[A] life lived online makes deep attention harder to summon. This happens because the brain is plastic – it is constantly in flux over a lifetime – so it “rewires” itself depending on how attention is allocated. […] if we decide deep attention is a value, we can cultivate it’*
(Sherry Turkle)

Reading about deep attention reminded me of an event I attended earlier this year on developing competence in complexity.

Part of this was spent identifying competencies for the 21st century: deep attention needs to be right up there.

Another is curation, the slow ability of selecting and arranging items, ideas and people in such a way as to add greater value to them and make an impact.

I bring the two together because being online opens us up to far more information than we can possibly deal with. We can know a little about a mighty lot of things. Developing deep attention and curation allows us to know why some are more critical than others and bring them together into an impactful story of the future.

(*From Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation.)