Future Work:

To all those who have asked for an electronic version of Future Work, the Kindle Edition is now available on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. So our words on page 2 become reality!

Today I gave a presentation about the book at the CIPD conference in Manchester which received a positive response. I shared the session with David Robinson of Hertfordshire County Council, which is one of the organisations featured in the book.

Our publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, sold out of copies of Future Work in the US yesterday following an interview I did with Bonnie Marcus for Forbes Woman online. Palgrave is re-stocking rapidly and the book is also available on Amazon.com. Great way to celebrate publication in the US today!

To mark the publication of our book in the US, I will be speaking at a launch event kindly hosted by Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute (FWI) in New York this Thursday, 3 November. The following week I’ll be in Washington, DC, to speak on ‘Future Work: why and how to make the shift’ at the FWI/Society for Human Resource Management Conference titled Work Life Focus: 2012 and Beyond.

The idea of something called Future Work is catching on in the media. The fact that todays management has not kept up with the changes in working practices seems to have some support from people reporting on the book.

As Peter Whitehead said in his Recruitment Diary in the Executive Appointments section of the FT yesterday, the book is "a damning indictment of just how wasteful it is to conduct 21st century business using 19th century command and control structures".

We were delighted that Ernst & Young hosted a launch of Future Work at their London offices on October 17th. The audience of about 120 people was treated to a short introduction to the book from Alison and me, followed by a panel discussion. On the panel were Chris Ainslie of BT, featured in the book; Fiona Laird of Unilever, also quoted in the book; and Sally Bucknell of Ernst & Young. The discussion was ably chaired by Peter Whitehead of the Financial Times. To see the video click here.

Trust is in short supply at the moment, in politics as well as business. It was centre stage, though, in the panel discussion on culture and performance at the Echo Annual Summit in London last week, where I talked about transforming work for the digital age. Our research for the book (published the same day, 7th October) shows that organizations with innovative working practices are most likely to have a culture of trust and empowerment.

As we approach the publication date of the book (7th October in the UK) it is interesting to see how relevant it is in today's economic, social and political climate. For example, the idea of raising the speed limit inthe UK from 70 to 80 mph hit the headlines last week ahead of the Conservative Party Conference. At the conference the Transport Secretary Phillip Hammond  said "We must ...

Great review by Henry Stewart, chief executive of award-winning training company Happy, in Management Today this month. Stewart, whose firm has won recognition for its innovative approach to management and customer service, examines our global business case in detail and concludes: "This book provides challenging and persuasive examples of the need to change and is recommended as a wake-up call to the corporate world."

I'll be giving a preview of Future Work in my keynote address at the Working Mums Top Employer Awards in London on 5 October. WM Magazine, the online magazine for working mothers, features an interview with me by Mandy Garner, discussing some of the big themes from our book.