The connection economy brought a paradigm change from competition to collaboration and from fear to empathy. Leadership and caring for others might be the only reliable strategy if you want to be seen!
Informational Big Bang and the attention scarcity
What has changed? Before the internet, one could pay its way out to be broadcasted and be sure to be seen. For a long time, broadcasting implied that the media had the power to decide who gets to be seen and had all control over the collective narrative.
At the same time, getting people’s attention was a pretty straightforward process, and it was also self-explanatory that only a narrow percent of businesses could afford it. So to be seen, companies needed to compete and have more aggressive, sometimes creative, advertising.
The internet disrupted traditional media by giving anyone the power to communicate and become an entrepreneur who displays his/her services, products, and ideas.
Social networks are somehow the natural outcome of this disruption; we went from a unidirectional pyramidal system to a highly prolific, interactive, and multidirectional network of billions and billions of people. A hologram.
This new way of interacting with one another brought about new paradigms, such as the concept of “Global Village” and the new connection economy.
Another significant paradigm change is the scarcity of attention.* Before the internet, the media could assure you that 90% of the households were watching Baywatch at 8:00 pm; therefore, they could guarantee it was the best time to display.
Today we are immersed in such an abundance of informational input and content that no one can say that there’s a strategy or formula that you could follow and that will ensure that you are seen.
5 Questions to setup your lead
There are no formulas, but there may be new paradigms that help us adapt to this transformation; one of the most relevant is the idea of Leadership. And, What is a leader?
A leader is someone that is working within a community, creating connections around a specific value.
You are already part of a community, perhaps even many communities. You might be, for example, an entrepreneur in a specific area in your city. Start with some back-engineering; instead of showcasing your latest ideas, products, or services, what you need to start doing is showing interest!
Go out there to meet the people in your community. Read them, watch them, interact with them, and follow up with those that resonate with you! Here are 5 questions that will help you get the lead here.
(1.) where can you find and connect with your community? Find the spaces or create them. And once you start making connections, (2.) how will you interact so that you can know who they are? And to understand what problems or challenges they have.
(3.) How will they find you? (4.)What’s the story that relates you to them? and (5.) What value will you finally generate?
Yep, show interest first! Then, interact and create connections among people. This is more likely to get you to become an engine of collaboration and find synergy among your peers. Consequently, you will find opportunities to create value that matches your market’s needs and that have earned permission.
There are no secret strategies, tools, or formulas, but to be aligned with our time, we need to be the ones answering the calls to action, which are actually calls to collaboration; and have the courage to show up with generosity and empathy.
To reclaim personal responsibility and to understand that you are the one who needs to see first, to acknowledge your community before you get to be seen.
