“The issue,” she mentioned, with the calm confidence of somebody who had given this reply earlier than, “is that spotlight may be very troublesome to carry on to.”
She paused.
“Two seconds and they’re gone.”
I discovered myself nodding, in the best way you do when somebody says one thing apparent that you just’ve someway by no means fairly articulated. Two seconds. Much less time than it takes to learn this sentence. Much less time than it takes to determine you don’t wish to learn this sentence. We’re, apparently, working on the very fringe of what the human mind is prepared to tolerate earlier than it finds one thing else to do.
This isn’t, when you concentrate on it, a very flattering portrait of our species. However it’s most likely an correct one.
Why Extra Communication Is Making Issues Worse
There’s a normal company response to the eye downside, and it goes roughly like this: ship extra. If the publication isn’t being learn, ship it extra typically. If the e-mail isn’t touchdown, write an extended one. If the all-hands presentation isn’t partaking anybody, add extra slides. The logic is comprehensible. It’s also, kind of fully, incorrect.
What organisations are likely to do is deal with office communication as a quantity downside when it’s really a relevance downside. Or, extra exactly, a humanity downside.
People have all the time paid consideration to the identical issues. Tales. Faces. Battle. Shock. A way that one thing actual is being shared between one individual and one other. We paid consideration to those issues round fires, in amphitheatres, in pubs, in cinemas. We by no means actually stopped wanting them. We simply constructed forty years of company infrastructure that quietly filtered them out.
The memo changed the dialog. The intranet changed the noticeboard. The Zoom changed the assembly, which had already changed the stroll down the hall. Every step felt like progress. Every step eliminated one thing small and human. And now we discover ourselves sending communications that no person reads, to people who find themselves technically listening to their screens however are, in any significant sense, someplace else fully.
Interactive Visible Storytelling as Utilized Psychology
What Amber’s firm, Intractive, is doing just isn’t, at its core, a know-how story. It’s a psychology story. The platform is interactive and visible, sure. It really works on any machine, embeds anyplace, tracks engagement, and surfaces knowledge. All of that’s actual and helpful. However the underlying premise is older than any of it.
If you need somebody to concentrate, it’s a must to give them one thing value listening to.
The ASML campus tour Amber confirmed me, constructed to draw engineers, was vivid and particular. The Dutch police pre-selection device, designed to filter recruits earlier than they waste anybody’s time, was trustworthy sufficient to inform folks early after they weren’t match. These will not be polished company productions hiding behind intelligent software program. They’re organisations which have determined to be, in some small method, actual.
That seems to be quite uncommon.
The AI Content material Paradox and the Shortage of Human Consideration
There’s a timing ingredient right here that feels vital. We’re, at this exact second in historical past, producing extra content material than at any earlier level in human existence. AI content material instruments can generate an article, a publication, a product overview, a candidate communication, in seconds. The economics of content material creation have successfully collapsed. Quantity is not a constraint for anybody.
Which implies that the factor that was already scarce, real human consideration, is about to grow to be dramatically scarcer.
In a feed stuffed with generated textual content, the piece that appears like an individual will stand out. In an inbox stuffed with automated updates, the message with an actual face and an actual voice will get opened. In a recruitment course of the place each touchpoint seems to be the identical, the employer who reveals you one thing true about what it really feels wish to work there’ll appeal to a distinct form of applicant.
This isn’t a sentimental argument for doing issues the previous method. It’s a pretty simple commentary about shortage. When every thing is plentiful, the uncommon factor wins.
What This Means for Worker Engagement and Inner Comms
Amber, 4 months into her profession, most likely didn’t got down to make a philosophical level. She was at a commerce present, making an attempt to promote software program. However the issue she described so merely, the two-second window, the drifting consideration, the communications that go unread, is one which sits beneath nearly each dialog taking place in HR, in inside comms, in advertising and marketing, and in management groups internationally.
We constructed extraordinary instruments for reaching folks. We simply forgot to say something value listening to.
The excellent news, if there’s excellent news, is that the repair just isn’t particularly sophisticated. It largely entails remembering what human beings have all the time responded to. Story. Character. A way that somebody, someplace, really meant it.
Two seconds, because it seems, is lengthy sufficient. In case you use them effectively.
Intractive is a Netherlands-based interactive visible storytelling platform. Amber Changoer spoke to UC At the moment at HR Tech Europe 2025.
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