Motivation and the Seven Second Attention Span

The well documented decline in the ability to focus has everybody who can focus for more than 7 seconds talking about it for at least the length of a book manuscript—or the length of a blog post.

But, the real estate worth fighting over, for our money, is not focus, but attention.

Focus happens after attention has been attracted. And, with so many forms of noise distracting the masses from messages that may or may not be beneficial for them, attention is at a premium.

But not focus.

Yes, we realize that the immediacy of social media responses and the immediacy of Internet based information has created concern that the human brain is changing—and it is—but the real battle is still not focus.

The reason we believe that the decline in focus is a symptom of the current Social Age, and not the disease, is because the core of attention, intrinsic motivation, has always been—and will always be—a limited resource.

And while we don’t personally believe that resources are limited, we know that society has been arranged to bring into reality the belief that while attention is limited, internal motivation should be limitless.

And yes, we have seen the neuroscience research around attention and focus, as well as the research around Pavlovian operant conditioning, punishment and reward studies and other behavioral studies since the 1950’s.

But, we still hold that as our technology has increased, from the oral tradition to Twitter, there has always been misplaced concern over focus rather than attention.

We really should have a few more books and blog posts about motivation…

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

This Too Shall Pass

Black Friday is a creation of marketers.

Almost specifically designed to get the average person to buy more stuff, it is a conflict resolution practitioners’ dream fake social “holiday.”

People engage in shopping rituals, while also engaging in conflict with each other, over the acquiring of stuff.

People fall for the commercialism (advertisements) that subtly intimate that choosing not to make purchases, or too engage in the ritual, that somehow a person is a Scrooge.

People report an uptick in feelings of depression, dissatisfaction and other mental health issues.

This comes about due to a falsely generated feeling of collective belonging around this season, tipped off by the false shopping ritual of Black Friday.

During this day, the words attributed to either an Eastern monarch, or King Solomon, should ring in our ears, both as a blessing and as a curse.

Because, the sun is going to rise tomorrow and the rituals of one, man created day, have little to do with the vicissitudes of the future, or even the inevitability of conflict.

-Peace Be With You All-

A Fundamental Breakdown

Depending upon who you talk to, the social contract is either breaking down, or being renegotiated, with terms that favor the disaffected, the previously ignored and perennially held back.

Fundamental Attribution Error, correspondence bias and the attribution affect—all cornerstones of modern social psychology—describe the contemporary social contract in two basic ways:

External: If something goes wrong, other people are to blame and should have controlled their situations better.
Internal: If something goes wrong, I am not to blame because situations happen that are beyond my control all the time.

When we seek to blame others—or blame circumstances—for our misfortunes, disputes and conflicts, we shift the social contract in subtle and profound ways.And, depending upon whom you talk to, personal responsibility, or powerful institutionalized forces, are to blame.

But, when there’s no one to attribute cause and error to, and when there’s no set of circumstances that can be forgiven, how is conflict to be resolved?

-Peace Be With You All-

How to Really Break the Internet

The reason why there is so much meaningless content in your Facebook feed is that the platform has developed into an advertising platform, rather than a connection building platform.

If you are building a business as a conflict communication consultant, mediator, arbitrator or another type of practitioner, we can discuss the viability of paying for advertising in your connections’ Facebook feeds.

But this is about the conflict evident in the tension between what Facebook—and other platforms—used to be versus what they are now. The marketer Seth Godin made the point in a recent blog post that when a company goes public, it’s purpose ceases to be about changing the world and begins to be about ticking up the share price point for investors.

That creates tension.

The other factor that creates tension is the difference between what users expect from the platform based on past experiences versus what users are experiencing everyday. This is a tension evident in the fact that the users who engage with the platform the most have the greatest chance of getting their content in your feed.

Which means, Aunt Ida who only uses Facebook once every month won’t know that you aren’t seeing her content as often as you are seeing the content being shared and reposted by good ‘ol Trent who is unemployed and has been on Facebook everyday of the week for the last four months.

That creates tension.

Eventually, when another, viable, connection platform (and no, Ello isn’t it) comes along (as it will) Facebook will go the way of TV and become just another luxury advertising platform that charges more and more to push content to an ever more fractured and shrinking audience base that will be paying less and less attention.

That creates tension.

-Peace Be With You All-

Big Conflicts, Big Data, Big #IoT

As part of the continuing, half a century long hangover that economies, industries, governments and individuals are experiencing as a result of the collapse of the Industrial Revolution and the ushering in of the Idea Age, humanity still longs for “bigness.”

Big profits.
Big mergers and acquisitions.
Big Data.

