studio non troppo : mindful design : facilitation

Photo: gilles chiroleu

About halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, off the west side of I-25, stands someone’s great idea that didn’t make it. Originally designed as an outlet mall, it failed to attract enough customers and was bought up by a Native American group that renamed it “Traditions!” and restyled it as one-stop shopping for Indian gifts.

That failed, too, and some other enterprising folks bought up the whole outfit and turned it into a turnkey movie studio and production mall (can you call that a mall?)

I saw recently that it’s for sale again.

I’m guessing it has something to do with the location. People driving between Albuquerque and Santa Fe are, for the most part, pretty focused on getting to the city they didn’t leave from. The drive is about an hour but would be 15 minutes longer to exit I-25 and see the “great idea,” given that it’s not an easy-off, easy-on exit.

In any event, the “great idea” wasn’t.

Since so many people with much more disposable income than you come up with great ideas that fail, you should notice this and not take it for granted that your great idea will succeed.

But don’t take this the wrong way.

You should still try out your great ideas. Just spend a little time figuring out how you’re going to avoid bankrupting yourself if the idea doesn’t pan out. That way, you can keep rolling out new trials of new “great ideas,” and eventually, in retrospect, some of your guesses will turn out to have been right on.