the Value Economy for Creators

We are bombarded by a lot of content every day! just open any screen 😄 ..such awesome easy to browse dashboards rendered on different sizes, that we almost forget the purpose that led us to browsing at the first place!😆 over time we have been accustomed; take that kind of grooming out, from unconscious area of our brain, the mere thought of looking at these infinite tunnel of content, should faint us out! 😵

But no, we need all our consciousness here 👀

Yes it is true, there’s a tussle between count vs value- and today I don’t have an answer, neither are we seeking one here! so peace for us…

first, who’s a Creator: someone who produces an outcome, that has an effect on, any or a combination of our five senses. Second, when we talk about value, its all perception. So a creator might have faith in his/her own work, but the effect it has, depends on the perceived quality or usefulness.

This perceived quality is definitely predictable to some extent through market research- but lets put that aside. Since any or all kinds of outcomes might not have an existing market or economy at all, and it’s not something we can control to a high degree.

So, from here on, whenever we refer to value here, it’s not exactly Value as perceived by audience, but Value that a creator has in mind ‘for society/customer/others’ while being built- that might exceed, meet, or perform poorly, we just don’t know what happens!

In essence, and simply put (because we love simplicity) there are three pillars of a Value Economy,

• Value
• Value Discovery
• Retention

Building great value into a system, outcome, service or product is great, in fact awesome, since it is the toughest part and is done silently. But say, its all there packaged, but we do not have any distribution designed, then it’s not value that has failed to excite but blame the ill-designed or ill-planned discovery mechanisms.

We should put our hearts out while creating value, but always make it a point to actively create value discovery pipelines! This will sustain value in ways where we can capture continuous feedback, and experiment in small increments. Often in this area, we spend a lot of time predicting, discussing, finding the right kind of balance between organic and inorganic discovery systems and setting up measures (fancied as OKRs 🙄)- but doing and learning along the way should be our mindset. That way we do not suppress any part of our brains, but promote testing out all kinds of hypothesis, in a manageable way of course.

Finally, Retention it is. Being able to focus and discuss about this area, is an achievement in itself- that means we already have a working value delivery system.

Retention should not be treated as, a result of closing and opening our books annually, quarterly, or be it any frequency, but rather be a process of repeated exchanges of ideas and ways to increase the breadth and depth of value that is already active.

We do have a word for it- Engagement! 🤓 Lets put it to best use, since..

Retention is a result of continuous Engagement, and not the other way round!

Coming to the hierarchical relationship,

Value >>> Value Discovery >>> Retention

Value should encompass and be more that what we are putting up for discovery pipelines. And value discovered by users should evolve continuously to encompass and secure retention, driving even more engagement.

Hope this works for everyone.

Simplicity is best when practiced 💗