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Attention matters.

Well, duh! You know this and I know this. Any eager entrepreneur knows that attention often means the difference between success and failure.

But how do you get people’s attention? More importantly, how do you keep their attention and convert them into customers and brand ambassadors? How do you get investors to open their wallets for you – and make sure they do it gladly?

Captivology, that’s how (and no, it’s not a cult).

In Captivology, The Science of Capturing People’s Attention (HarperOne, March 2015) award-winning writer and marketing agitator Ben Parr (DominateFund, Mashable) spills the beans.

Parr has combined a sizeable portion of his own experiences with extensive research in journalism, social media, advertising, politics, music and entertainment to draw a clearer image of why and how people pay attention.

So Parr sets out to dissect the 3 types of attention: immediate, short-term and long-term attention. He identifies “7 Captivation Triggers”: psychological and scientific phenomena that trigger shockingly predicable and quantifiable responses in the mind. These include disruption, but also rewards, reputations, down to the most basic automatic responses to stimuli (colors, shapes and sounds).

Each chapter is dedicated to a trigger, backed with case studies and examples. The book is rich in anecdotes, many of which are personal; including a conversation with Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Nintendo’s iconic mustached plumber Mario, or Susan Keser, the orchestra violinist who chose to make a comfortable and enjoyable living playing in the New York subway, and many more.

As the co-founder and managing partner of a venture capital firm, Parr says he wrote Captivology out of necessity. “In Silicon Valley, disruption is the mantra that entrepreneurs live by,” he writes.

In his introduction he says that what he noticed startups were after the most were the necessary knowhow to deal with the press, develop marketing campaigns, build viral products, optimize customer acquisition, etc. In other words, they needed help getting attention.

Startups will surely find the insights in Captivology invaluable, but the lessons are universal. The mechanisms of attention are the same in any context, from designing an advertising campaign to giving a presentation, starting a conversation – even writing a book. Case in point: Parr’s book captures your immediate attention from the beginning with the word “captivology” he coined.

The subject is interesting enough to command “short attention”. But what makes it memorable is the number of references to contemporary and real-life situations, as well as icons of popular culture most readers are familiar with (from Edward Snowden and the Ukrainian conflict to Steve Jobs, Batkid, Star Wars and Gone with the Wind) examples and references and phenomena you may be familiar with.  

This first book by Parr (though he has written thousands of articles) actually feels like one long and interesting post or newsfeed. This makes for a smooth and enjoyable read; I finished it in one afternoon (I couldn’t put it down), and I’m sure I’ll go back to it later.

 *Ben Parr is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of DominateFund, a strategic venture capital firm, as well as a columnist for Inc. He was named by Forbes one of their "30 Under 30". Before that, he was Co-Editor and Editor-at-Large of Mashable, where he wrote over 2,400 articles on social media and technology.

See related: 7 Winning Pitch Ideas for Mobile Game Developers and What Hollywood Taught Me about Pitching