It’s an ADD world, information-saturated, and 24/7 – this everyone knows.  Sally Hogshead has figured out what anyone wanting some attention can do about the short attention span of our fellow humans.  In a word, what you have to do is fascinate your species.  Sally’s new book is called Fascinate:  Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, and it’s the user manual for our era. Anyone wishing to be more than ignored by friends, family, potential mates, and of course the business world should read this book. 

Sally identifies the 7 triggers that capture our attention.  They’re not surprising, but they certainly feel like the right ones:  lust, mystique, vice, trust, alarm, prestige, and power.  She takes us through a
travelogue of modern society, pointing out the brands, the things, the people, and the events that trigger these triggers in us, and relates them back to our evolution as a species needing to eat, be safe, and procreate.

Her speech on this subject is fascinating in itself.  Here’s a snippet:  http://tinyurl.com/y9hatpa But it would have to be, wouldn’t it?  Still, any speech that involves a Jagermeister tasting qualifies as interesting in my book.  More than that, you learn why we smile, why the DARE program encourages drug use in teens rather than discourages it, and what Sally was doing trying on some of the world’s most expensive jewelry at Harry Winston’s in New York city.

It’s all fascinating, and both the book and the speech are worth catching.  Sally’s perspective comes originally from the advertising and branding world, not surprisingly, but her insights are relevant to a far wider world.