for short attention spans and expansive minds

oh, so that's what I look like from the net (via metro mode media)

Ed Vielmetti is Ann Arbor's pied piper of Web 2.0 new urbanist geek culture and all round swell guy. A relentless networker and vital strand in the social and high tech spiderweb of A2 start ups and up starts, his blog is really more of a free-for-all of interesting links and informational tidbits. For short attention spans and expansive minds.

The difficult part of this for me is the "short attention span", because I feel like I have a long attention span (measured in years) though it might not have a long time in any particular day. for instance:

from my review of Edward Hallowell's "Crazy Busy" in 2006:

The first half is a series of anecdotes about how the world has gone mad with fragmented attention spans, so that people have environmentally-induced ADD. The second half is self-help on coping with that world, and a few really neat exercises to improve your concentration.

from an interview with Maira Kalman in Library Journal: (2005)

Describe your thought process. For example, what inspired the image with the dog ("Well, Susan, this is a fine mess you are in")?

My very poor attention span allows me to jump from thing to thing with childish abandon. I chose the sentences only on the basis of what I liked. But once I narrowed down my choices, I wanted to be literal and true to the sentence. So, for instance, for the phrase "The temple of Isis" [see image, far left] I found images of the actual temple, which is on a small island on the Nile and rendered it with some characters sprinkled in. I tried to do this as often as possible. A reasoned madness.

my 1999 review of Blur on Epinions

This would be a great book to take out from the library and browse through hunting for ideas about the fast pace of modern life. If you have a short attention span you can even pick up a page, snag something quotable or at least interesting, and put it down again. But buy it to read it straight through...can't recommend it for that.

and from a quote file:

Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.

Technorati Tags: attention

Comments

[Patrick Haggoody]

"Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord"

..or the capacity of the battery in its UPS.

[Jim Benson]

I have personally seen Ed pay attention to something for over an hour. And it was a pretty boring thing at one point, yet he did not fall asleep.

The woman in front of my did, however, fall asleep and the back of her head hit my knee. Thankfully that woke her up. I've had several strangers on long flights spontaneously cuddle up to me while asleep. But the intimacy there was different.

There was something a little awkward about having someone wake up with their head in your lap in the middle of a conference presentation.

Anyway, she wasn't Ed. Ed was totally awake. Though he may have been getting kinda hungry at that point.

[Brian]

So if Ed is the pied piper, what the hell does that make the rest of us?

[Bill Tozier]

We have three choices: rats, burghers, and children. Or is there another one? Can't forget alternatives.

Or perhaps, some of us are from nearby towns in Saxony, and just passing through. Perhaps we are visiting our local Guild brothers. There might be some farmers among us, whose grain has been et.

[Edward Vielmetti]

You see, the Hamlin kids were used to getting only fragmentary bits of attention from the adults in their lives, and had otherwise been glued to their Nintendos (or, the young ones, to Bob the Builder).

The thought of an actual adult saying something useful and interesting was novel enough to capture their attention.