(2007-03-21) Boyd Information Attention Flow

Stowe Boyd thinks the Network Economy/Attention Economy is driven by the Flow State of Information. We are transitioning to a new ethos, in which remaining connected to those most important to us is more imporant (and more valuable, in the final analysis) than personal productivity... The hypothetical value of focusing on one thing and getting it done as quickly as possible has decreased... For the average person (Free Agent), linked in a dense, cascading Social Network of collaborators who depend on your timely response to critical events, it will prove increasingly difficult - if not impossible - to veer away from Continuous Partial Attention. We will have to learn a new balancing act, and it will be strongly canted toward spending more cycles scanning the horizon and fewer looking down at the piecework in our laps.

Ross Mayfield goes even further, saying that the Social NetworkContext gives us Economics Of Abundance for Attention.