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I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about attention spans, of late. My own, and the attention of others.

While doing a bit of research, I came across this fairly forward thinking and pretty amazing article from a 1997 Wired Magazine: Attention Shoppers! The currency of the New Economy won’t be money, but attention — A radical theory of value. And while some of its theories, with 16 years of hindsight, are flawed (or, who knows, as yet to happen), there is a lot of truth in it.

We are drowning in information, yet constantly increasing our generation of it. So a key question arises: Is there something else that flows through cyberspace, something that is scarce and desirable? There is. No one would put anything on the Internet without the hope of obtaining some. It’s called attention. And the economy of attention – not information – is the natural economy of cyberspace.

That bit of text could have been written today. It’s a conversation that could have happened in any content marketing office, advertising agency or marketing firm. It’s something we are all constantly talking about. How do we not just get, but keep, the attention of our target audience? Or our core consumer? Or, really, just about anyone?

With the constant flow of information that bombards people on a daily basis, how do we get just a little bit of their attention? We all know we’ve got to be quick and nimble and witty and FAST, but have we found the secret formula to grab that attention, and if so, to grab it in the right way?

No. Not yet.
And I’m not sure we’re going to.

There is no secret formula. No mining of data is going to give you all the right answers. No set of focus groups is going to tell you everything that you want to know.
Depressing, isn’t it?

I don’t think so.
I think that trying to figure out the attention economy is one of the most interesting puzzles of our right now. Thinking about how people act on digital channels, and within them, and, quite honestly, how they are acting and interacting for those few minutes a day that they are fully offline, is fascinating. And it’s ever changing. Because as we evolve as a digitally connected society, we are only going to have more information coming at us.

The 1997 article misses when it sees a need for no money, basically proposing that in the future of the attention economy, there will be no need for cash collars because we will all be “buying with our attention.” Utopian, really. Attention is certainly the new currency, but once we get that buy in from the consumer, brands and marketers are still after their money. Attention doesn’t, yet, pay the bills. Right now, however, our attention is at a premium. And it can only go to the best of the best.

While there are some brands (Dove, Oreo, Red Bull to name the ones we always name) doing some interesting and perhaps profit-making work, I see misses all the time. Brands that are entirely irrelevant to me trying to grab my attention on my social channels. Recently ABC’s The Bachelorette had a ton of promoted Tweets that somehow were targeted at me (I don’t own a TV and save the launches of Top Chef and Project Runway, have never been interested in the genre that is reality television). I noticed them because I thought they were ridiculous (and, you know, that’s my job, to pay attention to that sort of thing). But they didn’t have me excited in, interested in, or even curious about the program. Am I their target? Probably pretty close – demographically and geographically – but not close enough. And as my dad always says, “close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.”

We’re in a really exciting space right now, where a brand playing in the sweet spot of personal passions, of-the-moment relevance and their own messaging can be primed to earn that attention. Sure, there will be misses, but there can be wins, as well. The future will tell.

Let’s talk about how Boards of Canada ignited their rabid fan base with a brilliant bit of marketing.

A must-read article in the Harvard Business Review that warns against trading our privacy for convenience.

PSFK & the Guardian ask How Do We Hit The Next Social Media Goldmine?

Lee Clow on Advertising Then & Now is a good read for anyone in the industry (or who watches Mad Men)

Speaking of Mad Men, a really interesting post on Bob Benson over on Tom and Lorenzo (and for those of you who want to know WTF is Bob Benson, I give you this).

One last tidbit. I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Carrie Rich of the Global Good Fund at an event last night. The Fund’s story is fantastic and it was great to talk with a socially conscious young leader. Carrie and her team are focused on empowering young leaders, worldwide, in growing their non-profits into truly scaleable, sustainable, and ultimately beneficial businesses. The Global Good Fund is only about a year and a half old and they’ve already made some nice impacts. I’d urge you all to check them out and, if you can, get involved. Carrie’s story is amazing and I’m really looking forward to watching this grow.

As always, if you read anything amazing this week, I’d be stoked if you shared it in the comments.

If your week was anything like mine, it’s been a crazy one. Here are five things you might have missed in all the commotion.

The New York Times’ David Pogue likes Dashlane for remembering all your login passwords.

A reminder that we’ve got to use strategy, not just tactics, to drive our social media plays.

A great article about women not taking credit for their own good work over on the Atlantic. (C’mon, ladies! If you are rocking everything out – own it! The guys always do.)

Feminism is different in the digital age. This article tells you why.

Happiness is not found, but lived. Lovely read over on Medium.

Hook me up with your favorite articles, stories and newsy tid-bits from the week in the comments. I’d love to check ‘em out and share them!

Obviously, one can’t change who they intrinsically are. Bu they can change the course of their lives. At the very least, they can try.

My personal journey is well documented, over at Unemployed Brooklyn and Hire Me Martha – just another creative type trying to find the right fit. A person who spent years working in fashion and retail and … then?

Obviously I landed in advertising and marketing. Obviously.

