Fully Connected: Surviving and Thriving in an Age of Overload

Shortlisted for the CMI's Management Book of the Year Award 2018 and the Business Book Awards 2018 Twenty-five years after the arrival of the Internet, we are drowning in data and deadlines. Humans and machines are in fully connected overdrive - and starting to become entwined as never before. Truly, it is an Age of Overload. We can never have imagined that absorbing so much information while trying to maintain a healthy balance in our personal and professional lives could feel so complex, dissatisfying and unproductive. Something is missing. That something, Julia Hobsbawm argues in this ground-breaking book, is Social Health, a new blueprint for modern connectedness. She begins with the premise that much of what we think about healthy ways to live have not been updated any more than have most post-war modern institutions, which are themselves also struggling in the twenty-first century. In 1946, the World Health Organization defined ‘health’ as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ What we understood by 'social' in the middle of the last century now desperately needs an update. In Fully Connected Julia Hobsbawm takes us on a journey – often a personal one, 'from Telex to Twitter' – to illustrate how the answer to the Age of Overload can come from devising management-based systems which are both highly practical and yet intuitive, and which draw inspiration from the huge advances the world has made in tackling other kinds of health, specifically nutrition, exercise, and mental well-being. Drawing on the latest thinking in health and behavioural economics, social psychology, neuroscience, management and social network analysis, this book provides a cornucopia of case studies and ideas, to educate and inspire a new generation of managers, policymakers and anyone wanting to navigate through the rough seas of overload.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Peak Connection Part One: The Way to Wellville 1. Hostile Landscapes 2. Fitness as a metaphor 3. New hierarchies of need Part Two: The Blended Self 4. The social soul 5. Worker beings 6. Networks and networkers Conclusion: The fully connected future Appendix Postscript Bibliography Acknowledgements Index

About the Author :
Julia Hobsbawm OBE is a leading expert on connectedness in modern life. A prominent entrepreneur, media commentator and international speaker for corporate audiences, she has emerged as a leading voice on the future of workplace productivity practices, particularly around Social Health, and how scientific network patterns underpin much of what we do on a daily basis. She became the world's first Professor in Networking in 2011 and is Hon Visiting Professor at Cass Business School in London and at the University of Suffolk. She was awarded an OBE in The Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2015.

Review :
I thoroughly enjoyed Fully Connected. Amazing insights on a subject critical to modern working and living. I wholly endorse it, not just as a must-read but also as a much-needed compass to navigating the 21st century workplace. Julia Hobsbawm is the unofficial UK Queen of Networking, but she understands that networking is about much more than lunches and parties. As a student of networks in history, I read Fully Connected with great pleasure and profit. Brimming with ideas and insights – fascinating, intriguing, thoughtful. I am buzzing about this book. Really outstanding. This is one of those brilliantly insightful books everyone has to read to understand the zeitgeist. Fully Connected is the most profound book about connectivity published this century. Hobsbawm nails it. She's the Marshall McLuhan of our always-on age. Julia Hobsbawm reminds us that social media and social networks are about human connections not technology. She wants us to see that stilling the shrill voices of tech will connect us better. Fully Connected is a very good read. Julia Hobsbawm's potent mix of practical advice and fresh academic insight is the book for any thoughtful executive, hard-pressed or otherwise. A great read, which provides fascinating insights into how connectivity is changing our lives and how we can thrive in a Fully Connected world. Our social networks are both huge opportunities and lurking dangers, depending on how we manage them. Julia Hobsbawm’s stellar new book, Fully Connected, pinpoints their pervasive effects on what and who we know, what jobs we get, our political views, our health and wellbeing, and more – and then tells us to improve our social health. A must-read for individuals and policy makers alike.