2001 - The Attention Economy – Thomas Davenport & John
Beck
2 – pressing problem in society: “not enough attention to
meet the information demands of business and society.”
The Attention Economy is the new economy – “capital, labor,
information, and knowledge are in plentiful supply”
“What is in short supply is human attention”
3 – authors believe attention is now the currency of the
economy. (those who don’t have it want
it, you can sell it, trade it, and there is a limited supply (only 24 hours in a
day).
The economy evolves around attention as capital – caller ID
(preserves your control of your attention); email filtering (think of Gmail’s
tabs), text message alerts, DVRs (schedule your attention), advertisements are
valued based on attention (Nielsen ratings)
Companies that can capture your attention succeed, the rest
fail or are subsumed by successful companies.
Understanding and managing attention is they key tenets of
the attention economy.
4 - History – information was scant
Not that it took longer to consume info, but that there
wasn’t a lot of info to consume – until printing press, then television/radio,
now internet & mobile devices – travel & industrial revolution too
There is more information contained in the Sunday New York
Times than all the written material available to someone living in the 15th
century
Over 300,000 books are now published worldwide each year.
*Think about how or what we direct our attention to each
day. How do we make decisions – where to
go for lunch? What brand of beverage to buy? How much attention do we have to
give?
5 – in the attention economy, attention is generally
purchased with money
6 – Today we suffer from an attention deficit problem (or
what some people call a disorder)
Deficit is an economic term
How do or should we manage our attention? (side effects can
be stress, overwhelmed feeling, ect)
7 - Individuals aren’t the only ones to suffers from ADD, it
can also happen to businesses. (how to focus goals, what to emphasize, what not
to, etc).
7- Symptoms of organizational ADD:
-liklihood
of missing important info when making decisions
-diminished
time for reflection before making decisions
-difficulty
holding others’ attentions resulting in oversimplification or flashy designs to
get people engaged
-(mine)
lack of organizational goals or direction or trying to go after too many things
at once
In order to survive in this new economy, you have to be good
at keeping and maintaining others’ attention.
**Our attention records are stored by the NSA, corporations,
etc.** Our attention is under Surveillance.
Why do you think?
9 – Princicples of an Economy:
1. are
largely based on scarce goods in a given market. Attention is bought and sold everyday – and
fought for vigorously – think Internet Streaming vs Television. First Screen vs Second Screen.
2. Currency
must also be scarce. If it is too widely
available, it’s worthless. Multitasking is limited, the hours in the day are
limited, therefore there is no possibility of attention inflation. Attention has its definitive limits. (ex.
cell phones and driving) Economical
term: Pay attention.
3. Page
12 – law of increasing returns. The more people have of something, the easier
it is to get more of it. Those who get a lot of attention find it easier to get
more. Those who are rich in attention
economy tend to only get richer (although not always).
11- Economies have measurement systems – this is problematic
for attention. Precision is problematic,
but there are ways to measure attention. (Time is sometimes a proxy for
measuring attention).
What is the payback for paying
attention: learn something, change something for the better, fix what’s broken,
gratify a need
Attention economy has laws of supply and demand:
Herbert Simon, nobel prize winning economist: Information
“consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention.”
12 - What are companies willing to do for attention?
Contests, discounts, etc
13 – Internal attention markets - how much attention employees dedicate to
work – tension with traditional capital – companies want bigger profits =
smaller work staff = less attention to information = longer work days = more of
a demand to check into work 24 hours a day = email, VPNs, mobile phones,
conference calls, homework = less attention for family, relaxation, leisure,
eating, health, sleep, etc
Also, workers cannot afford to spend a lot of attention on
every message or piece of info that crosses their desk. Limiting time takes effect. And no attention time is given to reflection
on these pieces of info.
Ex – mercer has an “attention saving rule” – all mass emails
must be sent to an administrator first and if deemed acceptable and important
enough, can then be sent campus wide.
Who is getting the attention from the company’s
perspective? Is it your customers, your
employees, your suppliers, your competitors, or your investors? This affects
the goals of the company and job descriptions of the emplpyees.
Chapter 2 –
17 - During industrial revolution times and prior – physical
manpower drove the economy
During the information age
- the valuable commodity became knowledge – however now with the influx
of information it is attention that is managed as a resource and fought over as
a valuable commodity in the economy
Defining attention – early definitions looked at the effect
of sounds on ears for attention – which ear, how we direct it, surprise sounds
versus expected sounds and how someone could focus their attention
More recent experiments were on the eyes – where people
looked, the direction in which their head is turned, etc
However – attention
is much deeper – For the authors – page 20 – “Attention is focused mental
engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness,
we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act.”
Thus, we may be aware of a lot of things around us, but we
often screen them out of our sensory inputs. (unconcscuous narrowing
phase) We then make a decision on how to
act on the attention getting info. (decision phase) (action can simply be
responding verbally or making a mental note or writing it down or a willful
decision not to act)
p. 21 - Both phases make up attention. There is a causal relationship between
awareness, attention, and action.
Here is the flow chart:
Awareness: Items comes into awareness
(Narrowing Phase) ---->
Attention: Between the narrowing phase and decision phase,
attention is paid to a particular item
(Decision Phase) ---->
Action: Decide on how to act/respond
IMPORTANT: page 22 – awareness is not the same as attention,
it’s the precursor to it
Awareness is vague while attention is targeted and specific
Six types of attention:
Captive vs. Voluntary:
Have to pay attention versus wanting to pay attention
Movie in a class – captive
Movie in a theater – voluntary
Commercial billboard on street – voluntary
Commercial in movie theater – captive
Aversive vs. Attractive:
Aversive means we pay attention to avoid negative
experiences (take notes or fail the class)
Attractive – we pay attention because it will bring about
positive results
Front of mind vs. back of mind:
FOM – conscious, focused, and explicit – you use this kind
of attention to drive a car, perform surgery, hopefully work on your
assignments
BOM – an awareness is present and attention is not focused
unless something unexpected happens – ex. FOM on texting, BOM on driving
New tasks typically are FOM, but as tasks become very
familiar routines, they become BOM
These types and pairings of attention are not mutually
exclusive and can be found in combinations.
Attention can both, captive and voluntary (you watch the ad in the
theater rather than look around).
The ultimate attention getter is combining all six at
once! Any examples?
Ex. sky diving:
voluntary – get on the plane and jump out
Captive – forced to experience the fall
Aversive – dropping like a rock, but knowing that if you
pull the ripcord you will be safe
Attractive – the parachute opens to glide you on a smooth,
yet exhilerating ride down
FOM – you are freefalling and are focused on getting back to
earth
BOM – awareness of everything around you, the possibilities
of death, memories, etc
Page 27-28
Attention Management is not time management. You first have to decide what is worthy of
attention before you can decide how much time it requires.
Chapter 5 – Attention & Technology
Page 75
Play the game or drop out and do something entirely
different (to get attention) (put on a chicken suit and walk down the street)
To play the game -you have to be on the edge of technology,
the forefront, to successfully compete for attention
76 - Planning & Research are crucial – know the field of
technology, but also know your audience and what drives their attention
Use technology for individual customization – targeted ads,
personalized emails, etc. People ignore
mass general messages
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