The Other Attention Disorder
Here I was focusing on the problem of attention deficit. I completely overlooked the other attention problem. Attention Surplus Disorder. That’s when you can focus on something quite well but pick the wrong thing to focus on. Clayton Christenson gives an example in "The Innovator’s Dilemma" (Harvard Business School Publishing). He describes the example in this podcast: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail135.html
He examined the rise and fall of companies like Digital Equipment Corp. The very fact that I have to spell out that name tells about the fall. Thirty years ago, I would have written DEC and expected people to know what I meant.
His conclusion was that this and other companies that were run over by disruptive technology failed because of good management. The management focused attention carefully on matters relevant to keeping and improving their business position. They never lost sight of this goal. So they never noticed the disruptive technology of microcomputers. That technology was too primitive to offer them competition. They did not worry about it. Until it was too late.
Another name for focus is tunnel vision. (Thinkerer, Idea Slogans)
And now for something completely different.
According to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), during the 2002–03 school year (the last data available), 36 percent of U.S. school districts (5,500 out of 15,040) had students enrolled in distance-education programs, and 38 percent of public high schools offered distance-education courses. The DOE study had 328,000 students in 8,200 public schools enrolled in distance-education courses. As of November 2005, the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) listed 157 unique online learning programs in 42 states in its database, including 32 virtual charter schools, 3 online home-school programs, and 53 public, non-charter virtual schools that offer programs. The DOE’s 2004 National Education Technology Plan predicted that with the “explosive growth in the availability of online instruction and virtual schools … we may well be on our way to a new golden age in American education.” Virtual schools have arrived—and with them, a host of challenges to our notions about school and schooling. (The Virtual Revolution by RANDALL GREENWAY and GREGG VANOUREK )
Of course, remote learning is too primitive to threaten the Great and Powerful Education System. Besides, this new wine is being decanted from the old educational flasks. The basic rule of medicine is that it has to taste bad. And the basic rule of education is that it has to be boring. Education over the internet can also be boring. Just more efficiently boring. There is a rumor about entrepreneurs getting involved. But educators don’t need to worry about that. There will be plenty of time to worry about it later.
The basic rule of disruptive technology is that it has to break basic rules. That means, of course, breaking free of that other attention disorder. The disorder that is easily recognized as tunnel vision. A few years too late.
He examined the rise and fall of companies like Digital Equipment Corp. The very fact that I have to spell out that name tells about the fall. Thirty years ago, I would have written DEC and expected people to know what I meant.
His conclusion was that this and other companies that were run over by disruptive technology failed because of good management. The management focused attention carefully on matters relevant to keeping and improving their business position. They never lost sight of this goal. So they never noticed the disruptive technology of microcomputers. That technology was too primitive to offer them competition. They did not worry about it. Until it was too late.
Another name for focus is tunnel vision. (Thinkerer, Idea Slogans)
And now for something completely different.
According to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), during the 2002–03 school year (the last data available), 36 percent of U.S. school districts (5,500 out of 15,040) had students enrolled in distance-education programs, and 38 percent of public high schools offered distance-education courses. The DOE study had 328,000 students in 8,200 public schools enrolled in distance-education courses. As of November 2005, the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) listed 157 unique online learning programs in 42 states in its database, including 32 virtual charter schools, 3 online home-school programs, and 53 public, non-charter virtual schools that offer programs. The DOE’s 2004 National Education Technology Plan predicted that with the “explosive growth in the availability of online instruction and virtual schools … we may well be on our way to a new golden age in American education.” Virtual schools have arrived—and with them, a host of challenges to our notions about school and schooling. (The Virtual Revolution by RANDALL GREENWAY and GREGG VANOUREK )
Of course, remote learning is too primitive to threaten the Great and Powerful Education System. Besides, this new wine is being decanted from the old educational flasks. The basic rule of medicine is that it has to taste bad. And the basic rule of education is that it has to be boring. Education over the internet can also be boring. Just more efficiently boring. There is a rumor about entrepreneurs getting involved. But educators don’t need to worry about that. There will be plenty of time to worry about it later.
The basic rule of disruptive technology is that it has to break basic rules. That means, of course, breaking free of that other attention disorder. The disorder that is easily recognized as tunnel vision. A few years too late.
posted by Selby Evans at 12:40 PM
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