Attention Triggers | Ben Parr

About Ben Parr

Ben Parr is an award-winning journalist, author, entrepreneur, investor and expert on attention. Through his unique experience as a leading technology writer, venture capitalist and prolific public speaker, Parr has coached dozens of young startups and Fortune 500 corporations on how to get attention for their products. He was named one of the top ten tech journalists in the world by Say Media and named to the Forbes “30 Under 30.”

Parr is the author of Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention, published by HarperCollins. His book dives into the science of attention, why we pay attention to certain people, products, companies and ideas, and how to capture and retain somebody’s attention. He interviewed dozens of “Masters of Attention” for his book, including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh, Entourage’s Adrian Grenier, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and the Mythbusters, along with leading researchers such as Dr. Michael Posner and Dr. Adam Gazzaley. Parr is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Parrticipation, a consultancy that works with later-stage companies and Fortune 500s on how to capture attention for their launches and marketing campaigns. He is also a columnist for Inc. Magazine and a contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg and .

Previously, Parr was the Co-Editor and Editor-at-Large of Mashable, where he wrote more than 2,400 articles on social media and technology, managed Mashable’s editorial team, and interviewed everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Mark Zuckerberg. He also served as Columnist and Commentator for CNET. Parr’s work has been featured in a variety of media, including CNBC, CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and The New York Times.

Parr is a graduate of Northwestern University, majoring in Science in Human Culture and Political Science, and minoring in Business Institutions. He is based in San Francisco, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Interview Transcript:

Ben Parr
There are seven key triggers. There’s automaticity, which is kind of automatic reaction to certain color sights and sounds how for example, if you want to if you’re hitchhiker on the side of the road, red is actually a better color than most colors to get attention. And I explained why framing which is how to change the frame of reference. So people will pay attention to what you’re trying to present based on their worldview disruption that we pay attention to the things that violate our expectations of the world. Reward that I discussed the reward system of the body and how you make rewards, more appealing and capture more attention, reputation, which is the trigger that captures our attention based on our directed deference towards experts in how we have a huge amount of deference towards them and towards authority figures. And then mystery, which is one of the most powerful triggers, which is that we pay attention to these incomplete storylines and incomplete thoughts and there’s a whole science behind it. And finally, acknowledgement, the most powerful of all the captivation triggers, which is that we pay attention to the people and things that pay attention to us and provide us with validation, empathy and understanding. And no, that’s a quick quick rundown. But combined, capture attention across all three stages.

We hope you enjoyed this interview; “Attention Triggers | Ben Parr”.

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