{"id":52070,"date":"2014-06-23T13:03:21","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T11:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=52070"},"modified":"2014-06-23T13:03:21","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T11:03:21","slug":"ben-shaffer-innovation-means-building-a-safe-space-for-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=52070","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shaffer: Innovation Means Building a Safe Space for Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/98550935\" width=\"922\" height=\"519\" frameborder=\"0\" title=\"Ben Shaffer: Innovation Means Building a Safe Space for Failure\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t get to the really brilliant ideas without first building off of the really awful ones. In the Nike Kitchen, the shoe company\u2019s innovation lab responsible for the genre-busting Nike Flyknit (as seen in the 2012 Olympics and 2014 World Cup), the company focuses on building a safe space for failure to help push the envelope and develop completely new products. \u201cBy having an area where we can incubate and build, and not necessarily always worry about what a failure it is, we understand that we can learn from it. It really allows us to amplify and create new seedlings, off which we can build more crops,\u201d explains Shaffer.<br \/>\nBut the most important part of innovating, says Shaffer, is including your user in the entire process: \u201cFor us, having that single focus, which is our athlete, and listening to and observing them from the beginning of a project all the way through to the end is extremely vital.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can\u2019t get to the really brilliant ideas without first building off of the really awful ones. In the Nike Kitchen, the shoe company\u2019s innovation lab responsible for the genre-busting Nike Flyknit (as seen in the 2012 Olympics and 2014 World Cup), the company focuses on building a safe space for failure to help push [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-presentations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":121599,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=121599","url_meta":{"origin":52070,"position":0},"title":"Ben Shaffer: Innovation Means Building a Safe Space for Failure","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"23\/06\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"You can\u2019t get to the really brilliant ideas without first building off of the really awful ones. In the Nike Kitchen, the shoe company\u2019s innovation lab responsible for the genre-busting Nike Flyknit (as seen in the 2012 Olympics and 2014 World Cup), the company focuses on building a safe space\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;all other stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"all other stuff","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":148696,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=148696","url_meta":{"origin":52070,"position":1},"title":"The Tariff Apocalypse: When Politics Becomes Your CMO","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"29\/09\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The new Chief Marketing Officer of America\u2019s biggest brands doesn\u2019t sit in Madison Avenue boardrooms. It sits in Washington. And it doesn\u2019t care about brand love, market share, or cultural relevance. It cares about tariffs. This summer, General Motors reported a $1.1 billion tariff hit. Apple lost another $1.1 billion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;all other stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"all other stuff","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-12.47.51.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-12.47.51.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-12.47.51.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-12.47.51.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-12.47.51.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thecuriousbrain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-12.47.51.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6718,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=6718","url_meta":{"origin":52070,"position":2},"title":"Nike Woman","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"15\/02\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Nike Woman from edouard salier on Vimeo. A very impressive animated advert for Nike women! Does anyone know the agency behind this? For more cool advertising by Nike click here","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ads","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13393,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=13393","url_meta":{"origin":52070,"position":3},"title":"LIVE [NIKE]","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"27\/10\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"LIVE [NIKE] from SomeofmyWork\u2122 on Vimeo. This is the end result of a Nike sponsored arts based project! Nike supplied individuals with a pair of Nike trainers and asked the people to create a piece that 'challenged the function of the shoes, using sport as an inspiration'. This is Jim\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ads","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8462,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=8462","url_meta":{"origin":52070,"position":4},"title":"Nike chase","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"15\/04\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Nike chase from ilovedust on Vimeo. Great eye candy work by ilovedust , for Nike Japan! Must see! The song you hear is Repair Machines by Vitalic! See more awesome Nike ads featured in this blog here","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ads","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8139,"url":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?p=8139","url_meta":{"origin":52070,"position":5},"title":"NIKE MERCURIAL","author":"thebrainbehind","date":"03\/04\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"NIKE MERCURIAL from gkaster on Vimeo. Incredible animated work for Nike by GKASTER","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ads","link":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52071,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52070\/revisions\/52071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecuriousbrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}