Of course, it’s not so obvious. But, as it’s been documented, my path makes sense. I landed where I am because of a seemingly throw-away piece of advice, given to me while unemployed, not long after I started blogging. A friend’s husband, himself a digital marketing guy, mentioned – based on my blog and some freelance writing I was doing and meetups I was organizing – that I should be on the lookout for jobs in social media. It was pretty new, back then to have a stand alone person to do your social, but I found a gig that had social responsibilities as part of the job description and quickly proved my chops in the agency world.

And that has made all the difference.

Five things you might have missed this week.

Mary Meeker on the State of the Web. Put this slide presentation in your pocket and reference it. Often.

Brian Wong on how brands can own moments. Love the diagram.

The Spike and The Like: Matt Locke on digital attention. A must read.

GoGirl Finance will be Breaking the Taboo Around Women, Men & Money on June 13. Part of the larger S.H.E. Summit week here in New York.

Mary Tyler Moore was groundbreaking television. There’s a new book out about the women behind the show. I can’t wait to read it.

What were your favorite finds or must read articles this week? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to check them out.

Let’s talk (some more) about storytelling. Specifically storytelling in the space and time we’re in right now – where there are more than 684 thousand pieces of content shared on Facebook every minute (more awesome stats like that one here). It’s something for me, in my personal life and dealing with clients, that I think about all the time. How do we still tell good stories when we have so little time/space/attention to get them told in? What’s the trick. Is there one?

Can we still tell stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end? Can we still have a protagonist? A hero to root for? The answer is yes. And no. And kind of.

People are still people and everyone likes a good story.

Last week, I went to an event at Grind Spaces called #Rethink Storytelling, with Ken Kraemer of Deep Focus’ Moment Studios. The talk was centered around how to tell good stories in the current age of constant content consumption.

It’s a brave new world out there and in the new quest for information, the traditional method is still valid, we – as marketers and brands – just need to reframe it. To think about it in a new, non-traditional, way.

There is a lot of conversation about the digital newsroom, and that, to an extent, is what Moment Studios is. The team has daily conversations to make sure the stories that they are telling are relevant to the people they are speaking to, and to the brand. In the new age of social/digital story telling, we need to keep a few things in mind about content. It needs to be:

1. Relevant
2. Good
3. Short
4. Frequent
5. Cheap

As agency people, where we live and die with our creative, we probably (read: definitely) don’t want to throw the word cheap around too much, but at the end of the day, making a lot of content for a brand means we need to think about how to do, at least some of it, cheaply.

We can use social listening tools – like Radian6 – to extrapolate not only what people are saying about the brands we work with, but to see what matters to the people who are talking about the brands we’re working with, and if we’re smart, to predict what will resonate with those people. We’re working with moments. And moments mean Internet culture. We can listen to all of this.

And what about media buys in this new world order?  Sure we can still do them. But instead of simply sponsoring any story on Facebook, why not promote the stories that are already being shared. If people like it and are sharing a story organically, that’s the story we put the money behind – that’s the story we promote beyond our immediate audience. Because that’s the story that is going to be shared.

This Venn Diagram illustrates one of my favorite points from Social Media Week: good social content is at the intersection of brand message and cultural relevance. While Ken might have labeled it differently, he still said the same thing.

Finally, four things to keep in mind while we’re working with brands in the social space – to make smarter, clearer, more shareable stories:

1. Ask: What would the brand say if it wasn’t talking about itself?
2. Listen Closer: Look at the raw data and the analysis of the data.
3. Don’t blame the audience: If they don’t like something you think is awesome, just move on. We have a lot of opportunity.
4. Be prepared: Our culture is cyclical. We might not know exactly what we are going to say in a moment, but we can prepare for the moments and events we know are coming.

Four steps to better content. Four steps to better stories. Four steps to better connecting with consumers. Or as I like to call them … people.

… and you might not even know what one is.

In the 1970s, American’s had this thing called “Leisure Time” – it came with suits. 

They also had Pet Rocks.

If you were born in the 1980s, as many of you might have been, you may never have sen or even heard of the phenomena of the Pet Rock. But that is what it was – a phenomena,

Every generation has something like this – something that they are super stoked on and everyone has one, and everyone knows someone who has one, and, after a shorter time than you might think, everyone has one in their basement, in their attic, or in their garage.

I’ve written here before about what makes a brand everlasting in our culture. And in the comments, Ted pointed out that sometimes, what makes something a hit really just comes down to timing.

That’s how it was with the Pet Rock.

They were born in 1975, conceived by a California ad-man, who, was obviously a slick marketer. He had a silly product with great packaging and a fun story. He hit just at the right time and became a millionaire by New Year’s. But that’s the thing – a wacky Pet Rock might make a fun gag Christmas gift for friends and relatives; something corny to give your boss; something cheap for a Yankee Swap. But they weren’t something that you were going to give your sweetheart for Valentine’s Day. 

And once someone had a Pet Rock, then what?

After teaching it to sit and stay, what more was there?

Was there any need for a second Pet Rock? Where did the story go from there?

It went nowhere, of course. The Pet Rock fad died as quickly, or nearly as quickly, as it had begun. 

