I’ve got another audio recommendation for you. Linda Stone, former VP at Microsoft, speaks about continuous partial attention, the state many of us are in where we’re constantly scanning for new opportunities. Email, cell phone, BlackBerry, IM. When was the last time you were in a conversation with someone at work and you gave that person 100% of your attention? It’s probably not quite as bad here in libraryland as in the open marketplace, but I know I’ve often only given partial attention to someone. I know that last month when I was on vacation I was able to read 1400 pages in large part because I was almost entirely unplugged, and was able to devote almost all of my attention to one task – it was great!
Linda describes how we got to this state, and gives hope that we’re generally moving past this state and have started to develop the ability to filter. “In a world of interconnected communities and constant background noise, the overriding question is: what do we really need, and what do we need to pay attention to?”
I don’t think the description on the IT Conversations page does the talk justice. It’s accurate, but the talk is much more compelling. 24 minutes long, mp3 format, can be played online or downloaded.