Attention Economy: Pull the Levers You Own, Not the Views

Three channels out of a hundred grab 85% of all views. Everyone else fights for crumbs.

It didn't have to be crumbs for everyone else. Behind that number are creators who showed up, worked late and cared about their audience. Some of them might have grown if they had steered with a control system, the Jirgenson Model, instead of guessing. With one, the split could look different for some of them.

Now your own Monday. You open the analytics, sigh and tell the room you need more views.

Andrew, who runs a coffee shop, said the same kind of line at a morning briefing. "We need profit. We have to do something."

"Do what, exactly?" Sara asked.

He didn't know. They talked for ten minutes and parted with the feeling that they had been discussing the weather.

Here is the irony. You can quote your view count to the last digit. You can't name one thing you'll change tomorrow morning to move it.

The attention economy: views are a result, not a lever

The typical YouTube video gets fewer views than a crowded city bus has passengers.

That number didn't have to be so small. Some of those videos might have found more viewers if their makers had pushed on levers instead of on the count. With levers named, the typical number could look different.

Split everything around your goal into two groups. What you change directly is a lever. What you can only hope for is an environmental factor. Work on the levers first, and take the factors into account.

A helmsman doesn't turn the ship with his bare hands. He turns the wheel, and the heading follows. Your views are the heading. You need the wheel.

You see the result. You move the lever. As long as the lever goes unnamed, you get ten minutes of talk about the weather.

The Jirgenson Model is new, and it is scientifically proven to work (the record: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23964934). It came too late to help the creators behind these numbers. Now it can help you.

The lever list, filled in: Andrew crosses things out

Here is the whole tool. Seven steps, about 15 minutes, each one shown with Andrew's entry.

1. Pick one goal. Choose one in trouble if you have one. Andrew: the cash reserve, sitting in the red. Yours: views per video, or new viewers a month.

2. Write everything that comes to mind. Don't filter yet. Andrew filled a clean sheet: the weather, rent and taxes, foot traffic in the street, prices, the menu, the milk supplier, portion size.

3. Cross out every environmental factor. Andrew: the weather is a factor, so it goes. For a channel: the algorithm, the season, a rival's hit video.

4. Cross out given conditions and other people's choices. Andrew: rent and taxes are given conditions. Foot traffic isn't his lever. Alex, who saves €300 for a bicycle, started with "get money for my birthday". His mother pointed out that this depended on his uncle. Alex crossed it out.

5. Read what remains. That short list is your control vector for this goal. Andrew's list: - the prices of lattes and cappuccinos; - the menu: drop the items that sell poorly and cost a lot; - purchasing: talk to the milk supplier; - portion size.

6. Put three questions to every lever. Can I move it myself, today? How long before the effect shows? Can I undo it if it fails?

Start with what is fast and reversible. Leave the slow and the irreversible for later.

7. Add one leading indicator. It points to the result before the result arrives. Andrew, for the price lever: the number of receipts in the first two weeks after the change. For a channel: a figure you see within days, such as clicks on the new thumbnail.

Andrew reread his short list and felt calmer. He had spent his nerves on everything at once: the rent, the weather, the customers' mood. Now he had four things he could tackle tomorrow morning.

Winner takes all? Test one lever with numbers

The opening number is a factor. You can't vote it away, and you can't out-shout it. You can test a lever against it.

Test his first lever on paper, as an illustration. Revenue €30,000 a month, expenses €27,300, profit €2,700: a margin of 9%. Prices up 5%, customers down 2%.

• Revenue: 30,000 × 1.05 × 0.98 = €30,870.
• Expenses: €18,300 fixed plus €8,820 of ingredients = €27,120.
• Profit: €3,750. Margin: about 12%.

One lever delivered about 3 points of the six he needed. Then he asked the sharper question: where is the limit? The rise pays off as long as fewer than 6.7% of customers leave.

