Tell us if this sounds familiar. At a recent chamber networking breakfast the executive director (or president/CEO) watched about thirty business leaders as they sat around tables, half were checking phones, a quarter appeared to be mentally planning their next meeting, and only a handful seemed fully engaged in the conversation happening right in front of them. The 90-minute event that took weeks to plan was competing with a thousand digital distractions—and losing.
This isn’t an isolated or far-fetched example. Across the country, chamber pros are struggling with a fundamental shift in how business leaders consume information, make decisions, and engage with their communities. Welcome to the 15-minute economy, where attention has become the scarcest resource.
Is your traditional chamber programming struggling to adapt?
The Great Attention Recession
The numbers tell a stark story. Microsoft’s famous study claiming human attention spans dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds has been debunked, but the underlying trend it captured is real. Business leaders today operate in what researchers call “continuous partial attention,” a state where they’re always monitoring multiple information streams but rarely diving deep into any single one.
For chambers, this creates a perfect storm. The very executives we need to engage are the same ones drowning in Slack notifications, Zoom fatigue, and an endless stream of “urgent” decisions. They’re making million-dollar choices between meetings, approving marketing campaigns while walking to their cars, and evaluating partnership opportunities during their lunch breaks. (And yes, that includes our board members too. No wonder we are having issues with them adhering to their time commitments.)
Yet most chamber programming was designed for a different era, a time when business leaders had secretaries who protected their time, when “multitasking” wasn’t a survival skill, and when a two-hour breakfast could hold someone’s undivided attention.
The TikTok-ification of Business Decision Making
The shift isn’t just about shorter attention spans. It’s about how decisions are increasingly made in micro-moments. Consider how your members now evaluate potential vendors, partners, or opportunities. They’re not sitting down with thick proposals and spreadsheets. They’re scanning LinkedIn posts during coffee breaks, watching demo videos while commuting, reading a review or two, and making gut decisions based on brief interactions.
This “TikTok-ification” of business decision making means that your chamber’s value proposition needs to be communicated, understood, and acted upon in shorter timeframes. The executive who used to attend your quarterly economic forums now learns about local business trends from a three-minute video (or fifteen-minute podcast) in their car.
Chamber professionals need to become masters of micro-engagement.
The Power of Strategic Brevity
When COVID-19 forced some chambers to cancel in-person events, there were a few chamber leaders who started sending daily video updates/briefings about local business impacts. What began as a temporary solution is still a successful member engagement tool.
But it’s not just about brevity. Consistency and focus in creating short videos that answer one specific question that keeps your members up at night can be a big hit.
In the 15-minute economy, success comes from doing fewer things more frequently and more precisely. Instead of quarterly economic updates, you can provide weekly 2-5-minute business intelligence briefings. Rather than annual two-day long board retreats, you can host monthly 15-minute “decision sprints” where board members tackle specific challenges.
Micro-Programming, Macro Impact
Chambers are discovering that shorter doesn’t mean less valuable when ideas are more intentionally designed. If your members find your current events engaging and they’re well attended, terrific. If not, consider these emerging models to change things up:
The Power Breakfast becomes the Power 15: Instead of 90-minute networking events, you could experiment with 15-minute “coffee connections” where members have structured conversations with specific outcomes. Participants leave with one concrete next step, contact, or insight.
Micro-Learning Leadership: Rather than day-long leadership development programs, offer bite-sized skill modules. A 10-minute video on difficult conversations, followed by a 5-minute practice exercise, delivered weekly over two months. The total time investment is the same, but the application and retention rates are dramatically higher.
Sprint Advocacy: When urgent policy issues arise, you can organize 12-minute advocacy calls to help members quickly understand the issue, see talking points, and take immediate action—all before their next meeting starts.
The Neuroscience of Info Retention
This shift aligns with emerging research in cognitive psychology. Studies show that focus and retention increase when information is presented in shorter, more frequent intervals. This phenomenon is called “spaced repetition.” Your members’ brains are literally wired to learn and retain information better when it’s delivered in 10-15 minute chunks over time, rather than in marathon sessions. (Guess what? That type of short bursts of info help AI models too.)
Additionally, shorter engagements reduce what psychologists call “decision fatigue.” By the end of a two-hour chamber event, attendees have often used up their mental energy for processing new information and making decisions. But a focused 15-minute interaction leaves room for both attention and action at the end.
Designing for the Distracted Executive
If you want to hold attention, every piece of chamber communication—from newsletters to board meetings—needs to be reimagined through the lens of brevity. Instead of a newsletter with a comprehensive update covering everything your chamber accomplished, organize content into “3-minute reads” or headers with clear action items. Use titles like “What This Means for Your Business in 60 Seconds” or “Your Next Step Takes 2 Minutes.”
For board meetings, you could experiment with “decision sprints”(similar to the Pomodoro method), of focused 20-minute sessions that tackle one major issue with pre-read materials, structured discussion, and clear outcomes. Ideally, this would facilitate higher engagement and better decision quality, even though they’re spending less time in meetings.
The Paradox of Presence
Here’s the counterintuitive insight many content creators and marketers (and savvy chamber pros) are discovering: when you design for shorter attention spans, you often capture deeper engagement. A member who knows they’re committing to exactly 15 minutes is more likely to be fully present than one facing an open-ended 90-minute obligation. When both parties know the conversation has clear boundaries, they can invest more intensely in the moment.
Implementation Without Overwhelm
The transition to 15-minute thinking doesn’t require abandoning everything you currently do. Start by conducting an “attention audit” of your existing programming. Which elements require extended time, and which could be distilled into shorter, more focused experiences?
Begin with your lowest-risk, highest-frequency touchpoints. Can your weekly member emails be restructured as 2-minute reads? Could your monthly ribbon cuttings include 5-minute “business spotlight” conversations that provide real value to attendees?
The goal isn’t to speed up everything; it’s to match the format to the content and your members’ attention span. Some discussions genuinely require longer times. But many of our traditional chamber activities persist more from habit than from necessity.
This is the new reality of how busy professionals process information and make decisions. Chambers that master the art of micro-engagement won’t just survive this shift. They’ll become more valuable to their members than ever before. Time is a valuable commodity, but so is attention and it’s time we stop complaining about shortening attention spans and instead maximize the potential behind what we are given.
