Interviews with Experts
Benjamin J Clarke Is a Data Scientist in Healthcare, with the British National Health Service (NHS), a Community Builder, and an Experienced Writer from the UK
Dear Subscribers,
Welcome to another episode of my interviews with authentic writers and experts from different fields.
Today, I will introduce you to Ben J Clarke, who is a seasoned data scientist, a great community builder, and a thoughtful writer on eclectic topics. I wanted to interview Ben as he recently created an excellent FREE tool for writers to cross-promote newsletters on his platform.
Readers from Medium can read this interview via this link.
Ben created a much-needed tool. I tried it and found it very helpful. I will write a detailed story about it soon. I asked Ben about it at the end, and he kindly mentioned it. I invite you to check this valuable tool at crosspromo.club.
You can learn it from the attached blog post
Meet Benjamin J Clarke from His Own Words
Hi Ben, Thank you for your time. Could you please provide some info about your background?
Hi Mehmet, yes, I’d be happy to provide some info about my background. Thank you for the opportunity. It is good to be part of your community.
I’m a healthcare data scientist, by profession, mostly with the British National Health Service (NHS). I started writing after a bit of burnout towards the end of the pandemic, and I’ve kept going as a kind of mental offloading.
I think it’s the structured thinking that I like, spending a few hours putting thoughts into coherent language.
You mentioned my community-building activities in your introduction. Thanks for it. I am the founder of IndyWriters. Recently, I’ve built a platform to help writers cross-promote each other. It’s called crosspromo.club, and I’d love for it to help everyone grow their audiences.
What do health and well-being mean to you?
As I’ve reached middle age, physical health has started to mean “not needing an icepack”.
I’ve always been active, so I’m used to having little bits of pain from bruises, strains, and the occasional injury, but healing has become slower and inflammation more regular. I put a lot more effort into warming up and cooling down than I used to.
Mentally, I think age is doing me good. My blood could run hot as a young man, and I could oscillate between jubilance and anxious depression. Settling into family life has been wonderful for me. I find the routine very calming.
What are your hobbies, or what excites or entertains you?
I like building things; many people who fall into coding professions do. You’d be surprised how many of us turn to woodworking to unwind after closing our laptops. I’ve become quite skilled with chisels and hand planes, and my house is a never-ending DIY project.
What are the top three books that have affected your life?
I suppose there are two ways of answering this. The first is to accept that the most important books are probably the ones I remember reading in a single sitting. These are: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde), The Princess Bride (William Goldman), and The Gun Seller (Hugh Laurie). But I’m promoting myself here, so I’ll take the second option — post-rationalize and sound clever:
- In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, by Dr. Gabor Maté.
It’s about addiction and is aimed at those of us who are fortunate enough not to suffer. It really opened my eyes to the gaps in our social safety nets — they’re not caused by funding or resource constraints, they’re gaps in our understanding and empathy. If you view a heroin user with a stolen TV as a crime problem, all you can achieve is a “revolving door” prison system. But if you realize that person is in pain and the only drug that works for them is illegal, you realize it’s a health issue.
2) Who Owns the Future, by Jaron Lanier.
If there is one person who might be Chaucer to our technological age, it’s Jaron Lanier. He’s a sort of Poet Laureate for Silicon Valley. Nobody has laid out the history, motivations, and effects of what we’ve come to call “Techno-Feudalism” with such clarity and brevity.
3) Alchemy, by Rory Sutherland.
It’s about thinking differently, which essentially equates to thinking against economic orthodoxy. Most clients I’ve worked with have wanted to make “data-driven” decisions, which they interpret to mean looking at the data they already have and using it to decide the best course of action. This is an upside-down way of doing things. A much better way is to apply human intuition to create several solutions, and then test them. The data you get from that testing will be much more valuable than what you had before.
Why did you join Medium?
I started on Medium for no other reason than that I was already a member. I think it was a good decision because submitting to publications gave me a sense of whether I was any good. Having said that, I moved over to Beehiiv about eighteen months ago because Medium’s nomination feature seemed to be tearing the platform apart.
Do you write on other platforms like Substack? If so, how do you find them?
I only really use Beehiiv. It has some analytics and automation features that make list hygiene easy, and that’s essential if you’re relying on emailed content. Inboxes are very trigger-happy when it comes to banishing you to the spam folder.
What are your values as a writer?
Be nice. There are limits to this because you have to write with honesty and integrity, and when powerful people are doing terrible things, you can’t sugarcoat it. But I try to avoid personal attacks on anyone who doesn’t have their own army.
