IP: Origin of the Attention Economy

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Paul Saffo <psaffo () iftf org>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 18:11:11 -0700
To: Stuart Silverstone <ss () graphics org>
Cc: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Origin of the Attention Economy

S-
I you might be interested to know who actually thought the "attention
economy" idea up first:

It was none other than Herbert Simon, who wrote as follows in 1971:

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention
of its recipients.  Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of
attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the
overabundance of information sources that might consume it."
--Herbert Simon "Designing Organizations for an Information-rich World"
in Computers, Communications and the Public Interest" Martin Greenberged,
ed. (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press) 1971 pp 40-41

I subsequently learned from Ed Feigenbaum that Herb was actually talking
about this way back in the 1950s...

Best
-p

----------------------------------------

Paul Saffo
Institute For The Future
2744 Sand Hill Rd. 
Menlo Park, CA 94025
v: 650-854-6322  f:650-854-7850
psaffo () iftf org 
www.saffo.com  
www.iftf.org 



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