Attention

A number of years back the notion of the "attention economy" came on the scene -- popularized by the great Tom Davenport. It's an important notion from the perspective that, in terms of the current paradigm of scarcity economics, that human attention -- the capacity to fix cognitive processing and integrative resources -- is truly the rarest of commodities. And it is. In some ways, I think the attention paid to the attention economy actually underestimates the criticality of this notion. In our post-modern social and economic organization activities, we've truly discounted the importance and vitality of humans as localized integrationg units. We operate with little or no conception that any individual has not merely the capacity but the power to determine the structure and function of the entire universe going forward. Kind of a "butterfly effect" writ large.
But it's really more than that. While from one systems perspective you could say that an individual can make a large, leveraged difference depending on initial conditions, it's more true that each individual serves an integrating purpose that is unique and universal. I'm aware that this could be seen as channeling Ken Wilber which I may be, but I'm not so much influenced by him as I am by Bucky Fuller, who was saying the same things from a different angle back in the 70's. The point is that from any perspective, I think you can say that none f o our modern Systems incorporate a respect for the amazing integrative capacity of each and every individual human being. And even broaching this subject requires adopting a mindset that certainly doesn't come naturally; it requires engagement in a process that is quite challenging.
And finally, if we bring this notion to design, where does that put us? It's one thing to speak of or think of human0centered design, but it's another to consider the full capabilities of humans and how to design to optimize those capabilities. Time and again I've observed that design is driven to maximize some external notion of utility. If the human is considered, it's in the context of optimizing one narrow dimnsion -- the notion that ergonomics and comfort lead to productivity, for example. But if we dwell on the deeper notion of humans as in-universe local integrating units, then we open whole new possibilities for the design. And that's a conversation I want to lead.