MindSpring Innovations
ARIC — Attention Research and Innovation Centre
MindSpring's centre for attention research, standards and audits. ARIC sets the Focus-First standard and audits organizations and professionals against it.
Attention is your organization's most valuable — and most unprotected — asset. ARIC helps you measure it, protect it and prove it.
Attention as an asset
Your most valuable — and most unprotected — asset.
Organizations protect their data, equipment and finances. Attention deserves the same care: it shapes safety, quality and wellbeing, and it is easy to erode without anyone noticing.
Measure it
Understand where you stand with readiness and training data — gathered in a privacy-safe way.
Protect it
Build routines, policies and daily attention training through ZoneIN into the working day.
Prove it
Show your commitment through an ARIC audit and public Focus-First verification.
What ARIC does
Research, standards and audits — in one accountable centre.
Research
Translating published attention science into practical programs, running pilot studies and publishing our methodology.
Standards
Maintaining the documented Focus-First standard and the criteria organizations are measured against.
Audits
Evidence-pack desk review, site audit and a panel decision — with a clear route to appeal.
Certification & verification
Awarding Focus-First credentials and keeping a public register so anyone can verify a certificate.
Support for organizations
Readiness guidance, training through ZoneIN, improvement plans, a yearly re-audit and a six-month compliance check.
The Focus-First credentials
Four credentials, one standard.
Focus-First Workplace
For companies, fleets and logistics.
Focus-First Care
For hospitals and clinics.
Focus-First School
For schools, grades 3 to 12.
Focus-First Professional
For individual professionals.
Certification is included in the MindSpring licence. ARIC issues it only after every step of the audit is cleared.
How an audit works
A documented path from application to public verification.
- Step 1
Apply
- Step 2
Evidence pack
- Step 3
ARIC desk review
- Step 4
Site audit
- Step 5
Panel decision
- Step 6
Certificate & public verification
Why Focus-First matters
Attention is part of how work gets done safely and well.
Attention, fatigue and focus at work shape everyday outcomes: how safely people operate, the quality of the decisions they make, and how they feel at the end of the day.
Focus-First gives organizations a shared, documented way to take attention seriously — with training people actually do, routines built into the working day, and evidence that can be reviewed.
Impartiality & integrity
Clear about who we are, and how decisions are made.
ARIC is MindSpring's own research centre, not an external body. We are open about that, and we build our process to be fair: decisions are made by an impartial panel of at least two auditors who never coach or train the organization they audit; panel members declare conflicts of interest, appeals go to a different ARIC lead, and every certificate can be checked publicly.
Our platforms
The tools behind the standard.
ZoneIN
Daily attention training for working adults and teams.
REBOUND
Employer-funded transition support for departing employees.
MindSpring
The company behind ARIC and the Focus-First programme.