St. Paul’s Reach

Some initial thoughts on scarcity, value and the attention economy as a response to reading the First Edition magazine which was recently released by TheFutureDept.

In article 01/11, Morihiro Harano from Tokyo-based creative media agency Drill Inc, discusses the central themes of a book called Joho-Dai-Bakuhatsu (Digital Big Bang) written by Ryuhei Akiyama. Mr Harano distills these into four key areas:

1. we are making a transition from an ‘information’ to an ‘over information society’
2. although the internet has changed the dynamic the theme remains valid: scarcity confers value
3. the way in which information is organised and provided is what now creates value
4. capturing consumers attention is the point at which value is aquired

From this, Mr Harano adds his own question “what has value through scarcity in an over-information society?” and goes on to declare attributes such as ’simplicity’ & ‘credibility’ as important in driving attention.

Mr Harano believes that in an emergent, over-information society “people become overwhelmed and confused, not knowing who or what to trust” and so look to the reputation of known global, branded companies as the store of ‘credibility’ from which people can draw upon to overcome such disorientation. However, he also broadens this position by stating that “anything that has credibility” will become a source of value.

I believe this significantly understates a number of key themes:

No single point of trust

Let me firstly substitute credibility for trust and then look at the kinds of ‘repositories’ of trust people identify with: business, brands, academics, media and peer relationships.

Current research, most recently the updated Edelman Trust Barometer, highlight there is no single trust relationship that is valid across all age, professional and geographic demographics. Trust is attributed to – and means different things - to different groups of users or customers. Additionally, the nature of that trust relationship is subject to ongoing change. So, is Mr Harano wrong?

No, it’s just that the positioning & opinions of brands should not be regarded as the only source of value and their meaning in relation to other sources of trusted opinion is - and will likely continue to be - relative.

So, our question becomes threefold: which trust dynamics matter to us? Do they exhibit scarcity and how do we derive value from them?

Attention is not one thing

This brings me to attention. Why do we assume it’s one thing: easily defined & neatly understood? It’s here I’d ask you to consider the ‘attention design’ - that is – is it clear:

1. what the most mutually beneficial ‘attention transaction’ will be between the company (its products & services) and the desired end-user or customer (how they will benefit or be satisfied)?
2. how might the attention within this transaction differ according to age, demographic, culture and task?
3. what actual type of attention do these customers exhibit (full, continuous partial, single transactional, ambient passive, recurring on-demand) & can you either engage with it or actually transition a customer from one form of attention to another?
4. if there is agreement that one design can be created to satisfy multiple forms of attention?
5. how will the customer be helped to ‘manage’ their attention relationship with the company in a way that creates value for them? (meaningful personalisation, info-mediaries)

There is no single answer but attention is not one thing and, of itself, the action of securing attention (overcoming scarcity) has only transient value unless you define what type of attention you are seeking, whether it should be retained and where the locus of control in the relationship resides.

My key point: yes, attention is scare and likely to get scarcer but securing it per se does not automatically accrue or deliver value: satisfying the nature and intent of the actual attention transaction does and that’s a shared agenda. Of course, this means that true scarcity may actually lie with the brands and their level of willingness to actually engage with attention and not just see it as something to try and capture and throw more ‘messages’ at …

(Image attribution: Kentaro Suda @ Thuglife blog)

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