SANDPOINT — Failure is a component of success and, sometimes, even the most innovative products can fail.

Google Glass, for example, was the next big thing a few short years ago. But due to privacy issues, the optical-display eyewear is now on display in the Museum of Failure.

"There is not only one reason why these products and services fail," said Dr. Samuel West, a licensed clinical psychologist and director of the Museum of Failure in Helsingborg, Sweden, during a Skype session Thursday.

Some of those reasons, he said, include conflicts in the organization, competition amongst teams in an organization, poor design, poor implementation and poor marketing.

"You can screw up anywhere along that continuum of the innovation process," West said. "It's fascinating."

West will be the guest speaker during next week's Inventors Association of Idaho for the group's first international Skype session. At that time, West will be in England, so while it will be 2:30 p.m. in Sandpoint, it will be 10:30 p.m. in London. Thursday's meeting was a connection test and preliminary discussion between West and a couple of IAOI members, Bill Hertzberg and Jason Giddings, to which the Daily Bee was invited.

Hertzberg said IAOI has been around for seven years and hosted several people who have been "tremendously successful and famous," but they have all been within the United States.

"Here we are branching out," Hertzberg said. "And I'm sure we will be doing more of it; looking to other areas of the world and how they relate to invention and product development."

West, a researcher at Lund University in Sweden, holds a doctorate in organizational psychology with a focus on innovation. He also spent the last 10 years working as a consultant, helping organizations improve their climate for innovation. His 2015 thesis was titled "Playing at Work: Organizational Play as a Facilitator of Creativity."

"The elements of playfulness, such as experimentation and exploration, are key factors for innovation," West said. "A playful environment is where you can test new behaviors ... In a playful environment you are willing to test something new because you feel safe that the people around you, your teammates, won't penalize you or judge you for trying something new.

These days, he said, he mostly works at the museum and hosts workshops and talks related to the mission of the museum. West opened the museum in June 2017 with about 70 failed products from across the globe, he said.

The products on display vary from failed food products to technology that just didn't make the cut. When asked, West said it is "impossible" for him to choose a particular item that really stood out to him, but said he does enjoy "a good story," such as Kodak.

"They had all of the technology, all of the engineering, competence and resources — they could see the writing on the wall," West said. "They could see the future was happening. They invented the digital camera ... but they failed to adapt their business model, so they go bankrupt in 2012 despite all of their brilliance and their resources."

While it wasn't a "sensational" product, West said the story is fascinating because people get "stuck" in their ideas of how things should be, and how Kodak thought getting people to print or develop their photos was the only way to make money. Also interesting, he said, was the same month Kodak went bankrupt, Instagram was sold to Facebook for $1 billion.

He also enjoys the "quick and dirty" stories of technology-related stuff like Nokia's N-Gage cellphone/gaming device, or Nintendo's virtual reality games, Iridium satellite phone. There are also "fun" stories like the potato chips made with olestra, a calorie-free fat substitute that causes diarrhea, West said.

And long before he was president, Donald Trump released a board game titled, "Trump: The Game." West said the game first launched in 1989, and then a simplified version was released during the time of Trump's reality show, "The Apprentice." Both attempts failed and the game was discontinued in 2004.

"What I think is interesting is they didn't learn from their failures the first time," West said.

Though West said he doesn't know the story behind every failed product, he is a wealth of knowledge about many of them, which he will discuss during next week's meeting.

The IAOI meeting is scheduled for Oct. 4, the first Wednesday of the month, at 2 p.m. in the second-floor auditorium of the Columbia Bank Building, 414 Church St.

And in honor of the first international Skype session, Hertzberg said he is working on getting some Swedish foods, such as Swedish meatballs, Swedish fish or, as suggested by West, smorrebrod — an open-faced sandwich.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.