The images above should strike fear in any one who seeks attention - be it a brand, a politician or an individual. They come from Nielsen. The first (87) is the number of domains the average American visits in a month. The second (2600) is the number of web pages the average American visits in a month.
This funnel is small when you think about the infinite choices we have today - an era of information abundance. And given that human attention doesn't scale, I anticipate these stats will remain stable. So how do you break through? Here are three steps I am considering in my work as a communicator ...
1) Limiting all writing to 400 words or less - that's what Leo Baubata is doing and I think he's on to something. (You can do the same with email.)
2) Doing more with visuals - most of my PowerPoint decks don't have bullet points and I am doing more with mindmapping. (According to the book Brain Rules, if information is presented just verbally orally, people only remember about 10 percent. This jumps to 65 percent if you add a picture.)
3) Embracing a hub and spoke approach - it's difficult to expect anyone to come to you. This is why I like Posterous. I can start something here and engage with it everywhere via their auto-posting feature
Is your message being heard? And if so, how are you coping
