The framework — three gates, five drivers, one spectrum — is the centre of this site. But a framework is only useful in context. These are the concepts that surround it: one distinction it depends on, one phenomenon it warns against, and one economic condition it was built to operate within.
The concepts
- The Core Distinction Standing Out vs Sticking Out Sticking out means breaking through Trigger and failing the gates that follow — cheap, loud, forgettable attention. Standing out means earning all three — durable, resonant, remembered.
- The Cautionary Phenomenon Inattentional Blindness The Simons and Chabris finding that observers focused on one task can miss something as obvious as a person in a gorilla suit. Fail to break through Trigger and you simply do not exist for the audience.
- The Structural Condition The Attention Economy Herbert Simon’s 1971 observation that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention — the structural condition the framework is designed to operate within.