The Attention Economy : Understanding the New Currency of Business

by Thomas H. Davenport, John C. Beck

In today's information-flooded world, the scarcest resource is not ideas or even it's attention. In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Davenport and John Beck argue that unless companies learn to effectively capture, manage, and keep it--both internally and out in the marketplace--they'll fall hopelessly behind.

In The Attention Economy, the authors also outline four perspectives on managing attention in all areas of
1) measuring attention
2) understanding the psychobiology of attention
3) using attention technologies to structure and protect attention
4) adapting lessons from traditional attention industries like advertising

Drawing from exclusive global research, the authors show how a few pioneering organizations are turning attention management into a potent competitive advantage and recommend what attention-deprived companies should do to avoid losing employees, customers, and market share. A landmark work on the twenty-first century's new critical competency, this book is for every manager who wants to learn how to earn and spend the new currency of business.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Technology, Management, Leadership, Communication

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Tom Davenport holds the President's Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College. His books and articles on business process reengineering, knowledge management, attention management, knowledge worker productivity, and analytical competition helped to establish each of those business ideas. Over many years he's authored or co-authored nine books for Harvard Business Press, most recently Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning (2007) and Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results (2010). His byline has also appeared for publications such as Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Financial Times, Information Week, CIO, and many others.

Davenport has an extensive background in research and has led research centers at Ernst & Young, McKinsey & Company, CSC Index, and the Accenture Institute of Strategic Change. Davenport holds a B.A. in sociology from Trinity University and M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University. For more from Tom Davenport, visit his website and follow his regular HBR blog.

Reviews

[Laura McHarrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cost of advertising to clients is now sufficiently low that more ads can be transmitted than the client can process. Therefore, your clients attention is a scarce resource which you have to attract.
You need to use whichever media is most appropriate for getting the message in front of your clients, whether that is direct mail, PR, eshots, editorials for example, and you need to focus on the attention process.

There are six basic types of attention grabbers

1. AVERSIVE – using shock value ie highly unattractive people – ugly Betty. Or defeat death ie, tar blackened lungs
2. CAPTIVE – audiences that can’t go anywhere ie, Cinema ads, Urinals, Bad weather
3. BACK OF MIND – automatic purchases ie your spouse or buying milk, or just commuting
4. FRONT OF MIND – active visual reminders ie when buying a car, loyalty points – Starbucks
5. VOLUNTARY – consumer interest choice via, TV and printed ads attracting those with hobbies
6. ATTRACTIVE – celebrity sells you know: beautiful people and the thrill of success

I wrote a blog with a useful exercise to help work out where your business fits ... https://thehiddenedge.co.uk/portfolio...

[Johanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was easy reading. A good starting point to attention economy. Next I’m looking for more academic information about Attention.

[Jon Mountjoy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I found this a difficult read. When a friend gave it to me, he warned me that it might not be what I expected. What I expected on seeing the title was something on the attention economy - how we spent our attention. See the www.attentiontrust.org for an example.

This does have a little of that in here, but it's really about style and substance. On the one end is substance, we read/perceive the material and that's what matters. Fonts fade away, leaving the words. At the other end is style. We see calligraphy - the style matters more than the words. And in between, well there's a gradient.

While this was drummed into me as I read the book (unfortunately I had a little of it before in his other book on editing), it didn't really move me. The extensive footnotes at the end of the chapters were often more engaging than the actual text.

The final chapters felt a little out of place too. It was as if he had something to say, and, well, here's a book so let's add it. They were ostensibly about "universities in the attention economy." Here he ponders some thoughts about education such as "the ideal education is face-to-face, one-to-one education", "higher education, in its ideal form, proceeds in a setting sequestered in both time and space" and "the education every university offers should be generated in-house by resident faculty employed full time." While interesting, I found the link to the rest of the book tenuous.

[Alex Wang · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this pretty years ago. It is a light read talk not too much the complex nature of the economic mechanism that drive the allocation of economy. It focuses on the implementable guidelines for managing the work and the organization from the viewpoint of attention allocation in the age of information explosion.

[Randa Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very simple read but yet it needs full focus to be understood. How sophisticated economic activity will be mediated by the variable of attention. The book also discussed attention within an organization and how it functions internal to deliver the right attention needed through some strategic models

[Dedrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a lot out of this book, and my focus was to look at Internet related information management models. This book was very good for framing the issues around information and attention; how content overload will need to be addressed.

[Angela Randall]

I found this on a reading list for a course on multi-tasking, attention and distraction in a digital world. Both the book and the course look interesting.