"Continuous Partial Attention"

I have blogged about being a "knowledge worker" before, but just found another good slideshare resource about it thanks to a link by Jim S.

The funniest thing was on slide 25 where a knowledge worker is described as having "Continuous Partial Attention."

I love that description.

I work with several people who exhibit this trait and it is one the key characteristics, I think, that makes them successful in the workplace. To be sure, they are also criticized because their team-level focus seems to be lacking, however, this is made up for in the bigger benefit to the company. This is just another way to transcend team boundaries and have organization-wide impact.

And the reason it's funny is because it's true.