In the information age, attention is our most scarce and precious resource. We give our finite attention to the information that is available when we need it, where we need it. Wait for the morning paper to land on your doorstep? Forget it, you’ll already be in transit to work thinking about to the e-mails piled up in your inbox. You’ll catch up on the news on a mobile app before the newspaper hits your driveway. You’ve canceled that print newspaper subscription and traded it for a New York Times iPhone app. If a resource isn’t available to us at the time when we’ve scheduled to give it attention, it’s not for us.
Physicians are no different: they are willing to interact with pharmaceutical reps when they have the attention to give. Before, sales reps waited for hours in a reception room for the tiny window of time when a physician had a moment to focus on their presentation. They’d be allotted a brief moment to quickly make their case, and then they were shooed out of the way.
