John Hagel wrote an excellent post, The Aphrodisiac of Attention. I insist that you read it immediately. 🙂
Trusted filters, trusted protectors, trusted concierge, human or technical, removing distractions and managing boundaries, filtering signal from noise, enabling meaningful connections, that make us feel secure, are the opportunity for the next generation. Opportunity will be the tools and technologies to take our power back.
Technology will certainly be important, but I remain convinced that technology alone will not maximize the return on our attention. We will need human intermediaries to harness the technology and adapt it to our changing needs. Some of you may remember the concept of the infomediary that Marc Singer and I wrote about in Net Worth. That concept is resurfacing in interesting ways these days.
Trust, filters, social networks, information overload. These are the important ideas.