The Other Side of the Attention Economy

Stealing a page out of the Attention Harvesters play book, we first need to grab our audience members’ attention to then convey how to preserve the attention of their audiences.

We need to shout from the rooftop that the way to create value in the Attention Economy is to design and deploy solutions that improve the quality of users’ experiences in the unique context of their world. After all, the quality of our experiences shape our reality, which is uniquely constructed by each person based on many factors, chief among them is how they engage with their environment. In our digital universe, an increasingly significant portion of engagement is facilitated by the solutions we design. All too often, solutions require more attention than users have to give, rendering them less effective than they could be.

The “other side of the attention economy”, the quiet, calm, and empathetic side knows that creating value is not a zero sum game; value is not derived by attention brokers facilitating third-party transactions funded by others’ attention.

The empathetic side of the attention economy knows that value is derived by those who introduce technology solutions designed to enhance the user’s experience while preserving the user’s attention. Fueled by a people-first mindset, this side of the attention economy sees the value as a pie that can continuously grow, as long as value is contributed without taking from users.  This empathetic attention economy views attention as a scarce and irretrievable asset to be invested with intention, creating experiences that shape our perception of reality. In choosing what we attend to, we are empowered to construct our realities. What is more valuable?

In the parlance of our digital universe, the more valuable side of the attention economy is not the result of the apps that need consumers’ attention, but rather in the apps that attend to consumers’ needs.