Where is the value?

For those of us who build or create, produce products, or develop ideas, a question exists: where is the personal value? Is it in the medium (the design and materials) or the content (words and substance)? The results (tangible) or the impression left behind (subtle)? I’d wager to say it’s in the experience that brought the piece to fruition.

This question was sparked when one of our sons asked my husband about his collection of research and family memorabilia, hoping to help him de-clutter. “It’s the content,” my husband said, bent on scanning, likely forgetting how much he treasures the old glass negatives we have from his grandfather. But maybe it is the content – which, thanks to modern technology – can be easily captured, enhanced, saved, and shared. Do we really need to retain the original format? Maybe it’s time to let go.

As I look in my files, organized by job and pared down over the years, I do have some old, printed pieces I still admire for the paper stock and typography. Probably a lost art. Not to say I don’t appreciate more recent, digital, collateral, (the quality is superb) but there’s something tactile about the old stuff that conjures memories. It dawns on me that much of this sentimentality rests in the invisible: the teamwork it took to produce the piece, the heroics required to go to press during a blizzard, the finesse needed to overcome internal politics, the workarounds invented when budgets were cut.

Reporters certainly know the exhaustion and persistence that go into a good story. Designers who jump through hoops to beat a deadline can empathize. Engineers get midnight calls and pull all-nighters to fix a website or block an intrusion. Broadcast producers are summoned at all hours when news breaks. No one really sees the sacrifice – lost sleep, ruined vacations, forfeited family time, and loyalty most likely not reciprocated in a layoff. While these things are not a matter of life-and-death in a medical sense, most of us ‘put a lot of ourselves’ into the work we do.

So maybe it’s not the content or the format, the praise, or the profits, that creates personal value, but rather, the backstory that brings a smile or shake of the head. It is with this sentiment that I will selectively shred, going into the New Year, but I will probably take photos first.