The most highly coveted commodity isn’t precious metals, it’s not the euro or the greenback, and it’s not even information or content. The new currency is attention. Your attention. The next door neighbours attention. Warren Buffet’s attention.
Vital is the sustained and exclusive attention to your cause. If you’re not being heard, it doesn’t matter what you’re offering, you will inevitably fail.
So how does your message become the sole signal amidst the noise? Think in terms of channels, a channel being the medium of communicating your message. Your message could be anything from a request for a job interview, a trial close or a purchase order. Ideally, you want to be the only signal in that channel - an empty channel - but with most technologies that’s not possible. The term Empty channel was (I believe) first coined by Tim Ferriss, author of the transformational bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek
Let’s take for instance email. Email doesn’t work well as a channel because so many people use it. Imagine the editor of a top 100 blog. The volume of email he/she receives in a day is likely staggering and nearly unmanageable. You’re lucky if they even notice your email at all. If you get a polite email reply back, you know you can at least wordsmith a compelling subject header. Digg is another busy channel, and it takes massive mojo to bubble up to the front page.
Print advertising, in it’s various variants, is another poorly performing channel of communication. It’s a medium too cluttered and too impersonal to punch through.
Podcasts can be effective, more effective than radio, but it lacks tactile qualities, and it too is impersonal. And again, that channel is cluttered: a person’s ipod will often house hundreds, if not thousands of audio files. Your podcast or radio message is just blip in a constantly flowing, transient and diverse mix.
So what’s an example of an empty channel, a means of communication where only your message is heard? An empty channel would be
- a concise hand written note to an opinion leader in your industry. Fed Ex the letter to this person’s home address and you can bet your question or comment won’t be dismissed or forgotten.
- Another empty channel would be a face to face conversation. It’s only you and this person, exchanging ideas directly (over dinner?) without distraction or distortion of signal.
- A phone call might work as well, if you are able to speak directly to this person in real-time. However, should your message end up on the answering machine, you become just another number.
