So many things compete for our time each day. Algorithms are rapidly altering the attention economy. We’re overstimulated. Social media is reducing our attention spans. Our phones constantly buzz and beg for us to look at them. A five-minute meditation can feel like an eternity.
Or, maybe not. The human brain actually has a large capacity for paying attention, and studies point to one great way to hold someone’s attention: storytelling.
Our brains are hardwired to be drawn to stories. A good one has the power to fully captivate us, and transport us somewhere else. They enable us to pay close attention, and we’re better able to encode memories. Just like with face-to-face interactions, a good story triggers a release of oxytocin—the love hormone.
Collaboration between the US and UK, combined with new technology, is facilitating the kinds of immersive experiences that allow people to meaningfully engage with the content they consume. Both Andy Cooper, the creative director and co-founder of UK-based Draw & Code, and Space Center Houston wanted to figure out a way to tell a compelling story about space. They didn’t want it to just be for space nerds. They envisioned a place that families would enjoy even if they weren’t all that interested in planetary exploration.
“We tried to create something that really captures the inspiration and imagination,” says Cooper of the project, Mission Sketch, an immersive installation located at Space Center Houston. For Cooper, the future of content is one where people fall in love with stories; the first people who walked through the exhibit cried.
This type of innovation stemming from collaboration between the United States and the United Kingdom is exactly why the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland campaign is working to foster opportunities that can drive growth in exciting ways. From shaping the future of content to space exploration, whether in actual missions or on the ground at Mission Sketch, technology plays a powerful role in driving the world forward.
According to the Liverpool entrepreneur Cooper, technology can transform the world by telling powerful stories. The opportunity to work on Mission Sketch came to be when he connected with folks from Space Center Houston at SXSW last year. Both parties wanted to work together to bring an exciting new idea to fruition. To bring it to life, Cooper worked with partners in Texas to create the space, and scientists and astronauts to make sure it’s as accurate as possible.
As technology advances, the formats for delivering content have shifted, too—from blogs to listicles to social media. The content itself has gotten shorter and shorter. Data shows that the average attention span on social media is only two seconds.
While digital connectivity seems to be at an all-time high, getting people to care about something feels like a tougher challenge. When Mike Charalambous, CEO of London-based Threedium, looked into how people around the world actually engage with content, he learned that when people scroll they often can’t recall what they just saw. He has found one format that seems to hold people’s attention: 3D.
Threedium is a 3D and AR platform that works with brands to create immersive commerce experiences. For one global cosmetics brand, Threedium built an augmented reality game for Gen Z-ers where the brand’s products fell from the sky; the more the user collected, the more discounts they could rack up. Gamification proved to be both captivating and effective.
These new technological applications in the world of content are made possible by a robust ecosystem running behind the scenes. Arm, a computing company and world leader in CPU designs, provides the foundations required for US and UK companies to grow and innovate. A staggering 70 percent of the world’s population uses products powered by Arm: Ninety-nine percent of smartphones run on Arm-based processors and more than 300 billion Arm-based chips have been shipped to date.
“Arm is a UK-founded company, but is doing a lot of things globally,” says Stephen Ozoigbo, head of government partnerships at Arm. According to Ozoigbo, collaboration with the US—Arm has offices in five US states—is the driving force behind advancements like the AI-capable, immersive experiences Cooper and Charalambous are working on. Ozoigbo knows that government partnerships can create opportunities for businesses to work together in brand new ways.
For Arm, Draw & Code, and Threedium, US/UK partnerships have been crucial for evolving their work and creating opportunities to define what’s possible. By working across borders, companies can get the best of all worlds by tapping into new sources of talent, emerging tech, and fresh ideas to create growth and rich opportunities.
Attention is a powerful currency. By using technology to create experiences that are designed to be engaging—by crafting good stories—people are interacting with content in brand new ways. Right now, the future of content is being driven by transatlantic collaboration between the US and the UK, the world's first and third largest tech economies in the world. By working together and using technology to create and power more immersive experiences these companies are architecting a new era of content—one we’ll actually want to pay attention to.
