Garnering attention is really hard in today’s day and age. People are increasingly distracted by the varied media spaces that permeate our lives.
Consider this:
Most people who multitask do so although it degrades their performance. The allure of competing medias simply make it harder and harder to focus. Howard Rheingold, in his recent book Net Smart says:
The way we communicate today is altering the way people pay attention— which means we need to explore and understand how to train attention now, so that we, not our devices, control the shape of this alteration in the future.
So, if want people’s attention, we need to intentionally design for true engagement. In virtual settings, this can be very tricky because you must gaze at a screen that is laden with distractions.
To win the competition for our attention on Wednesday night, Howard invited everyone present at his webinar to participate via one of the roles below.
Once I committed to a role, I was immediately engaged. I chose to join the Lexicon Team, and I spent the entire hour attuned to important or unfamiliar vocabulary in Howard’s talk. You can check out the collaborative notes created by the team here. Since I was productively busy, I was also productively engaged. Honestly, I had trouble remembering to tweet!
So…. if we care about engagement in online spaces, what follows?
- People in online spaces need clearly defined, yet flexible ways to opt in. Are there multiple roles defined for participants based on their interests or comfort level? Is participation explicitly encouraged and honored throughout the entire session?
- People in online spaces can’t just listen. Just listening results in unproductive multitasking. Can you engage multiple senses? Can you invite participation via short tasks (such as a 6 word summary) or question generation?
- People in online spaces need feedback from the community AFTER learning has occurred. Can people process in a safe space at their own pace? Who will support them as they process?
Thanks, Howard, for helping me to uncover these vital design elements for online engagement!