Attention Blog

“Some of the biggest technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, Google and I.B.M., are banding together to fight information overload”

That amount of money reported by a reputable paper like the Wall Street journal more than legitimizes study and action concerning attention. Yay for not being irrelevant!
New trends will emerge as “attention resources” and “attention management” become corporate buzzwords.

• New positions: Look for HR to add positions in middle management to help shape corporate and inter-office communications. Basically, they will be filters; distilling needs and core messages from everything flying around the office.
• New tech: Knowledge Management will be getting an overall as companies notice the often conflicting messages between corporate communications and available information resources. Wikis, search engines, meta-tags are the best bets to handle research needs and to promote company consensus on any given issue.
• New Equipment: Dual-Screens for everyone? No blackberry zones? Watch and see how “form follows function” will gain strict new adherents. Companies will need to learn to balance moral against cutting access to the web and email because for some, no access to facebook is a deal breaker
• New Services: Look for consultants to add Attention Management to their list of services. Much of what they do does affect attention so it won’t be much of a stretch. Productivity specialist should be in much higher demand.