• Attention everyone

    It was a strange coincidence that I watched the 62 Super Bowl ads back-to-back, (thanks to this aggregation effort by Mashable) on the same day that I read this very insightful post by Steve Rubel on “Attentionomics“. The slideshow is also embedded below. In addition to the key takeaways – the lifespan of content created on popular networks, it also suggests ways to overcome this.

    Attentionomics Captivating Attention in the Age of Content Decay

    The interesting thing was that I would have watched the Super Bowl ads without any prompting. Which makes me wonder whether the logical and scientific way proposed above to ‘game’ the attention economy is the best approach. I think my discomfort stems from the fact that this leans more towards the ‘media’ in social media and looks at the social platforms from an information dissemination perspective.

    My consumption of the ads was more out of interest. The term ‘Intention Economy‘ springs to mind immediately in this context.

    The intention economy is an approach to viewing markets and economies focusing on buyers as a scarce commodity. The consumers’ intent to buy drives the production of goods to meet their specific needs.

    The thought is whether/how this can be applied to consumption of content. If it can, then the approach would be to make the content as easy to find and accessible as possible, to ‘appear’ at the time of demand, and create different contexts to drive that consumption.

    There is another perspective too. The easiest way to  elucidate it would be with the example of Google Reader/ Twitter Lists, where I pay attention to certain content creators, because I trust and value the content they produce. As Edelman’s Trust Barometer would tell you, the ‘trust in experts’ has actually increased this year. Their appeal does not really depend on the attention metrics.

    Can’t think of any other ‘angles’, but if you do, please drop me a line, or comment.

    So perhaps like the owned-paid-earned forms of content, brands will have to work on all 3 fronts. Harness expert power (employees and others), seed efficiently, create and use contexts effectively, and be easily accessible (like the brand-stream I proposed last week)

    until next time, at ease now 🙂

    PS: New research on why consumers ‘break up’ with brands on email, FB, Twitter, could be taken as a pointer to look at   alternatives to information dissemination.

  • A piece of happiness

    I always equated happiness with peace of mind. That having one automatically meant having the other. I somehow doubt that now.

    Does happiness come from going after what you’ve wanted, irrespective of the roadblocks that appear before you? And does peace of mind come from an acceptance of things happening around you and to you?

    Would you have peace of mind if you tried your best and still not got what you wanted? Would you still be happy then?

    Would you be happy to get what you wanted irrespective of the sacrifices you had to make, and the paths you had to take? Would you still have peace of mind then?

    Do you think they are the same? Or does the presence of one immediately dispel the other? If there had to be a trade off, what would you choose – happiness or peace of mind?

    until next time, mindful happiness

  • ShipX

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  • Coorg @ Koramangala

    Koramangala now offers a pork in the road for those interested in pigging on pigs. Ok, not on the road itself, but on 1st Main Road, 7th Block in Koramangala, same road as 64, almost opposite Corner House (map), there’s this amazing building that houses two eateries, each specialising in cuisines that give pork the culinary respect it deserves.  In what seems like a neat representation of the Indian map, you climb one flight of stairs and you reach Coorg @ Koramangala. Climb one more and you reach Zingron, that specialises in Naga cuisine! Yes, a huge dilemma, but after NE Diner, getting D to ‘acquire’ the taste of Naga cuisine is turning out to be more difficult than I thought. 😐

    So, Coorg it was, and we entered an area dominated by a shade of blue going towards purple. With one low-seating table, chairs we regularly find at ‘fine dining’ restaurants, and branded place mats the ambiance was easily better than the other Coorg specialist we had visited, but had a friendly neighbourhood restaurant feel to it.

    There was a commonality though, thanks to the single page menu. Beginning with four pork dishes, they sure know the priorities. We asked for a Pork Pepper Dry, Chilly Pork, a Ghee Rice, Chicken Masala, 2 Masala Rice Rotis and a Butter Milk. We were told later that they were adding to this menu from tomorrow. Early birds get a worm that may not be the best. Damn!

    The Pork Pepper Dry arrived first, and was awesome. With a beef like texture, and a pepper + curry leaves flavour, we thought this would be unbeatable. But the Chilly Pork, that came up next, was equally good, if not better. It’s dynamite in terms of spice, and had a nice tangy edge to it too. The butter milk came soon after, but turned out to be a disappointment – too diluted and lacking in flavour.

    In what can perhaps be described as our main course, the Masala Rice Rotis were quite unique and went reasonably well with the Chicken Masala, which had a coconut based gravy. But the ideal combination was with the Ghee rice, which was extremely good. Despite knowing that ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ is more true from a cholesterol perspective in my case, we asked for a Pork Fry. This was reasonably good too, though greasier and tangier than the other two dishes.

    All of the above cost us just less than Rs.600. The service is very prompt, and with what will likely be an expanded menu, this place is worth a visit when the hogging mood strikes you.

    Coorg @ Koramangala, No.62, 1st Floor, Near Corner House, 1st Street, 1st A Main Road, 7TH Block, Koramangala Ph: 40991191

  • Weekly Top 5

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