There’s something to be said for timing. For getting it right at exactly the right time. There’s something to be said for all those One-Hit Wonders* out there. But, even if you know the songs, do you know the band?

There’s something to be said about having a huge and amazing product launch; about having a killer hit; about making a shit-ton of money.

But there is more to be said about where it goes next.

If you’re not sure what I’m getting at, check out this amazing list of the most unforgivable Grammy snubs of all time and you’ll get the picture pretty quickly.

What comes next is important. It’s a big deal. 

And it’s the reason that you don’t own a Pet Rock.

*I could not, in good conscience, link to the VH1 list, which had far too many bands that had big careers in the UK to be truly called One-Hit Wonders.

What is it that makes something last? What is it that makes words become a story? And what makes that story become a legend? What is it that takes something beyond the moment and turns it into part of our collective culture?

What makes Tony the Tiger an icon and Katy the Kangaroo an also ran?

What made Diet Coke take off and Tab fizzle out?

What made us a adopt the red-suited Coca-Cola Santa as our symbol of Christmas?

What makes one movie stay in our collective consciousness and another be forgotten about the moment it leaves the theaters? What makes a band immortal and another a “one hit wonder”?

Branding? Advertising? Men around a big conference table, smoking Luckys and drinking Scotch? 

Magic?

Sort of.

But there’s something bigger than all of that. There must be.

There’s a confluence that happens when a story is told well. When it hits just the right place. Right now, we’re all spending a long time talking about “content marketing.” But what is that aside from really good storytelling, designed for the spaces we’re living in today?

A brand, a band, a book, a movie, they can all be awesome, but if they don’t get to the right people, what does it matter?

What makes something everlasting is not only that the product (or movie or novel or song) is a good one, but how people, the general public, perceive it. And how that product (or movie or novel or song) can be carried with those people, in a relevant way, throughout their life, meeting their needs. 

So how do we ensure that we can do that? We do it with stories. We do it by being there at important touchpoints as well as seemingly minor onse. We do it by telling our story in a very real way – not through constant re-invention, not through fabrication – but through the story of what we are and where we come from and by being very honest.

There are brands that do this very well. Zappos. Starbucks. The Rolling Stones.
And there are, of course, brands that do this less well.

We can focus on moments and the big picture.
We can focus on campaigns and the brand holistically.
We must, in fact, do this. An increasingly complicated and connected world demands it.

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”  - Willa Cather

That’s how we do it.
That’s how we make our products or our brands or our movies or our songs live on forever.
We make them part of – we make sure they are able to tell – these few very human stories.

Last year, taking inspiration from Chris Brogan, I wrote my three words for 2012. The three words were to be inspiration for my 2012. Words to make life better, work better, me better.

I’d like to think that they carried me through last year. Because when I posted them, there were a lot of things happening, and after I posted them, more things happened. Life is like that.

Last year brought: Inspire, Friendship, Growth.

And I think I did OK.

So. What are my three words for this year?

Create. Love. Do.A couple of years ago, I took some textile design classes at FIT. I really liked them. I would have loved to have continued, but I got a new job that was quite demanding and there just wasn’t time to work and continue with that particular line of study. Digitally – doing things like textile design, which I really enjoyed (and which I plan on sharing with the Spoonflower community) – as well as more analog stuff – writing, sewing and drawing; getting back to my art school roots and taking the random thoughts out of my head and putting them onto actual paper. Whatever it is, I will do more to create things.

In 2012, my boyfriend and I went to a lot of weddings. Watching our friends, surrounded by their family and by friends from all parts of their lives, express their love – there’s something inspiring about that. But, aside from the romantic stuff, which I do adore, I choose love for one of my three words for 2013 because love makes the world go round, my friends. Love of friends. Love of family. Love of puppies and kittens and your favorite foods. But, more importantly, the love of the little things that happen every day. And right in there is helping other people do what they love. One of the reasons we started Work It Brooklyn, back in 2009, it was to connect independent people living and working in Brooklyn – to hire each other, to help each other, to inspire each other. And behind that, was so that our friends and neighbors could keep working towards their passions – doing what they love. It’s still one of the best things I’m involved with. And watching people follow their hearts, that’s a kind of awesome love. Because we’re in a world right now where we can make a life of loving what we do. And doing what we love.

Which leads me to my third word. The one that might be the most important, at the end of the day. And, I believe, one that ties it all up in a messy little bow.
Do. Less thinking and sitting and wondering what might be. More action. As a shy and bookish girl, I spent a lot of my life watching and thinking and observing. I spent a lot of my time reading about what others were doing. Not letting my life pass me by, for sure, but not so much a person of action. Of course, as I grew older, more confident and more mature, that changed. But I think there is something very important to be said about being a person who takes action. For 2013, I want more do in my life. And for that to happen, I’ll need to take more action. That’s a kind of scary prospect…

On a side, but related, note, is anyone out there using Lift? I’ve recently discovered it and think it’s kind of awesome. I joined amongst the New Year’s resolutioners, so we’ll see what happens, but I think that any tool that works in helping you keep your goals top of mind… that’s a pretty handy thing.