I hope to comment more effusively later ( I have a meeting in three minutes) but everything tries to engage in value capture, even people who have a goal 9f writing 500 words a day. Why, if 499 of them will be cr*p? Very insightful essay, and touches on something I've been composing myself thanks, Tom
I have to agree with you Tom ... I haven't closed my rings yet, in fact I had had a (fairly basic) Apple Watch for some time before I even knew what they were. I check my daily steps but mostly for consistency than to beat an arbitrary target. I have no intention of going paid here either for much the same reasons as you coupled with "can't be bothered". Good article.
Thats worth waiting for! "the value capture that haunts me the most is the one I struggled with in the last years of my corporate career. That’s a story I’ll hold for next time."
I guess they say that 'every political career ends in disappointment', and these days, juggling any job above a basic menial level incorporates game-play and career strategies. I defined mine as 'leaping lilypads' (job-hopping - new job every three years of my life on average) because it meant I could leave the office politics behind just as the knives were being sharpened. Its also financially successful - I got my fair share of lump-sum payouts, mainly because most employers seem to be willing to pay rather than be taken through an expensive Industrial Tribunal on grounds of process failure - and took advantage of a lapse and rather generous contract to take early retiral on an index-linked pension at 52 - enabling me to spend the rest of my career working - basically - for myself.
I'm sure everyone who works out with some kind of smart watch will have a story like this. I used to run with a garmin that recorded everything. I quit running for a while when my Average Heart Rate soared into a high zone. I was convinced that I would have a heart attack, even though I felt great running. When I started back, I moved the AHR away from the main face, and looked at it infrequently, but I would decide if I had had a "good" run based on my time per K. It didn't matter how my body felt, I was convinced I had had a "good" or "bad" run based on the number that appeared on the screen. I recently ditched the garmin for a coros. I rarely look at the biodata that it collects, and I feel more like me. Still have good and bad days, but I place the value on it based on how my body feels. I am embarrassed to admit this second obsession. I do spelling bees every morning--the ones that are similar to the NYT but free. I now obsess on my average score, ranking, and number on "pangrams" I score. It's an addiction, indeed.
do you mark your calendar "QB" on the days you get all the words? Do you worry when you have to settle for "G" on the calendar??? I only let Chuck help me as a last resort, and then I have to mark "co-QB." God.
QB is Queen Bee; G is Genius. I do the NYT Spelling Bee first...and alone. The other free versions are my extension of the NTY obsession. I do them compulsively! Just type "free spelling be" in your server and you'll see several sites. But do save yourself...don't go there!!
Using the phone to track walking distance as I try to build a daily habit but ooh, those rings are enticing, aren’t they? The test came when I did my walk on a treadmill due to weather this week - me and my paper agenda know, but...but, the rings, maaaan. Great stuff, Tom. We need to encourage more thoughtful use of technology (and not its’ thoughtless use of us).
Thank you, Tom! Another thoughtful, well-penned post I'm sure all of us can appreciate. I know I do. Isn't "value capture" one of the many mechanisms used to grease the wheels of the "engagement economy?" Such a funny coincidence: Right after I finished reading your post, I looked down at my iPhone and noticed an unfamiliar app icon on the home screen (apparently loaded during last night's software update). "Journal" - 1. Write about your day and add photos, places, and more. 2. Lock your journal to keep it private. 3. Schedule time for writing and make it a habit. Argh! The beast is never sated.
I love this term value capture you shared here. It’s such a relief almost when there is suddenly a simple way of referencing a complex situation of experiences and feelings that have felt hard to describe. Helps me see so clearly that what I’m busy with is recapturing my own values. I came to Substack, tired of Instagram. I arrived with stars in my eyes, haha. But two weeks in I have recognized that the scenery might different, but some things prevail. So it’s been necessary to consciously take stock of what I enjoy here (the writing, the reading and the community) and what I don’t (the numbers, the notes, the blurry line between marketing and writing). And of course regularly putting it all down because the word will still be there later.
As I read this Tom I was saying to myself that I don't fall for this "value captured" stuff. No sooner had I had that thought and my phone told me I got a new notification from Instagram and I hopped on to see it. Once there I spent at least 30 minutes reading, scrolling, watching etc. The deep black hole captured me. I also saw it in a game I play on my phone. It puts me in a competition with others in the game and if you "win" the competition you get points (free lives like things). I scramble to play as much as I can to "win". Dagnabit...I fall for it all the time.
Thank you for your thoughts. I love the 'value capture' concept as it reminds me that I must be vigilant in living my values. It reminds me of Rene Girard's Mimetic Desire and how we live most of our lives wanting what others want and not truly examining our own true desires.
