Reality Upgrade

You have 8 seconds. No, I’m not kidding.

Continuous Attention Span

The average continuous attention span on an adult human is 8 seconds. This is how long a human can focus on an object without any lapse at all. After this amount of time, it is likely that an individual’s eyes will shift focus, or that a stray thought will briefly enter consciousness.

This means that you have 8 seconds, and only 8, to get across your brand message.

That does not mean you have to give an entire presentation on what you do in 8 seconds, but your brand message - the “Just Do It” - has to fit there. Any longer, and something else will distract the audience from your message. After all, how effective would “Just Do - huh, how’d that bug get in here - It” be?

General Attention Span

The average attention span of an adult human is about 20 minutes - this is how long a person can stay concentrated on one general thing without needing a break or some kind. That means that if you are making any kind of presentation, you must keep it to under 20 minutes, or your audience will stop paying attention, without even noticing that it is happening.

You can get around this time limit by giving the audience “breaks”, but in general your should keep it to under 20 minutes. Anything you really need to say, you can say in that amount of time.

And in the spirit of keeping it short, see you next week.

Step 1 - It’s all about them

Step 2 - Hearts, then minds

Step 3 - Keep it simple

Step 4 - Keep repeating it