Author vs. Authority The words “author” and “authority ” both have the same root, fairly obviously, but in attention-economic terms they are almost opposites. We pay attention to an author as a person, with a history, feelings, experiences, actions, etc. An authority, on the other hand, is someone whose personal attributes should not matter; it is the position she holds or the body of knowledge she is supposed to represent completely impersonally that mark her […]
Last July I spoke at the monthly meeting of the SF Bay Area Chapter of computer-human interface subgroup of the Association for Computing Machinery. Yuu can now download a podcast of my talk.
Since the total supply of attention is limited, the different ways attention leaves the circulating supply is important. One way is that each of us, in addition to attention we pay others, pays some to herself. Most humans are not perfectly happy in isolation, and probably cannot live that way. Most probably, we each would prefer to get at least a little more attention than we pay out. When you pay attention to yourself, you […]
A few posts ago, I wrote, among other things, that Eric Goldman’s concept of Cosean filters as an interface between people and marketers is impossible. A commenter, Sean Ammirati, asks whether I would approve of adopting these filters if they were possible. The question seems strange, rather like asking whether I would endorse time machines as a mode of changing past history if they were possible. Strange as such questions are, the short answer in […]
ALIGNMENT When you pay attention to someone, you align your mind with that of the other person. This means you alter your mental and emotional processes according to your internal model of the other — in terms of her experiences, point of view, intentions, thinking, feelings, desires, will, actions, and/or perceptions. The better you can do this, the better you are able to pay attention. Such alignment is never total. You do not give up […]
In a recent post, I wrote that attention tends to leak out of circulation in the Attention Economy when it goes to the dead. As competition for attention increases, trying to stem this phenomenon and make use of the otherwise missing attention become increasingly important. A number of different strategies have developed: (1) Discrediting the dead for being dead; (2) Stressing the importance of now, this moment; (3) Channeling” the works of the dead by […]
I just finished reading a very well-written, ingenious, and thought-provoking paper by Eric Goldman, “A Coasean Analysis of Marketing” (Santa Clara Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 06-03) I’m flattered he tried to make use of attention economics. However, I do not agree with its conclusions, nor indeed some of its premises. I also do not believe he has taken what I have argued fully into account. Here are some cavils. Goldman takes it for […]
And the Winner is… myself! Months ago I announced a contest for general terms for; a) someone in the act of paying attention to someone else; b) the person receiving that attention. Reluctantly, I must award myself the grand prize, which is: a an all-expense paid visit to my own mind. (Convenient, that.) Term (a) is hereby declared to be AUDIENT, an existing English word meaning a member of an audience, but which I intend […]
If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination in ’08, wins the election and runs for re-election, by 2016 no one under 50 will ever have voted in a presidential election without a Bush or a Clinton. (If she doesn’t win, will it be because Obama surpassed her as a rock star. Or because Gore has an Oscar?) Like the Danish kings alternating for over 400 years between the names Christian and Frederick, our Presidents just […]
As you may have noticed, I have been suffering, lately especially, from blogger’s block. Probably most people who ever started blogs do. However, true bloggers instead suffer from blogolalia, or perhaps blogorrhea, running off at the keyboard uninhibitedly. This dramatizes the simple fact that most of us are quite addicted to the use of language, to uttering utterances, whether or not we have anything to say. We like attention, and the easiest way to seek […]