If you are a pick pocket or a purse snatcher in Manhattan you are having a banner year. C’mon fess up, tell me this isn’t like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s not even a challenge anymore, is it? You’re probably expecting to clean up this year at the annual Street Thieves Convention. Your numbers are going through the roof! There’s no need for technique. It could be weeks before that stiff even knows his shit is missing. We need to raise the bar.

We are a fat, dopey, disconnected lot these days. Between alcohol, pot and smart phones I’m afraid to cross the street. Call me old fashioned but I like to see where I’m going when I’m walking down a busy street or driving my car. When I’m riding my bike I tense up when I hear wheels coming up behind me. Who knows what they’re up to? I see people step on to a crowded elevator and never look up from their phone save for the punch of a floor button. You could be getting on with Big Foot and never know until it was too late. Here fishy, fishy!

I used to have a friend who would beg me to have lunch with him every time he was in town. As soon as we were seated, the phone came out and I became the chopped liver entree. Maybe he just wanted me around in case his phone went dead. I have always had a heightened sense of awareness from my rough and tumble upbringing and I’ve learned to anticipate the alcohol induced mood swing, sucker punch, shake down or robbery. Or even worse, snoozing and losing.

I may hold a gun on myself while I’m shaving, but to me the alternative is of no consolation. I’m sure a mental health professional would love to spend a little time with me. Of course, they usually pay for that time. In spades.

So that’s the big problem. Everyone is so distracted it has become extremely difficult to get your message heard these days. We have to re-evaluate our approach. How do you deal with an audience that can get so lost in the swirl of distraction technology? How do you get them from distraction to attraction? Any beast of prey would tell you they have an extremely narrow focus when circling a herd. Or to use a term from my lexicon, “a shallow depth of field.”

In simpler terms, we define a shallow depth of field as the zone of sharpest focus in front of, behind, and around the subject on which, when the lens is focused on a specific subject. In other words, a clearly defined, smaller target audience.

By focusing in on the subject you are able to define their needs and speak the language they understand. Otherwise, it’s just more white noise added to their already cluttered hypnotic state. By then you have spooked the herd and you go home hungry. As my mother would say, “Bobby, don’t be a pig!” Oink!

So get into focus. Get that shallow depth of field and turn their distraction into attraction.

Don’t go home hungry.