"paid subscriptions are perfectly consistent with their goals and their values. They should go paid." This one got my back up a bit, Tom. Substack is the first and only place I've felt that I was ALLOWED to assign value to my creative work and expect people who are consuming it consistently to consider compensating me for it. You are one of the few people who did this!! And I trust the decision to pay for my writing wasn't one you made lightly. Asking people for money is NOT consistent with my goals OR my values, but at the end of the day, I'm a mother of two who hasn't had an income for 3 years because for some stupid reason I think I have a future as a fiction writer. I don't have a published library of books to stand on/sell, nor do I have one of those independently wealthy spouses you hear about. Maybe the issue with Substack isn't that it wants people to make money so they can make money, as much as it is making us believe (falsely) that avid readers with vast stores of expendable income at their disposal are willing to drop $60 to read the work of one of their favorite authors, the minute it goes to press. I'm probably getting off topic here, but yours is a stance that I think is very easy for someone in your position to take. I don't want to give all my writing away for free. Not anymore. Because it's good enough for people to buy it. And until I get an agent to sign on to sell my work for me, I'm the only one who can do it. And it sucks. My point is, I wish I could "not go paid" on Substack, too, and feel good about it. But that's a hard sell for me. After reading through the rest of your comments, I feel like a real outsider having that opinion, which is why I'm expressing it. 💛
Thanks, Tom. Appreciate this thoughtful piece! Nowadays, it seems, if it can't be quantified or captured in some fashion or another, it isn't important or doesn't exist. I always bristled at the way the corporate boneheads who ran the companies I worked at only seemed to care about Numbers. Their spreadsheets created a nice, safe world. That was the only reality that counted. Things like instinct, inspiration, experience -- because they couldn't be captured easily on a spreadsheet -- didn't matter or, at least, didn't matter very much. That mindset seems to have infiltrated all aspects of life. I've mentioned this before, but author, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist presents data and arguments in his book, "The Master and His Emissary (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300245929/the-master-and-his-emissary/) for why and how we've gotten to this state and what it implies for the future. Cheers!
I hope to comment more effusively later ( I have a meeting in three minutes) but everything tries to engage in value capture, even people who have a goal 9f writing 500 words a day. Why, if 499 of them will be cr*p? Very insightful essay, and touches on something I've been composing myself thanks, Tom
I have to agree with you Tom ... I haven't closed my rings yet, in fact I had had a (fairly basic) Apple Watch for some time before I even knew what they were. I check my daily steps but mostly for consistency than to beat an arbitrary target. I have no intention of going paid here either for much the same reasons as you coupled with "can't be bothered". Good article.
Thats worth waiting for! "the value capture that haunts me the most is the one I struggled with in the last years of my corporate career. That’s a story I’ll hold for next time."
I guess they say that 'every political career ends in disappointment', and these days, juggling any job above a basic menial level incorporates game-play and career strategies. I defined mine as 'leaping lilypads' (job-hopping - new job every three years of my life on average) because it meant I could leave the office politics behind just as the knives were being sharpened. Its also financially successful - I got my fair share of lump-sum payouts, mainly because most employers seem to be willing to pay rather than be taken through an expensive Industrial Tribunal on grounds of process failure - and took advantage of a lapse and rather generous contract to take early retiral on an index-linked pension at 52 - enabling me to spend the rest of my career working - basically - for myself.
I'm sure everyone who works out with some kind of smart watch will have a story like this. I used to run with a garmin that recorded everything. I quit running for a while when my Average Heart Rate soared into a high zone. I was convinced that I would have a heart attack, even though I felt great running. When I started back, I moved the AHR away from the main face, and looked at it infrequently, but I would decide if I had had a "good" run based on my time per K. It didn't matter how my body felt, I was convinced I had had a "good" or "bad" run based on the number that appeared on the screen. I recently ditched the garmin for a coros. I rarely look at the biodata that it collects, and I feel more like me. Still have good and bad days, but I place the value on it based on how my body feels. I am embarrassed to admit this second obsession. I do spelling bees every morning--the ones that are similar to the NYT but free. I now obsess on my average score, ranking, and number on "pangrams" I score. It's an addiction, indeed.
do you mark your calendar "QB" on the days you get all the words? Do you worry when you have to settle for "G" on the calendar??? I only let Chuck help me as a last resort, and then I have to mark "co-QB." God.
