“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” says Mark Antony leading into the powerful speech in Act 3/Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

In this post, I simply want to reinforce the importance of attention. Attention is something to be aware of when communicating - getting attention, holding attention, not abusing it. But as I look about, I’m awed with the depth of scholarship on the topic.

Attention Defined

Specifically, what is attention?

Answer: It’s applying the mind to an object or thought, or, being reDownload audience20bw2.jpg ady to narrow or focus thoughts, says Merriam Webster. 

Whether in marketing or organizational leadership, the audience’s attention is needed at the start. In consumer marketing, getting popular attention in most mid-sized metros meant connecting with three TV networks, two newspapers, a handfull of radio stations and several magazines.

Of course all that has chaned. We have so much communications and so little time and capacity for giving attention.

Attention has become scarce. Think about it. Overall, there isn’t enough attention span for individuals or organizations to meet society�s demands. This gives rise to the attention economy, named by economist Herbert Simon, and brilliantly explicated by Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck in The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business (Harvard Business School Press, 2001).

In the attention economy, consumers receive services in return for their attention, which we don�t have all that much of! When consumers come upon an ad thrust before them or find on-line information and news they want, three things happen: (1) they ignore and skip on by, (2) they skim, or (3) they actually concentrate.

Feature author Alex Iskold offers this observation in his post earlier this year on The Attention Economy.

When information is abundant, the false positives are very costly - they are basically deal breakers. Consumers happily leave sites, knowing there are a ton of alternatives out there. Unfortunately, this becomes a lose-lose situation, because if consumers rarely find satisfying experiences then retailers won’t get consumer dollars. The idea behind the Attention Economy is to create a marketplace where consumers are happy, because if they are shown relevant information - then retailers are happy too, because happy consumers spend money!

Should publics be paid for their attention? 

Truly, most marketers are not in a position to literally pay funds for attention. If we want quality attention, being compensated makes economic sense. The compensation will have to take the form of non-cash value � ranging from savings on a purchase to receiving information that offers personal utility, entertainment, or enjoyment.

I also like the notion that there are two attentions, proffered by Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, in a report of his teachings by Mary Carroll Nelson. The first attention is what we’ve been discussing above– the moment of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. It’s here that we become aware, before moving on.

The second attention takes place when we go back and think about the subject of the first attention. It is here where we frame our thoughts and engineer our beliefs.

The mission of communications can be even more effective and powerful when it succeeds in securing the second attention from the audience.  Second attention means a relationship is either beginning or is being continued, and there is at some level a shared community of interest.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 5:05 pm by John Mallen and is filed under Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.