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Attention Deficit Disorder: Our Walled-Garden Problem

August 1, 2016 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

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As the digital world pummels us with more information and choice, many of us react by walling off the things we simply won’t pay attention to. It’s a survival strategy. We increasingly define ourselves by the things we choose to pay attention to, and bestowing attention is a form of currency we are reluctant to squander.

This is a problem if you’re trying to grow an audience. Building a better mousetrap doesn’t matter if you’re in a world where mousetraps of any kind are on the other side of the wall. You’re less likely to find new audiences for your orchestra with better programming or brilliant performances if orchestras are on the other side of the attentional wall.

As our walls carve smaller micro-niches and we cut off more of the world from even passing consideration, building better products in categories in which we no longer pay attention to brings diminishing returns.

What to do? It’s a truism on the internet that you have to go where your audience is. So you have to be precise about defining who you think your potential audience might be (and this might be a different audience than what you currently have). Then you have to go where they are – they’ll no longer come to you (and they’re less likely to just encounter you).

The “cold call” version of this strategy is going out into the community to places where you don’t normally show up and displaying your wares. A concert in the mall, a gallery in a restaurant. This is usually a low-yield strategy, the real-world version of the salesman who calls you uninvited at home and attempts to sell you something.

A much better way of breaching the walled garden is to collaborate with someone who’s already on the other side of the wall. An example from this weekend’s New York Times:

Even in this moment of dominant solo idols — Beyoncé, Drake, Rihanna — there exists a less instantly recognizable realm of rising studio superstars that have leapt from the depths of SoundCloud or the E.D.M. heap into the upper echelon of influence, dominating radio play and landing high-profile festival appearances. Acts like the Chainsmokers, along with Diplo, Disclosure, Calvin Harris and even the rap figurehead DJ Khaled have proven reliable hitmakers as lead artists, frequently employing their industry friends to carry the tune while laboring in partial obscurity.

Benefiting from the cross-pollination of regions and genres, these collaborations can introduce the featured artists to new audiences, with rappers and crooners crossing over among dance-pop aficionados. But the producers are pulling the strings and rightly taking much of the credit.
The SoundCloud and EDM producers would never get the attention of the Beyonce or Drake fans on their own. But collaborating introduces them. And what’s in it for Beyonce? She get’s new creative juice – the collaboration changes what she makes in ways she couldn’t do on her own.
Key to these collaborations is that they offer obvious tangible benefits to each of the collaborators. It’s not about just piggybacking on someone else’s fame, it’s about getting inside the walls of potential fans and meeting them where they are.
Image: Flickr user colmmcsky

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Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal, which was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a … [Read More...]

About diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing. So... [Read more]

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