On Getting Attention, Encoding Messages, and Diving into the Deep End

How do you get people to care about what you care about?

It's a marketing question. A movement-building question. A question at the heart of the attention economy. And in one form or another, it's the question I've probably received more than any other over the last 15+ years. After all, there is no silver-bullet social media plan, no door-knocking strategy, no magical meeting agenda that produces results if the message at its heart doesn’t resonate with those receiving it.

This episode is in four chapters. In the first chapter, I assure you that getting attention is actually (relatively) easy—even if few of us are willing to do what it takes. In the second chapter, I explain why paying attention is really difficult, with the help of my favorite French philosopher. In the third chapter, I've got a story about getting my teenage daughter to watch a movie explaining esoteric financial products. And in the final chapter, I'll share a little idea I've been referring to as the Swimming Pool Theory of Communication.

If you care about getting others to care about what you care about (and I know you do), this one is for you.

Footnotes:

• Reasons my husky got mad at me this week
• Things that annoyed Waffles this week
• The Subversive Simone Weil by Robert Zaretsky
• The Big Short (book by Michael Lewis, film directed by Adam McKay)
• "Encoding/Decoding" by Stuart Hall

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (03:02) - 1. Attention is Easy
• (07:38) - 2. Attention is Really Hard
• (15:33) - 3. The Big Short
• (24:17) - 4. The Swimming Pool Theory of Communication

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What is What Works?

Work is central to the human experience. It helps us shape our identities, care for those we love, and contribute to our communities. Work can be a source of power and a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, that's not how most of us experience work—even those who work for themselves. Our labor and creative spirit are used to enrich others and maintain the status quo. It's time for an intervention. What Works is a show about rethinking work, business, and leadership for the 21st-century economy. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.