Recently I was reading a book that a friend sent me (thanks Greg) and although it has absolutely nothing to do with the internet or marketing, it grabbed an open piece of mental Velcro.
The interesting bit of information was:
Kids today spend 6.5 hours per day with media.
26% of the time they are using more than one device, which amounts to 8.5 hours of media time in a 6.5 hour period.
If you want to go read the whole report venture over to Kaiser Family Foundation and download the monstrous 150+ page report (PDF).
Answer this question, are you getting everything done in a day that you want? Are you not getting it done because you’re some type A personality who won’t settle for second best? Or is more likely are there too many demands on your time and for your attention.
Are you reading your feeds over your morning breakfast? Very few people actually read anything anymore, most of us scan headlines, skim posts, and breeze through emails to try and catch up, and not fall behind with the unending barrage of information thrown at us on a daily basis. When’s the last time you went on vacation or took a few days off, unplugged and went off the net. Did you feel guilty or regret it when you came back and saw several hundred emails? Just like time, attention is becoming a precious commodity.
I don’t have the solution to fix the too much information problem, however I think you need to understand that you are competing for attention and “step up” your game if you’re going to remain a player. Realize you aren’t just competing for keywords or links, you’re competing for mind share and attention first. You need to get in touch with your inner Paris Hilton and stand out from the crowd. Maybe you dislike the spotlight and the attention, but remember the Linkerati aren’t always linking to best resources, but they are linking to the good ones that get their attention. Since I know someone skimmed over that post or read what they wanted to see, I’ll repeat it, you need good content to back up that attention grabbing headline, because you’ll never be Paris Hilton if you aren’t good looking, rich and famous.
