mikeshea.net

On the Attention Economy

by Mike Shea on 2 March 2013

In the article Attention Shoppers!, Michael H. Goldhaber describes the future currency of a world of unlimited supply: attention. Attention is a limited resource and, just like money, we have to consider two questions:

• How do we save our own?
• How do we get more from others?

The article referenced above is a long article, but it's worth your attention. One of his final points is particularly interesting: His final points are particularly interesting:

• As the flow of attention becomes more important, so will cyberspace.
• The importance of stars will increase, with a corresponding decline in power for those who insist on anonymity.
• A lessening role for large organizations, because they can't focus or trade attention easily.
• The same goes for governments, whose role will diminish as well.
• Almost everyone will have a personal Web site.
• For a secure old age, you will not want to rely entirely on Social Security or any kind of investment, monetary savings, or pension fund.
• In projects of all kinds, comprehen- sive lists of credits for everyone involved will become as common and necessary as in Hollywood films now.

Think about the second-to-last bullet. You don't want to lean on money as a safety net for retirement, you want to rely on your ability to capture attention — to be valuable to people. I suppose this is the key concept in knowledge work, your value comes from your applicability to another's interests or needs. You have to have knowledge that others perceive as valuable. John Gruber does.

Twenty Five Ways to Save Your Attention

Let's look at the other side; saving attention. You can't really save attention, you can only be conscious of where you're spending it. You can spend it watching 20 minutes of ads per hour of the Oscars or you can learn how to program a computer. We're going to have to get better at figuring out how to refocus our attention because everyone else in the world is figuring out how to take it from us. This is why I experimented with info agent and plan further such experiments. Thats where I want to spend my attention.

Here are twenty five other ways to refocus your own:

• Use a browser ad-blocker plug-in to get rid of web ads.
• Stop watching mainstream TV - use on-demand streaming shows with no ads.
• Stop listening to commercial ad-based radio, listen to audio-books or podcasts.
• Use a podcast app that lets you skip ads like Instacast.
• Stop using RSS, surf the sites you love when you really want to read them.
• Take a Facebook or Twitter break.
• Mute friends that make you frown.
• Save articles using Instapaper or Safari's Reading List. Read your saved articles later instead of randomly surfing.
• Stop reading books you don't enjoy after the first 50 pages.
• Stop playing games you don't enjoy after the first five hours.
• Steer conversations towards stimulating topics instead of mainstream debate.
• Avoid the ignorant.
• Focus on the best way to learn that works for you.
• Watch only the movies and TV shows that you love.
• Use and live by a good goal / project / action list system.
• Get control over your email.
• Cancel your land line.
• Shut off your voicemail and redirect people to email.
• Turn off instant messenger apps.
• Walk in silence for 30 minutes a day; leave the phone at home.
• Eliminate and renegotiate low-value commitments.
• Eliminate projects you don't care about.
• Ignore comment boards and forums.
• Ask trusted friends for recommendations on books, movies, TV shows, blog posts, and other things you might surf for yourself.
• Focus your time, attention, and energy on the projects that matter the most to you.