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Title: The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business by Thomas H. Davenport, John C. Beck ISBN: 1-57851-871-7 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One of Top 25 Books on Information Fundamentals
Comment:
I rank this book as easily one of the top 25 books on information fundamentals, and quite possibly in the top 10. While there are other books on attention qua economic good, this one focuses on us, the attention providers, and not on the media or entertainment or other attention thieves.
The book is well-presented and what some might see as showmanship I consider to be good editing and publishing. The book starts strong, focusing on "attention deficit" in both individuals and organizations, and the consequences of failing to pay attention to the right things at the right time--corporate CEOs and their business intelligence professionals, as well as government leaders and their national intelligence professionals, can learn a great deal from this book.
Especially useful to me, and a major reason why I rank this book so highly, was its distinction between:
1) Global Coverage for AWARENESS
2) Surge local focus for ATTENTION
3) Domestic political focus for ACTION
At a national level, I found myself thinking that this book could be the first step in an evaluation of how we spend our time--and how we compensate ourselves for spending our time. Of course others have observed that we spend too much time in front of the television or eating fast food or whatever, but I found this book extremely helpful in thinking about the economics of personal and organizational information management. Applying this book's lessons, for example, might cause any manager to forbid Internet access because of the very high negative return on investment--searches should be done by specialists who can be relied to avoid personal browsing on company time. The author's specifically note that the Western culture is less well equipped to manage "attention" than other cultures.
Also helpful to me were the book's focus on the fact that client attention and teamwork *compete* with innovation, and that some form of time management guidance is needed that permits employees to focus on just one of these as a primary duty.
The author's identification of relevance, community, engagement, and convenience as the four key factors in attracting and holding attention from individuals--and the lengthy discussion in the book on each of these--is very worthwhile. So also is their specification of four "attention tracks" that each individual must manage: focusing one's own attention; attracting the right kind of attention to oneself; directing the attention of those under one's oversight; and maintaining the attention of one's customers and clients (and one could add, one's family).
This book is a vital contribution to correcting our long-standing overemphasis on collecting information (or ignoring information) without regard to what we do with it in human terms. For me, the key sentence in this entire book, one that government and corporate managers would do well to "pay attention to" was, on page 216: "Increasingly, managerial success will rely on the ability to ignore or at least filter the vast stream of information that hits the desk, ears, and eyeballs. The ability to prioritize information, to focus and reflect on it, and to exclude extraneous data will be at least as important as acquiring it." Their book is *not* a variation on the many confused knowledge management treatises (making the most of what you already know). It goes well beyond the current state of the art and outlines new ideas that could and should have a fundamental impact on how we spend our time, what information services we buy, and how we use information technology.
Rating: 4
Summary: Attention, attention, attention...
Comment: This was an intriguing read and I would highly recommend it. This will be of interest to business managers as well as knowledge works and web site designer. From a business managers perspective it highlights a growing trend that the attention of employees in under attack. It raises the challenge for crisp clear and meaningful communication. It also challenges managers to not overload the communication channels with unrelated, unfocused and disconnected communication. Once again Jack Welch is used as an example of a simple message (i.e.,number one or number two) delivered over multiple channels with enough repetition to get on the workers attention channel.
The authors provide an extremely useful tool named AttentionScape that measures where attention is being directed. It could be used to find were management, employee, customer and supplier attention is being focused. The book provides several examples of companies using (or ignoring to their determent) the AttentionScape information. The ideas the AttentionScape tool bring to fore make it worth the price of the book!
As a knowledge worker the book highlights the importance of realizing attention is a key resource in completing any task and as such it should be protected and leveraged to get important task complete. As with management it also indicates the need for clear communication. The book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity might be a good way to explore practical techniques for focusing and managing attention.
Rating: 2
Summary: Disappointingly fluffy
Comment: The book sets out in a bad direction, and never really recovers. There's some interesting survey material for those who are completely unfamiliar with the issues, but also many random unsubstantiated claims, much that's illogical or contradictory, and a ream of chapters later in the book with what seems to me to be vague management advice.
The initial bad direction comes in the form of a broken definition of attention: the authors claim attention is a narrowing of perception (sensory input), followed by an action decision. The latter part of this is completely bogus from a psychological perspective, and only there to support the marketing/advertising-oriented slant of the book. Yes, attention does involve a focus on a subset of sensory input, but no decision making needs to be attached. Think of watching a movie: it has your full attention; you're blocking out surrounding stimuli to some extent. But when the movie is effective, you're along for the ride, not making decisions. Furthermore, the authors *claim* that attention-management is different from time-management, but are very sloppy in distinguishing between attention, time, mind share, effort, persuasion, and a variety of other measures. It's maddening.
An example of the contradictory nature of the authors' advice is that they both advise managers to be creative in seeking their employees' attention (including multimedia messages, clowning in meetings, and other nonsense) AND advise that companies deploy "attention guards" to keep employees focused. Well, which is it? Distractions or focus? The sheer enthusiasm with which the authors endorse the arms race for attention (more and more baroque packaging of messages (ads) to get your attention) is disturbing.
The graphic design of the book makes a point and is amusing at first, but when you're trying to stick to the flow of the main text, the sidebars and tangential blurbs become very distracting. They becgome more distracting as the amount of real information in the main text decreases in later chapters.
I read this as a bookclub book to discuss it with a few (high-tech focused) friends, and we unanimously hated the book. I recommend taking a good look at it before spending your money.
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Title: What's the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best New Management Thinking by Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak, H. James Wilson ISBN: 1578519314 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster by Bill Jensen, Bill Jensen ISBN: 0738204307 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 09 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
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Title: Total Access by Regis McKenna ISBN: 1578512441 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 29 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine, B. J., II Pine, James H. Gilmore ISBN: 0875848192 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders ISBN: 1400046831 Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA) Pub. Date: 22 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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