I also avoid anything in the Culture War. I have opinions, like everyone, but I have absolutely no interest in arguing on the internet.
How do you connect with your readers?
When I started, I decided to be pleasant to read above all else. I write content that most would categorize as informative or opinion-based, but I always choose wording that adds to the reading experience. I’d rather be misunderstood than boring.
Beyond that, I think there are two big things writers can do. The first is to publish with a regular cadence so that readers know when to expect you. The second is to maintain consistent formatting and style so that readers know what to expect.
Why did you join ILLUMINATION, and how do you find it so far?
I joined ILLUMINATION back when I was on Medium. It’s a rare thing as a supportive community for writers and readers that is actively led. I still share some stories on ILLUMINATION and read from other writers.
Who are some writers you follow on Medium, Substack, or other platforms?
I follow a lot of writers in the tech space, like Scott Galloway and Casey Newton. But I’ve informally pruned lots of writers from the social and political spheres, leaving them unread in my inbox. It’s not that I’ve stopped liking them; it’s just that so much content focuses on Washington, and a wall of negativity doesn’t feed the soul.
What are your top five stories that you want to share with your audience and why?
Should the Online Comment End?
I’ve become almost allergic to social media, and my only remaining presence is a professional profile on LinkedIn. I think we were wrong to assume that giving everybody an equal voice was a good idea. That probably sounds horribly unmodern, but let me propose a thought experiment. Suppose you’re on a desert island with 99 other people. All of you would have an equal voice in that you’d have the ability to speak to others, but nobody would have an obligation to listen. Instead, the people who spoke clearly, eloquently, and respectfully would be listened to and would emerge as the most powerful voices. The online comment is antithetical to this natural state, and it enables trolls to abuse others.
I’m realizing, as I age, that disapproving of current cultural trends is part of life’s job description. But when I think back, things have never really been any better.
Nothing frightens me more than failing as a parent, and there are so many areas of life that parents can’t control. Technology is probably the biggest worry beyond illness because the technology kids have is so alien to anything we knew.
Like much of the world, Britain is struggling to cope with inbound migration. We overestimated our ability to balance multiculturalism with integration, and we’re now seeing a backlash to that. At the same time, we’re becoming much more internationally minded and tying our economic security to cross-border businesses. The only way to foster the links required for this is to have foreign people live here and build bridges.
Everybody in tech is panicking about AI taking their job. Maybe it will? Certainly, if you’re a programmer, you’ll know that AI skyrockets your productivity, so unless companies start making much more software, they’ll need fewer people. But there is a wealth of opportunity in configuring software at the corporate user end.
What are the success factors for you as a writer?
Beyond the basic metrics, like open rates, I just want to write things that I’d enjoy reading. Frankly, given that I’ll read my own work dozens of times while I’m writing it, I’m by far my most committed reader. I might as well be the one who most enjoys it.
What do you recommend to the new writers?
Write the content you want to. So many new writers chase popular stories, styles, and formats, and it isn’t sustainable. Building an audience takes a long time, so unless you enjoy writing for the sake of writing, you’ll get bored and give up.
What are your plans as a writer or as a professional?
I don’t have any plans as a writer because writing is something I do for myself. If I ever stop enjoying it, I’ll stop doing it.
Professionally, I’m open-minded, but I’ve definitely passed the point in my career where I can keep up with techniques and technologies.
That requires working with data full-time, and once you’re in managerial or client meetings more than you’re in front of a screen, the pace of technical progress outruns you. So long as I can slot into wherever I can have an impact, I’ll be happy.
Finally, tell us about your recent community initiative, which you built to support writers in growing their newsletters.
Yes, thanks for asking for it. I did this cross-promotion tool as a give-back activity for the writing community. I know the struggles of writers in finding an audience in this saturated digital world.
It is a simple concept for building an audience jointly. For example, if you and I write similar content, then some of my readers might want to know about you, and some of your readers might want to know about me.
Thus, if I put you in front of my audience, I’ll be helping you to grow and helping my audience to discover new reading material. And if you do the same, we’re helping each other. Everybody wins.
For more information, I wrote a story about it and published it on Medium, and blogged it on your site. I hope writers will give it a go via crosspromo.club. If they have any questions, they can ask me via the contact page.
Thanks for this great interview, Mehmet. I appreciate your support of writers like me and introducing us to your audience.
Many thanks to Ben for allocating his precious time for this interview. I hope you check out his profile, his stories, and his fantastic tool to help you grow your newsletter audience. Collaboration is a critical success factor for writers and all creators. Without a supportive community, the writing journey can be lonely.
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Links to Prior Interviews and Conversations
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