Why now?

A recent survey found that 41% of UK adults were reading more than they had before the March 2020 lockdown began. Although working from home can be freeing and productive, many are continuing to try to work around housemates, partners, and children. As COVID-19 continues to isolate us, social lives often consist entirely of endless Zoom meetings.

The Digital Leaders Book Club builds engagement, networks and learning through a shared reading experience. It offers its members something vital: a personal link with leaders in digital transformation who are soldiering on in partial or total physical isolation, a mechanism for sharing our values and culture.

• An interview with the author or a content expert; 

• A Q&A session;

• Hosted table discussions on the leadership and digital transformation issues raised in the book;

• Time for members to network informally; and

• An introduction to the next month’s book.

Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era, Rory Cellan-Jones

‘Delightfully insightful and intensely readable […] There is an energy and drama to Rory’s writing which nonetheless leaves space for us, the reader, to make up our minds’ – Stephen Fry

We live at a time when billions have access to unbelievably powerful technology. The most extraordinary tool that has been invented in the last century, the smartphone, is forcing radical changes in the way we live and work – and unlike previous technologies it is in the hands of just about everyone.

Always On immerses the reader in the most important story of our times – the dramatic impact of hyperconnectivity, the smartphone and social media on everything from our democracy to our employment and our health. The final section of the book draws on the author’s own personal experience with technology and medicine, considering how COVID-19 made us look again to computing in our battle to confront the greatest challenge of modern times.

Book Club Meeting: 5 – 6pm, 11 January 2022

Our winter book will be discussed in the #DigiLounge with author Rory Cellan-Jones on the 11th of January 2022.

To receive 25% off the book, please use the link below applying the code ALWAYSON25.

Buy the Book

Rory Cellan-Jones is the BBC’s expert on trends in new technology, and how the web is changing our lives. He became a Technology Correspondent after many years reporting on business for the BBC, and he sees it as his role to communicate the excitement and importance of the fast-changing digital world to a non-specialist audience.

Why not join today and start reading about leadership and digital transformation. You will receive a discount voucher to purchase this month’s book and an exclusive invitation to the next Book Club meeting.

Apply to Join

Books on leadership and digital transformation have always been a part of Digital Leaders and here, some of our members have kindly recommended their favourite books.