The current collective panting that everyone from Wall Street wizards to social scientists are doing about Big Data—and the collection of every bit of information that platforms can get about customer and client preferences—reveals two disturbing, collective beliefs that will have wide ranging implications if not checked:

The first implication is that of our collective belief that bigger is somehow better, more secure and safer. With the number of incumbent bad actors (i.e. hackers, criminals, black hat actors, etc) looking to take advantage of the inherent security flaws in the collection of Big Data—not to mention the flaws inherent in size itself—this idea should die a quick death.
The second implication is less talked about but is just as important: What happens when everything gets bigger but the human heart shrinks? The collecting of every possible piece of data on people’s actions, choices and preferences and the storage and manipulation of that data, can only inevitable lead to more conflict, not less.

The coming era of connected physical items to a virtual world, provides us another opportunity to address these implications and answer these questions. In the Industrial era that we are rapidly leaving behind, “bigness” was the way that things got done in the most effective way possible.

But now, in an era of decentralization and disruption, the human heart—and it’s size—must be considered more carefully.

-Peace Be With You All-

Residents of (YOUR TOWN NAME HERE) Save $100 A DAY by Doing This One Simple Trick!!!!

Click bait articles and headline jacking efforts are just the latest in a long line of American hucksterism that began with Western, one man traveling wagon shows and continued through to TV infomercials from Billy Mays for OxiClean.

The first inherent problem with of all these forms of advertisement is the combination of shameless flim-flamism, the deceit of the short con, and the promise of a good deal of vaudeville.

The inherent false promise in this tradition plays on the long-standing, human desire for just one easy step that solves a difficult problem, fulfills an unmet need, or at the very minimum, entertains the viewer outrageously.

The reason why concerns about the lack of regulation in election advertising fall on deaf ears every two to four years is that the majority of election advertising is targeted at about the same level of click bait, online advertising and blog posts.

Add to all of it, candidates approving messages that, if your kid, your partner or your friend said them, you’d tell them they were full of it.

And we all know what “it” is.

“It seems so simple. It should be easy.”

This statement came out of a workshop I did recently as well as a podcast interview I gave recently.

Well, if the Truth were simple and easy, hucksters, flim-flam men, election year advertising, and other forms of selling that create artificial conflicts, fake disruptions, and incoherent disconnections, wouldn’t be so popular to use as shortcuts to the capital “T” truth.

And clickbait articles would drive almost no traffic on social media and in new journalism.

Do you feel like you saved $100 yet today?

-Peace Be With You All-

The Brain at Work

The brain is a fascinating organ.

It weighs around 3 pounds and it is in charge of everything.

The mind—the abstract part of us that conceptualizes our relationships between ourselves and the world—has just as much (if not even more) control that the actual physical operation of the brain.

The mind spends most of its time making abstract sense of a world that seems–on the surface anyway–to be irrational, disjointed and arbitrary. This is a 24/7/365 job.

And then, with all of that, we pack ourselves into vehicles, travel to artificially lighted spaces, hang out with people we did not choose and were not born with, and then we wonder why the whole thing just doesn’t work after about 200 years, give or take a few decades.

Our brains betray us.

Our minds flay us.

Our bodies decay on us.

And all we have to show for it is a few little notes with dead national leaders, trees or other objects on them.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Presenting to the Audience You’ve Been Dealt

Consultants and coaches never really choose the audience in front of which they will present.

It is impossible to go inside the mind of each and every individual in the room and determine their motivations, needs, desires and wants.

For the professional consultant or coach—at a certain point—you’re always kind of just winging it.

In fact, the smaller the room, the more intimate the setting, the more winging it looks like a lack of preparation, concentration and expertise.

Which, of course, has the effect of reducing trust and increasing the likelihood that the audience will turn on you.

Don’t worry about the audience that was chosen for you. Worry more about developing the tools to present effectively no matter who—or how many—show up to see you present.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Not Boring People to Tears

When presenting, varying pitch, tempo and word order can help a consultant or coach not bore the audience to tears.

So can having a really awesome twist on a really boring and basic idea, concept or problem solving approach.

The first approach takes time to develop and cannot happen without a good deal of self-critique and continuing training and improvement, on the part of the individual presenting the information.

The second approach involves employing an angle that—once the audience is no longer amazed—can lead to even greater boredom as the thrill of the initial spectacle wears off.

A professional will focus on both of those areas, but there is also a third area with which even the most seasoned professional may struggle:

Being tuned into the emotional vicissitudes of your audience through being aware of body language, micro-expressions and other nonverbal cueing can create the daylight between the presenter who arrives in spectacle and leaves in boredom; and, the presenter who gets invited back time after time.

-Peace Be With You All-

The Missing Singularity

We don’t know if you’ve heard, but the singularity is coming.

That moment in time when human beings unite with the technology that we have made and ascend gloriously to the stars…

Unless, of course, some of us decide to not unite gloriously…

Unless, of course, some of us decide to remain late (or non) adopters of the latest technology from the whiz kids at CalTech, Google or even Boston…

Unless, of course, we destroy ourselves—or a portion of the global culture we are rapidly building—in an effort to control or dominate an aspect, not yet going human hand-in-artificial intelligence hand, with technology.

Unless, of course, the human heart remains the same…

-Peace Be With You All-