To continue my study of the causes and possible cures of the meltdown, I want to discuss how there have seemed to be three different routes to making money. I do this in the context of my general prediction for over a decade, which has been that the attention economy will eventually replace the money-industrial economy, in all variants, including capitalism. This means that money will eventually be outmoded. For an early version of this […]
Re blogged from Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 with very slight changes: This blog focuses on the coming of the Attention Economy. Every so often, I shall remind new (and even old) readers of what I mean by this term. The basic idea is that we are moving toward a new kind of economy, wildly different from any before. An economy in this sense is system of actions and transactions of some kind involving scarce but […]
[Note: this is another entry in my attempt to make sense of the crash and see how it is tied to the Attention Economy. Some earlier entries are here, here, here, here and here.] I attended an informative, thought-provoking and amusing talk by Prof. Brad DeLong of UC Berkeley on Tuesday on the financial crisis “of 2007-2009” (he expects the crisis to have diminished by the end of this year). (The talk was part of […]
Item: In certain places, bar and bat mitzvah celebrations had become intensely competitive, with parents generally responding to kids’ needs to up the ante by spending ever-more money on more lavish and far-out parties. According to a recent report on the public radio program, Marketplace, that included having the celebrant jump through a hoop of fire or be escorted thorough a Polynesian -themed entrance by scantily clad dancing girls. In this competition for attention, the […]
There has been much discussion of leadership at Apple recently. Is Steve Jobs indispensable? Short answer: “yes” In fact: “absolutely.” Jobs is the star we pay attention to through all Apple outpourings. Even in the unlikely even that an Apple user or would-be user, or even hater, has not heard Jobs’s name, or seen him on video or in a photo, what that person would most likely align to as special behind Apple products is […]
How should companies operate when appearing to be an attention payer as well as being an attention getter is crucial for their survival. Not this way. A service that shall remain nameless sent me a notice that I would soon be billed for year’s worth of service I had already paid for. The very lengthy “chat” recorded here ensued. Here are some observations of how not to pretend to pay attention that this expereince […]
Thoughts emerging from a conversation with Sandra Luft of San Francisco State U (who bears no responsibility though): “Who am I?” Or, “Who are you?“ How we answer such questions clearly changes over time. One of the main ways, though, has been with a narrative, a personal story that describes how one ended up where one is and who one is now. The story takes in the key experiences that seemed to cause one to […]
In yesterday’s (12/28/08) NY Times “Week in Review” section, two articles (on the same page) are worth comment. “Boobs” The first is “Contemplating the Boobs We Were” by Peter Applebome. He argue correctly that Americans don’t understand enough about economics. Then he suggests that this topic should be taught in high school, or at the very least students should be taught of the joys of compound interest in savings, and the pitfalls of it as […]
In ancient Athens’s Agora, in medieval Venice’s Rialto neighborhood, and in small village market squares everywhere, the marketplace for ideas — that is where attention was exchanged —commingled with the market for goods. Socrates wandered around the Agora talking with his disciples and enemies, according to Plato. But he and they spent little time trying out or examining the wares, or in bargaining over goods. Others, say in Cairo’s souks up until today, spend much […]
A couple of years ago, I pointed out that in some ways money was losing its hold on reality. Routine activities and producing things to which can be assigned some relatively stable amount of money now occupy far less than majority of human effort — while more and more energy goes into the new attention economy, which is only loosely connected with money or markets. At the same time, the growing financial sector takes on […]