Duolingo. I often find myself taking shortcuts by doing lessons in a language I already know well, just to set a checkmark next to the daily streak. This way, all the gamification elements that are aimed at keeping people engaged with Duolingo can often pull you away from the core goal of actually, you know, learning a language.
Right there with you! I'm trying to make sure I can see both the trees and the forest. Of course, I realize that gamification works on me, so I've tried to leverage that for most of my life, making little games out of projects and tasks.
"Can you think of any times when you’ve fallen into the millstone/milestone trap, where a marker of progress became an obsession that derailed the whole project?"
Yeah, Substack is full of them. "I only need two more subscribers to get to X! Won't someone please subscribe?"
Over and over. X can be fifty, or a hundred, or five thousand. People are just frickin' obsessed with a number.
And when you get to a hundred, you want two hundred. Five hundred. Whatever.
No, I haven't. I'm grateful for the subscribers I have, but they don't put food on my table or a roof over my head.
No matter how many you have, someone somewhere has more. It's a fool's game.
Besides, most of them never look at my posts.
The stat that I actually care about is how many eyeballs see my photos - not the subscribers but the views. And thanks to Substack that's a bigger number than I've ever had in my life.
That's really cool. I came over here simply because I thought the idea of social media was good- folks could congregate around and discuss an idea in some detail, but of course that's not how 99% of social media works. I was delighted to find that I could share thoughts and then have more meaningful conversations on that basis, so we could get into the weeds on things like chasing metrics and such.
Everything else is secondary. This is a place for me to think and to refine my thought process with other minds.
There’s a story about a football coach who took over a lackluster team and got to work setting a goal to win the playoffs. Lofty goal as they were winless the prior season. They did it and it was hard, fighting through injury and setbacks. They were euphoric when they won the division. Then came the biggest game of the season - the championship. They lost miserably, shut out. Embarrassing. Coach set the wrong goal.
I think this describes my little league team. We went from worst to first, just like the Atlanta Braves did in the late 80s or early 90s, but we did it way sooner, so way cooler.
We made it to the championship game, then got smashed.
I won the regionals in wrestling my senior year, but then got destroyed in the states.
Truning Milestones into Millstones. Sounds like we need to collaborate on a new essay.
Yes, but I still want to do the emergence one!
Duolingo. I often find myself taking shortcuts by doing lessons in a language I already know well, just to set a checkmark next to the daily streak. This way, all the gamification elements that are aimed at keeping people engaged with Duolingo can often pull you away from the core goal of actually, you know, learning a language.
Right there with you! I'm trying to make sure I can see both the trees and the forest. Of course, I realize that gamification works on me, so I've tried to leverage that for most of my life, making little games out of projects and tasks.
"Can you think of any times when you’ve fallen into the millstone/milestone trap, where a marker of progress became an obsession that derailed the whole project?"
Yeah, Substack is full of them. "I only need two more subscribers to get to X! Won't someone please subscribe?"
Over and over. X can be fifty, or a hundred, or five thousand. People are just frickin' obsessed with a number.
And when you get to a hundred, you want two hundred. Five hundred. Whatever.
Holy cow.
Ken, have you fallen into this trap? I've chased metrics here, but I also got over it pretty quickly.
No, I haven't. I'm grateful for the subscribers I have, but they don't put food on my table or a roof over my head.
No matter how many you have, someone somewhere has more. It's a fool's game.
Besides, most of them never look at my posts.
The stat that I actually care about is how many eyeballs see my photos - not the subscribers but the views. And thanks to Substack that's a bigger number than I've ever had in my life.
That's really cool. I came over here simply because I thought the idea of social media was good- folks could congregate around and discuss an idea in some detail, but of course that's not how 99% of social media works. I was delighted to find that I could share thoughts and then have more meaningful conversations on that basis, so we could get into the weeds on things like chasing metrics and such.
Everything else is secondary. This is a place for me to think and to refine my thought process with other minds.
There’s a story about a football coach who took over a lackluster team and got to work setting a goal to win the playoffs. Lofty goal as they were winless the prior season. They did it and it was hard, fighting through injury and setbacks. They were euphoric when they won the division. Then came the biggest game of the season - the championship. They lost miserably, shut out. Embarrassing. Coach set the wrong goal.
I think this describes my little league team. We went from worst to first, just like the Atlanta Braves did in the late 80s or early 90s, but we did it way sooner, so way cooler.
We made it to the championship game, then got smashed.
I won the regionals in wrestling my senior year, but then got destroyed in the states.
Business too; gotta set the right goals; implement the right incentives, else - HAHA you lose!
Agree big time! Perverse incentives can cause big problems, too.
I love me a perverse incentive; kissing cousin to unexpected consequence (which I also love - ok maybe not love but always interesting)
Thinking about how they can mess things up can be really fun. Maybe we're the perverse ones!