This spark fizzled, but we felt compelled to include it anyway because we tried so hard to make it work.

The Presidential inauguration was obviously going to be broadcast live over TV and the internet. We had a monitor in our lobby streaming the events via the internet all morning. Just before the swearing in and Obama's big speech, our guests asked if we could project the event on the big screen in the room they were using. We quickly hooked everything up, but in the process lost our solid internet connection.

We worked furiously to get re-connected in time, but apparently the rest of the world wanted to watch, too. We tried every online media outlet we could think of: CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, local affiliates and more. All jammed.

Our valiant efforts never paid off. Our guests understood, but our staff was really bummed that we couldn't deliver.

What made this our favorite spark today:
We literally did everything we possibly could to make this happen for our guests. It was a good lesson for us: sometimes, even with our best efforts, we might not be able to deliver. As hard as might try, we won't win them all. We never want this to cause us to relax our standards, but we also don't need to beat ourselves up if we fail once in awhile...especially when the failure is completely out of our control.


If you've got a "failure" story, share it with us! Tell us what you learned & how you handled it.