QB is Queen Bee; G is Genius. I do the NYT Spelling Bee first...and alone. The other free versions are my extension of the NTY obsession. I do them compulsively! Just type "free spelling be" in your server and you'll see several sites. But do save yourself...don't go there!!
Using the phone to track walking distance as I try to build a daily habit but ooh, those rings are enticing, aren’t they? The test came when I did my walk on a treadmill due to weather this week - me and my paper agenda know, but...but, the rings, maaaan. Great stuff, Tom. We need to encourage more thoughtful use of technology (and not its’ thoughtless use of us).
Scroll down to view a photo of Sarah and Tom walking our Riverfront Trail many years before the Apple circles took over: https://warnerb.substack.com/p/riverview-looking-west
Thank you, Tom! Another thoughtful, well-penned post I'm sure all of us can appreciate. I know I do. Isn't "value capture" one of the many mechanisms used to grease the wheels of the "engagement economy?" Such a funny coincidence: Right after I finished reading your post, I looked down at my iPhone and noticed an unfamiliar app icon on the home screen (apparently loaded during last night's software update). "Journal" - 1. Write about your day and add photos, places, and more. 2. Lock your journal to keep it private. 3. Schedule time for writing and make it a habit. Argh! The beast is never sated.
I love this term value capture you shared here. It’s such a relief almost when there is suddenly a simple way of referencing a complex situation of experiences and feelings that have felt hard to describe. Helps me see so clearly that what I’m busy with is recapturing my own values. I came to Substack, tired of Instagram. I arrived with stars in my eyes, haha. But two weeks in I have recognized that the scenery might different, but some things prevail. So it’s been necessary to consciously take stock of what I enjoy here (the writing, the reading and the community) and what I don’t (the numbers, the notes, the blurry line between marketing and writing). And of course regularly putting it all down because the word will still be there later.
As I read this Tom I was saying to myself that I don't fall for this "value captured" stuff. No sooner had I had that thought and my phone told me I got a new notification from Instagram and I hopped on to see it. Once there I spent at least 30 minutes reading, scrolling, watching etc. The deep black hole captured me. I also saw it in a game I play on my phone. It puts me in a competition with others in the game and if you "win" the competition you get points (free lives like things). I scramble to play as much as I can to "win". Dagnabit...I fall for it all the time.
💯 also please do write more about the bullshit machine and your escape from corporate value/soul capture. I relate; makes me giggle
Thank you for your thoughts. I love the 'value capture' concept as it reminds me that I must be vigilant in living my values. It reminds me of Rene Girard's Mimetic Desire and how we live most of our lives wanting what others want and not truly examining our own true desires.
"paid subscriptions are perfectly consistent with their goals and their values. They should go paid." This one got my back up a bit, Tom. Substack is the first and only place I've felt that I was ALLOWED to assign value to my creative work and expect people who are consuming it consistently to consider compensating me for it. You are one of the few people who did this!! And I trust the decision to pay for my writing wasn't one you made lightly. Asking people for money is NOT consistent with my goals OR my values, but at the end of the day, I'm a mother of two who hasn't had an income for 3 years because for some stupid reason I think I have a future as a fiction writer. I don't have a published library of books to stand on/sell, nor do I have one of those independently wealthy spouses you hear about. Maybe the issue with Substack isn't that it wants people to make money so they can make money, as much as it is making us believe (falsely) that avid readers with vast stores of expendable income at their disposal are willing to drop $60 to read the work of one of their favorite authors, the minute it goes to press. I'm probably getting off topic here, but yours is a stance that I think is very easy for someone in your position to take. I don't want to give all my writing away for free. Not anymore. Because it's good enough for people to buy it. And until I get an agent to sign on to sell my work for me, I'm the only one who can do it. And it sucks. My point is, I wish I could "not go paid" on Substack, too, and feel good about it. But that's a hard sell for me. After reading through the rest of your comments, I feel like a real outsider having that opinion, which is why I'm expressing it. 💛
Thanks, Tom. Appreciate this thoughtful piece! Nowadays, it seems, if it can't be quantified or captured in some fashion or another, it isn't important or doesn't exist. I always bristled at the way the corporate boneheads who ran the companies I worked at only seemed to care about Numbers. Their spreadsheets created a nice, safe world. That was the only reality that counted. Things like instinct, inspiration, experience -- because they couldn't be captured easily on a spreadsheet -- didn't matter or, at least, didn't matter very much. That mindset seems to have infiltrated all aspects of life. I've mentioned this before, but author, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist presents data and arguments in his book, "The Master and His Emissary (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300245929/the-master-and-his-emissary/) for why and how we've gotten to this state and what it implies for the future. Cheers!