Failure on the March

This is the first of what I fear will be many blog entries in the coming weeks about the topic of failure. We are fast approaching the June publication date for the book that Aubrey and I have been working on for the past few years: Trial & Error in Criminal Justice Reform: Learning from Failure (Urban Institute Press). Even as we wait for the book to arrive, I have been inundated with reminders of why we chose to wrote a book on projects that struggled to achieve their goals. One comes from my friend Phil, who is one of the smartest people I know about non-profits. He sends along this link from the Case Foundation -- a rare example of a foundation takling openly about its own mistakes. Also, this article from Slate discusses the recent proliferation of books about success, thus highlighting why it might be a nice balance to have a few books about failure.