Book launch warns against digital overload

International experts to launch pioneering digital leadership book at Birmingham tech hub.

International experts from the Future Work Forum have chosen the Innovation Birmingham Campus to launch their flagship book Conquering Digital Overload, discussing the leadership challenges of the digital age and ways to enable more productive approaches to 21st century management.

Taking place on Thursday 25th January from 4pm, six of the pioneering book’s contributors will launch the publication and deliver presentations on technology, culture, leadership and mindset at the multi-million-pound iCentrum building, housing tech start-ups and scale-ups at the region’s leading location for digital businesses. The Birmingham launch will be live streamed to other UK innovation hubs and kicks off a series of European-wide launches, with Zurich and Brussels to follow.

Conquering Digital Overload contains contributions from 16 members of the Future Work Forum, an international resource for senior managers and change implementers, comprising leading consultants, managers and innovators, and offering services from coaching and consulting to speaking and training.

Cliff Dennett, Head of Business Development at the Innovation Birmingham Campus, and longstanding member of the Future Work Forum said: “We wrote this book to provide insights for leaders that highlight the need for us all to work with technology more efficiently and improve our leadership processes. If you were going to design organisational technology from the ground up, it wouldn’t look like it does today and leaders need to proactively manage the firehose of digital interruptions on their workforce.

“The Innovation Birmingham Campus is delighted to be hosting this book launch, the first in a series of ‘Thought Leadership’ events for 2018. Digital technology has of course brought enormous benefits but in a world of increasing complexity, demanding focus and creativity, constant digital interruptions can be very damaging to productivity and satisfaction. These are some of the things explored in the book and is a great topic to launch our ‘Digital Horizons’ series of thought leadership seminars.”

The book begins by identifying the main evidence suggesting there are problems with digital overload and the ways that people are using technology in the workplace. The publication contends that strong leadership is needed to make the best use of technology without alienating or frustrating employees.

As well as identifying the problems engrained within management approaches in the digital age, the book also offers a series of current solutions and future visions, outlining ways to make sense of the digital age, providing mechanisms to create an effective working environment and highlighting ways for companies to maximise opportunities in the digital age.

You can register for the launch event here