A current meme is that one of the major points of limitation in our ability to execute is coordination systems. The claim, which is somewhat enticing, is that our communities are already incredibly powerful, but we lack the coordination systems to reliably be productive together, or to scale up the types of systems we can create efficiently.
I think there’s a counter argument worthy of exploration that attention remains a limiting resource. Our lack of coordination is not so much a technical limitation of the systems we use, but rather that the other people we are coordinating with are often distracted, and don’t pay attention to where boundaries are set.
This tension remains a core reason for why in person gatherings can be so energizing – they force presence by participants and capture attention more effectively than our technical systems. As our work becomes increasingly global this hack will become less able to capture attention at frequent intervals.
How do we capture dedicated attention? One path could be through curating memes. Belief can be an effective driver of attention and focus.
One of the paths I’m most excited about is curiosity. Effectiveness of puzzles and creating experiences to activate curiosity is a set of techniques that are not well integrated into how we work and coordinate.