That is how "raise the margin" turns into a question you can check: how many customers will leave? Your channel gets the same treatment. "More views" becomes "after this title change, does the click rate hold for two weeks?"

Pull one lever at a time, with a small step. Then you know which lever did the work.

How to avoid the crumbs trap: stop measuring the giants. Measure your own lever against your own last month.

Small streamer: when no lever shows up

Nearly nine out of ten Twitch streamers broadcast to an audience that would fit on one sofa.

That sofa didn't have to stay so small for so many. Some of those streamers might have grown past the sofa with a list of levers instead of a wish. With one, the share could look different.

Sometimes you write a goal and can't find a single lever. That is a signal, and it means one of two things.

First, the goal may be worded so it can't be controlled directly. "Readers' trust" isn't a lever. The levers are publications, examples and reviews, and trust follows as their result. "An audience" works the same way. The levers are the streams, their hour, their topic and the invitation you send out.

Second, the lever may exist and you haven't spotted it. Ask one question: what has to be done for this to happen, and who does it?

If the honest answer is "nobody", no effort will solve the task. Revisit the goal, or the level of responsibility.

How a strong factor compares with your strongest lever, and when to change rivers, is in creator economy for small creators.

How to avoid the empty sofa: write each goal so it has at least one lever you can pull this week.

What six more months of "we need views" cost

Run Andrew's numbers again. At 9% his profit is €2,700 a month. With the one price lever, it is €3,750. The gap is €1,050 a month.

Six more months of "we have to do something" cost €6,300 that one named lever could have earned. And that is only the first lever of four.

The second cost is effort. Without the list, effort goes into what won't budge, and the result is fatigue.

A creator pays in evenings. Weeks go into chasing the count, arguing with the algorithm and envying the three channels at the top.

And every Monday starts with the same sentence to an empty room: I need more views.

"The algorithm decides everything"

It decides a lot. It is still a factor, not a lever.

A driver on ice can't melt the ice or scold it. He has three levers: the steering wheel, the accelerator and the brake. The driver who gets angry at the road crew loses time. The one who eases off and steers into the skid regains control.

The same list serves a coffee shop, a freelancer and a boy with a piggy bank. Alex's levers for €300 are as plain. He sets aside €20 a month of pocket money. Jobs for the neighbours bring about €30 a month. His old scooter brings about €60, once.

Where the lever list does not reach

The list you wrote is complete. It separates levers from factors, tests each lever with three questions and adds a leading indicator. It treats the symptom: pushing on the result.

The cause sits one level deeper. The list doesn't tell you which goal is in real trouble, so you may pull a good lever on the wrong number. And a single lever pulled on a Monday is not yet a plan. It has no hours, no limits and no check date.

Levers are one link in the loop: goal, state, error, levers, plan, forecast. Two more steps close the gap.

• Error zones and the red protocol. Which number is in trouble, and which levers move first when several turn red. Chapter 4.
• The control concept. One plan per goal, with resources, constraints, a leading indicator and an owner. Chapter 6.

Without them, you know what you can move. You don't yet know what to move first.

Two roads from Monday morning

You have two choices. Close this tab, refresh the analytics and keep telling the room you need more views. Or take a clean sheet tonight and cross things out until only your levers remain.

The list gets your hands on the wheel. The error zones and the control concept tell you which number to steer first, and how to turn one lever into a plan.

You need one sheet and fifteen honest minutes. Picture next Monday: four things you can move, and no talk about the weather.

Try the logic first, at no cost: the Introduction and Chapter 1. Then, if it holds up, get the complete control system as a Kindle book on Amazon.

Published research

It is scientifically proven that the Jirgenson Model works. The published experiment, its record and its data:

• Zenodo (DOI): 10.5281/zenodo.23964934
• Hugging Face: E5 Jirgenson Model blind test
• Kaggle: E5 blind test dataset
• GitHub: experiment folder
• Wikidata: dataset Q142022866, author Q141981336
• ORCID: 0009-0001-3034-3552