Babak Bagheri

Attention is a scarce commodity. This is strange given the fact that there are now over 6,000,000,000 of us humans on this planet. Surely, there should be a sizable audience for almost anything. Well, there is but not all that sizable. There are many reasons for this, but the core reason has to do with the limitations of the human brain. Yes, you read right; that magnificent instrument we all have in our skulls is limited. The important limitation here is our capacity to analyze and remember. We cannot possibly evaluate and recall the value of everything even a small fraction of humanity produces. So we rely on others’ judgments.

Small World Graph with Hubs

Not only do we rely on others’ evaluations, but we simplify even these second-hand judgements. The upshot of this human tendency is that we’ve created a world of “hubs” of attention. A very few people and groups, “hubs,” dominate our collective attention. Not only do the hubs dominate, but away from the hubs attention falls off exponentially.

In other words, points of attention form a “small world” graph with very big hubs. This power law of attention can be a boon for those who make up the hubs. So how do you become a hub? You’ve probably been given one answer by marketers: Niche Thyself. Basically, become a hub in a small group, then parlay that into becoming a bigger and bigger hub. The niche advice is probably the soundest one there is. But there are other things you can do.

Here’s a partial list:

• Do something stunning (good or bad doesn’t matter, but good is better).
• Do something encyclopedic (create a point of reference).
• Do something helpful (indispensable is even better).
• Connect others together (this is very popular these days).
• Ignore the hubs and go for the “long tail” (if you’re feeling clever).

You may want to make your own list along these lines.