The 07/29/08 ABC Primetime portrayal of the life of Randy Pausch was potent in many ways. Building on the cultural platform of his widely-acclaimed book, The Last Lecture, the current and hopefully lasting impact of the Pausch Effect expands on a couple of important life lessons:

1. The value of thoughtfulness that inspires people
2. The value of relationships that help engage people

Beyond all the media hype and clatter is a simple and profound story of life experience that connects the dots between what people could do, and what they should do. We deal with this question in Prepared and Resolved, in business terms, and the Pausch Effect pushes these matters to another level, a personal and professional level of principle and insight.

There are ethical and spiritual constructs woven into the message of the last lecture. People of faith will sense the story behind the story immediately, not at the end. And people whose charge it is to engage other people in the work of their lives will find a certain call to readiness, persistence, courage and optimism. The Pausch Effect is powerful, and it should provoke every reader.

There is growing concern in business, education, science and other KM fields regarding cognitive distraction and reflection. Everyone has constant personal and work process distractions, and some of us are more vulnerable to the effects of distraction. Others partition their time and attention more effectively.

Web-enabled communication provides a powerful means for social connectivity and access to information. This, in turn, speeds up contact and automates the flow of data. In general, these are good things. However, some would argue that we are beset with some unintended effects and consequences of a constantly connected world.

1. In her book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, researcher Maggie Jackson suggests that we are well on our way to becoming a less capable society as people are saturated with instant response connections at the expense of true connection and engagement.

2. Productivity observers submit that people are not only distracted by connectivity-based stimuli, but also by the explosion of social networking, phone/text noise, standard e-mail streams and other attention-grabbing diversions.

This is an important subject for knowledge workers, because they are employed to utilize precisely those cognitive resources that are being effectively taken away by proliferating distractions. There are multiple technical, behavioral and economic implications of distractions-related tendencies. First, the problem is significant enough for Microsoft and others to get into the act with software-based attention interfaces. Second, more and more organizations are improving employee policies and education that deal with distractions. And third, most KM-based employers are exploring the development of technical and emotional literacy as a backdrop for avoiding distraction effects. Most HR/PD teams are baking this subject into policy.

The longer-term effects of distraction on cultural degradation require further analysis. However, observers in higher education are making more and more focused comments on this subject regarding the impact on students vis-à-vis reflective, serious thought, discourse, problem solving, decision making, subject matter expertise and leadership.