“Access and attention are finite currencies” Chris Brogan
From my own experiences teaching at a university, I’m inclined to agree with Chris that access is a finite currency and resource. Some students will have more access than others to contemporary technologies and consequently have an advantage over others. This also applies to some degree to businesses. Some businesses will have more resources available to them that provide them more access, while others will not.
From a social media perspective it could be argued that access to social media is infinite, particularly with the mobile phone technology, but I’d argue that if we conceive of access as more than just being able to login…specifically if we think of it as the ability to use technology fluently, then access is limited by the amount of time and also tech skills a given person has. And with businesses an additional layer is finite access due to the need to run a business and pursue other avenues of marketing, networking, and promotion.
Attention is also limited, especially in this age of information overload. Because we have so many vectors of information now available to us, we need to be able to monitor that information and also parse out the useful vs non-useful information. The amount of attention you can give is also divided by other factors such as the relationships you cultivate and activities you are engaged in.
Attention is a finite currency due to physiological demands such as sleep and eating. Ultimately what captivates attention is what interests a person the most, and being able to hold a person’s interest is dictated by what that person wants. The currency of attention is the interest a person feels or expresses.
Taken together both access and attention can determine what a person will spend time on, and how that person will access what s/he wants to spend time on. In fact, we could argue that time is the expression of the currency of attention and access as ultimately it is the time we spend that determins how that currency is used.
