There are many lessons to be drawn from current developments in the United States. Whatever one’s opinion of President Trump, there is no denying that he has mastered the most valuable asset of our age: attention. He is, in many respects, the embodiment of the shift that has taken place over the past few decades—from an information economy to one in which the scarcest resource of all is human attention.

Every day, we are overwhelmed by a torrent of content unimaginable in years past. In this era of information saturation, where sophisticated algorithms are designed to capture and hold our focus, businesses, governments, media, and individuals are locked in competition for that most finite of resources: time and attention.

For organisations, the consequences are profound. Consider another American politician, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, widely tipped as a future presidential contender. His communications team recently demonstrated that they have absorbed the central lesson of modern communications: you must be everywhere, all the time. In their case, they did so by parodying Trump’s distinctive style of social media posts—an approach that not only caught attention but multiplied its impact.

What Trump and Newsom have illustrated is clear: sporadic or periodic campaigns no longer suffice. Companies, policymakers, and leaders who wish to compete successfully in the attention economy must build continuous streams of relevant, engaging, and shareable content.

The winners of the twenty-first century will be those who not only capture attention—the most contested and valuable resource of our times—but also translate it into positive and measurable action. Those who do will wield true influence.

– Paul Boughey
Chief Executive Officer