At the Centre for Unusual Collaborations we recognize that ground breaking ideas are often built on the back of failures. As such, we aim to create an atmosphere of openness around them, because they are epicenters of learning. We are not afraid of acknowledging failures, reflecting on them, learning from them, and even celebrating them. In this interactive festival we will host ‘failure experts’, we share examples of our own failures as a Centre seeking to do things differently and we welcome participants to share examples of (professional) failures and to explore the learning and novel possibilities these failures provided (or not!).
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 13:45 Plenary opening
The CUCo Board reflects on the meaning of failure as well as specific failures made during the initiation of CUCo
13:45 - 15:30 Workshops
Workshop 1: Perfection Stress - given by the ‘Instituut voor Faalkunde’ (Institute for failure studies). Here we will confront topics such as: what does it mean to want to be perfect all the time? And how can we deal with this? The instituut voor Faalkunde is spearheaded by Remko van der Drift a self-taught failure expert who’s been exploring failure, and our fear of it, since 2007. He hopes to impart some of his wisdom to us, particularly on wanting to be perfect.
Workshop 2: How to write a CV of Failure? We all have our own CV’s filled with our most impressive accomplishments, but what if we made a CV of failure? What do we learn? And what does that mean if we want to present ourselves to others? Scott Douglas will be taking us on this adventure.
Workshop 3: Failure and storytelling workshop: Need to present your research soon? Your project is only as good as it comes across, so come follow our interactive workshop on creative storytelling to sharpen your communication skills! Expect to give the most bizarre presentation of your life and go home with some valuable lessons for the next one! Our experts: Mathias Verheijden, Founder and video marketeer at Focality Media. With a background in Industrial Design (TU/e) and 5 years of experience in creative filmmaking, storytelling is the core of his expertise. And Collin Wagenmakers, Founder and video marketeer at Focality Media. Through combining an academic background in Applied Mathematics with the art of video production, Collin specializes in turning complex concepts into compelling stories.
15:30 - 16:00 Break
16:00 - 17:00 Failure theatre
We will be finishing our Great Failure Festival with a great show! The Instituut voor Faalkunde is bringing along a group of (improvisation) actors, to make a collaborative theatre piece with the audience. Failure/Fun guaranteed!
17:00 Drinks