I have been thinking real hard about the Attention economy and then about the Intention economy. In the past I have written about the Situational Awareness economy and online cognitive models, well I think I was in the right neighborhood. I think the economic revolution before us is the Cognitive Economy. The Cognitive economy revolves around memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving. It will be the businesses, organizations, services and people that build value around those key components that will be sucessful in the long term. Now in some ways this is a No Duh moment.

The key piece for me is, attention is valueless with out memory, perception, action and problem solving. So is this fully baked in my head yet, nope, but I think this is the right idea. Why? Look at Google, regardless of what people say, I think they get the cognitive economy (whether they know it or not). They Provide:

• simple problem solving via search, just look at the product offering under search.
• memory in search history, notebook, Google earth and Gmail.
• perception via search, labels, Reader, and RSS.
• action via simply being a web application, providing links, converting things to html, and the much talked about Gbuy.
• attention via AdWords, search, Google analytics, and measure map.

Google isn’t a search company, they are a cognitive economics company.

They aren’t “living off their PPC business”, I think they are igniting a massive economic engine. I also think, Microsoft has seen the light, the question is, how to change a massive software company into a cognitive economics company, Good Luck Ray Ozzie.

So that’s why I think the economy we all have been dancing around is the Cognitive Economy.

God Speed the Plough.

Links:

David Berlind interview of Doc Searls on Intention @ Identity Mashup