They used to say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But in 2011, this is unlikely to be true.

I am referring, not to some sordid goings-on in the Nevada desert, but to the grand and long-awaited annual Consumer Electronics Show, which took place earlier this year. Gadgets, gizmos, tablets, phones and even boring old laptop computers were dangled in front of geeks and ordinary punters, stirring a frenzy of excitement and hype.

To those of us who grew up in the now almost-forgotten analogue, offline days, this never-ending supply of new products can be pretty daunting. Chuck in the overwhelming volume of activity in so-called social media channels – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the rest – and you soon find yourself in a bewildering sea of noise, text, beeps and chatter.

Diminishing band

Consider how many different streams of information can hit you from the moment you wake up (presuming your iPhone alarm application has functioned properly). The BlackBerry goes on, its red light already flashing. Perhaps a few text messages have come in. There are voicemails to deal with, probably a personal e-mail address too, comments on your company website, or on your personal blog if you write one. For those of you who are keen Facebookers, LinkedInners or Twitterers, there are these channels to monitor and maintain as well. And that’s before you even switch on the radio/TV, or pick up a morning newspaper, presuming you are one of that diminishing band of people who still do.

Who has any time left for boring old work? But that question betrays my hopelessly old-fashioned, analogue instincts. For the visionaries of the digital era, all this online activity is work. It is networking, knowledge-sharing, community building and, last but not least, personal brand building. In the virtual world, every little package of data could have value, if it is used properly.

What does all this mean for managers?

Permanent partial attention

For one thing, our time-management skills, already under pressure, now have to be honed and developed to an even greater degree. The only way not to succumb to this wave of electronic stuff that is hitting us is to be ruthlessly efficient with the material.

But there is a bigger and more important issue here. It is that, as managers, we are now dealing with colleagues who quite probably operate with what is sometimes called “permanent partial attention”. It is not as though lives did not seem busy or complicated enough already. Now, with this swirling, distracting world all around us, it becomes very hard to get people’s attention when you need it. Ask your colleagues in the marketing department. Their job isn’t getting any easier either.

In 2011, managers’ skills are going to be tested. Do you have the ability to make your voice heard when so many other messages are clamouring for attention? Can you adapt to this digital era, exploiting the opportunities of the new technology without being bludgeoned into the ground by them?

“We are all in this together,” we keep being told. In the workplace, that is actually true. Managers have to make sure that colleagues switch on to the work in hand in the right way at the right time.

Stefan Stern is an award-winning journalist and former FT columnist, now working as director of strategy at PR firm Edelman and Visiting Professor at the Cass Business School in London