Marketing requires attracting attention. There’s only so much attention available, and its use-by date is RIGHT NOW.

     Humans can share attention using language. Animals can’t do that.

     We have one kind of attention in common with animals. The lion’s roar captures the attention of every zebra and gnu at the water pond, but it’s a signal, not a communication. Edmund Bolles calls it “mass attention.”  

     Why have no other animals trod this path? Animals evolved eyeballs in several unrelated species because eyeballs are really useful for survival. Flying is useful, and birds and bees and bats all took independent evolutionary paths. Each invented their own method of flying. Why haven’t any other species tried the human invention of language?

     I’ve been re-reading Edmund Blair Bolles book, BABEL’S DAWN: A Natural History of the Origins of Speech. “Apes are pretty darned smart,” Bolles says. “Apes could start using a primitive language today if their motivation to keep secrets gave way to a motivation to share knowledge.”

     They have no motive for revealing what’s on their mind. If they know something that the other apes don’t, it’s their secret advantage that they will not give up.

     Shared attention is the uniquely human ability to jointly focus on the same object or event, while being aware that the other person is also focused on it.

     This attention triangle–self, other, and shared focus–is central to how humans communicate. “I see that you’re looking at the same thing I am” is what creates the social grounding for language.

     In order to attract attention one must reveal something. Many companies don’t want to reveal a thing except their opinion. They don’t have the motivation to share their knowledge. They want to hoard it, keep it in-house, protect their trade secrets from competitors. They want a burnish job on their existing opinion of themselves.

     Their sites are not created in a spirit of “joint attention.” The sites are the company preening in the mirror, and whatever the company is offering is too obvious to mention, since the company knows all about it.

     Here’s an example, a Santa Barbara company with $20 million in sales in 2025. Their site doesn’t say anything specific. What makes them better? They say it’s because of “The Intriplex Way: A model defined by technical leadership and rooted in a commitment to unparalleled service.”

     I cut five words from their home-page company description. I challenge you to figure out what they actually do:

At IntriPlex Technologies, we’re more than manufacturers—we’re precision engineers enabling the systems that power and connect the modern world. Specializing in high-volume [delete] technology, we’re recognized worldwide for our engineering excellence, unmatched product quality, and a diverse innovation portfolio spanning numerous industries.

Across every industry we serve, our teams advance manufacturing capability through precision engineering and innovation. From pioneering [delete] assembly capabilities to supporting next-generation digital infrastructure, we apply the same technical rigor, scale, and reliability wherever performance and consistency matter most.

Headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, with manufacturing operations in the USA and Thailand, we serve not just as a partner, but as a catalyst for progress.

     It’s all puffery, all abstract opinions about themselves, with zero explication of concrete details about what they do; it’s taken as a given that everybody knows everything about them.

     You could see the same text used for hundreds of different companies.

     It’s not that people don’t want to read. They don’t want to read dull boring crap. They want it to be easy to read, clear and straightforward. Worth reading. You make it worth reading by divulging things.

     I’ve spent my career as a copywriter with a foundation in Rosser Reeves book, REALITY IN ADVERTISING. Reality is more important than ever here in the tsunami of the AI invasion, but now I’ve added Boole’s triad to my analytical processes: a speaker and a listener paying attention to a shared topic. I aim for joint attention with a reader.

     Shared attention has to be earned, not imposed. Sharing attention does not mean issuing an edict. The emphasis is on SHARING. The usual corporate methodology is to create something that displays that the client is paying attention to itself. The proles will be commanded to pay attention.

     Short attention span happens when one mind realizes that it’s the only one there and the topic is not interesting.    People don’t claim that they have a short attention span themselves, it’s everybody else. That’s why nobody’s looking at the company’s messages.

     Only humans are capable of joint attention. AI can’t share attention because it doesn’t have a mind. It does only what it has been programmed to do.