John Hagel succinctly recaps an interesting discussion on the attention economy sparked this week by a discussion between Esther Dyson with Vint Cerf about the Net a decade from now.Michael H. Goldhaber defined the notion of the attention economy is his article, "The Attention Economy and the Net" published in First Monday, April 1997. Much of the discussion on the attention economy has focused on the scarcity of attention and there's been little discussion about the other half of the attention economy - the desire to receive attention. This desire to receive attention is one of the key drivers in many online communities and is often used as one means of motivating contributions.
Esther Dyson comments on the other half of the attention economy and notes:
People go on the Web in search of attention; they don't want to give it as much as get it. People judge their own worth by their number of friends (Friendster) or fans (MySpace) or business contacts (LinkedIn). They may tell you that they're seeking business success, but oftentimes they seem to value contact lists in the thousands for their own sake.
While adults worry about privacy, kids seek attention. They post poetry, photos, exaggerated tales of personal exploits, music in order to create an online presence that garners attention.
In his recap, Hagel comments on the way that this desire for attention is often seen in a negative light.
Much of the discussion so far tends to take a fairly dim view of the desire to receive attention. Nick in particular is scathing on this, despite the irony that, in a subsequent posting, he admits to tracking mentions of himself on the Internet, describing it humorously as a Â?shameful sickness.Â? If this is a shameful sickness, I think it replaces bird flu as a global pandemic.
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I think we would all agree that, as human beings, we have a fundamental urge to be acknowledged, recognized and respected for who we are and what we have accomplished. This is not trivial or "?turning ourselves into goods" or just youthful exuberance. And there is nothing new here, except for some technologies that can help us amplify our reach and achieve broader recognition.
I suspect we would also agree this desire, like any other, can be carried to an extreme -? in this case, it can and does degenerate into narcissism, where all that matters is whether we are receiving attention and we will do anything to accomplish that.
There are lots of unwritten social rules about whether it's appropriate or not to draw attention to oneself and in what way. These conventions are already being impactd by online experiences.Photo by: rappensuncle
The consumer trend towards user created content is a big part of the new attention economy. Several sites like MySpace allow users to instantly create personal showrooms and the "celebrity" factor occurs when an individual is recognized for their contribution. There's bound to be gap between the Milennials and the Baby Boomers perceptions of what is appropriate.
Meredith Farkas points out how thin the line is between talking about people doing great things and a discussion about self-promotion within the library profession. Meredith maps out some of the ways recognition, attention and self-promotion shake down in the library profession in her thoughtful post titled: "Shameless Self Promoter."
Tags: attention economy | marketing | trends
