The Attention Economy

Managing Attention: The New Imperative for Business Success

Trillions of documents circulate in U.S. offices annually. Internet traffic doubles every hundred days. Approximately two hundred messages flood managers' desktops daily. Welcome to the attention economy, in which the new scarcest resource isn't ideas or even talent, but attention itself This groundbreaking book argues that today's businesses are headed for disaster — unless they can overcome the dangerously high attention deficits that threaten to cripple today's workplace. Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck explain that the problems for businesspeople lie on both sides of the attention equation: on getting and holding the attention of information-flooded employees, consumers, and stockholders, and on parceling out their own attention in the face of overwhelming options. The resolution: learn to manage this critical yet finite resource, or fail.

1. A New Perspective on Business
   Welcome to the Attention Economy
2. Attention, The Story So Far
   What Attention Is and Isn't
3. Doing a Number on You
   The Measurement of Attention
4. From Amoebas to Apes
   The Psychobiology of Attention
5. Luddities Beware
   Attention Technologies
6. The Hidden Persuaders
   Lessons from the Attention Industries
7. Eyeballs and Cyber Malls
   E-Commerce and Attention
8. Command Performance
   Leadership and Attention
9. Focused Choices and Global Resources
   Strategy and Attention
10. Off the Org Chart
    Organizational Structure and Attention
11. You've Got (Lots and Lots of) Mail"
    Managing Information, Knowledge, and Attention
12. From Myopia to Utopia
    The Future of the Attention Economy

I am probably getting old, but I think this book is one of the nominal works of the 21 century. At least, it is well written, provoking, eye-opening, intelligent, funny, etc. The only drawback is that it uses the oh-so popular format of structured chaos (i.e., lots of footnotes, blobs, sidelines, etc.), which sometimes makes it tiring to read, when you're not very motivated.

I think this book is very important, even if we already know that the attention economy exists, as it structures it and describes it very effectively.

But I may be getting old…