversations or informal networking. The core is that participants are invited to reflect and connect after the stories.
- Adjust the thematic focus: Future editions can focus on entrepreneurship, education, technology, community work, creative production or industrial transformation. The key is to keep failure as a shared learning resource.
- Keep the stories real, not too polished: Avoid polished presentations where failure is only mentioned as a step toward success. The format works best when stories are honest, personal and reflective.
- Create a caring frame for speakers: Make sure speakers feel safe and well briefed before sharing their story. The aim is to learn together from setbacks, not to expose or embarrass anyone.
- Do not invite only one sector or department: Avoid a closed peer-group setting where everyone comes from the same background. The value comes from cross-sector learning between industry, makers, creatives, education and community actors.
- Do not skip informal exchange: Do not end directly after the talks. The open conversations afterwards are essential for trust-building, networking and future cooperation.
Participant Testimonials & Impressions
Impressions
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Access the complete implementation guide and connect with the team
Contact: Nadine Knödler
Email: nadine@aufweiterflur.org
Need more information?
Project manager:
Franziska Görmar
IfL - Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Germany
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This project is supported by the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme with co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund.
Find more information about the x-Inno Radar project on the Interreg CE projectwebsite.
x-Inno Radar is a project of: 
Creative Region Linz & Upper Austria Gmbh, 
The Regional Chamber of Commerce of the Karlovy Vary Region, 
Padova Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agriculture, 
Creative Industry Košice, n. o., 
BSC, Business support centre, ltd., Kranj, 
Regional Development Agency in Bielsko-Biała, 
Stebo Competence Centre Community Developmentm, 
Association of Cultural and Creative Industries Chemnitz and Region (Creative Chemnitz), Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography – Germany, Otelo Cooperative