Argo, the Blog

We’ve talked to Argo bloggers about considering the economics concept of ‘Stock & Flow’ in the context of publishing. To be more precise, Matt has introduced the concept and comes back to it frequently.

Now Twitter’s Robin Sloan (also Matt’s blogging partner on Snarkmarket) writes:

Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people that you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.

I feel like flow is ascendant these days, for obvious reasons—but we neglect stock at our own peril. I mean that both in terms of the health of an audience and, like, the health of a soul. Flow is a treadmill, and you can’t spend all of your time running on the treadmill. Well, you can. But then one day you’ll get off and look around and go: Oh man. I’ve got nothing here.

But I’m not saying you should ignore flow! No: this is no time to hole up and work in isolation, emerging after long months or years with your perfectly-polished opus. Everybody will go: huh? Who are you? And even if they don’t—even if your exquisitely-carved marble statue of Boba Fett is the talk of the tumblrs for two whole days—if you don’t have flow to plug your new fans into, you’re suffering a huge (here it is!) opportunity cost. You’ll have to find them all again next time you emerge from your cave.

Robin ends by saying it’s not really a huge insight, but I disagree. It actually is quite insightful. It is a good way to consider whether you are giving adequate weight to one without ignoring the other.