Attention, science and money
September 25, 2008
Interesting observation by Kevin Kelly. He says
Where ever attention flows, money will follow
To some extent, that’s somewhat obvious. Peter Drucker, whom I admire a lot, said the following
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs
Attention can be driven by many mechanisms, marketing being the most effective one. The key is gaining sufficient mindshare, which is often accompanies by a flow of capital. In science, the money follows topics of research that have mindshare. Similarly people fund companies in areas that generate mindshare for whatever reason.
The question I often ask myself, both from my time as a marketer and as someone interested in science communication, is how can we bring more mindshare to some of our efforts and science in general. What does money flow mean? Is it just research funding? Is it investment in such concepts as “bursty work”? Take something else Kelly writes
New things that don’t work or serve no purpose are quickly weeded out of the system. But the fact that something does work or is helpful is no longer sufficient for success.
I have written about the lack of marketing in science (stealing shamelessly from Larry Page). It’s critical that we do a better job of highlighting the power of our activities and learn some marketing tricks along the way. No I am not talking about the in your face stuff that gives marketing a bad name, but about the kinds of activities that maintain that attention, and get people to notice. The good news, many of us already do that, perhaps without even realizing it. It’s still niche awareness, but I have a feeling that we are close to actually crossing the hump and bringing some of our activities into the mainstream.
KK link via Michael Nielsen
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Posted by Deepak Singh | Filed Under Business, Marketing, Science
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September 26, 2008 at 1:23 am
[...] bbgm likens this to Peter Druckers take on innovation, but I think a closer line can be drawn to ...
September 26, 2008 at 11:44 am
[...] txd Attention, science and money: [Via business|bytes|genes|molecules] Interesting observation by Kevin Kelly. He [...]