Revolution Paperback – 25 March 2011

Now and again a phone will ring on one of my yoga classes. The student always apologises and usually says, "I was sure I put it on silent." What's weird is that it never crosses their minds to switch it off! Even in a place where they have gone for a complete change from everyday life, people are preapred to allow some random call interupt them. I ought to keep a stack of this book in the yoga studio and hand it out to them.It's great to read a book that says just what you think. It's opinionated, and it doesn't always give the source for its opinions. I'd rather like to read the other books and the research behind them. Essentially it's a guide to how to be a better communicator, which means that it tells you how to have better relationships with everyone around you.I tell people I work with that I'm not available Tuesday or Wednesday mornings - no emails, no calls, no Twitter or Facebook and definitely no Skype - and they say, "Oh you're so lucky to be able to do that!" Nope. It's not luck, it's choice.If they get cross about it, then I choose to work with other people. Most of them say, "Cool, we'll speak in the afternoon then." If you try it, it generally works. All it takes is a few more people to stand up and put their portable devices down. Not forever, just for a couple of hours at a time.It's wonderful never to have to stand outside in the rain, wondering if someone's going to turn up or not. It's great to be able to go out when you're waiting for a telephone call. It's fantastic to Skype your mates from the other side of the world, and even Skpye your cat, as my Japanese house mate used to do. But it's not good to be at the beck and call of your email masters, to feel an obligation to answer a tweet before you refill the wild bird feeder.So yes, for me, this REVOLUTION is preaching to the choir; I'm already singing his song. But Kevin Duncan gives you a system. My revolution is disorganised, and I do tend to keep the social networks running in the background and skip straight there as soon as I see (1) on the Firefox Facebook tab.It's a great book on how to reestablish a sense of propotion and how to put people back at the centre of your life. Download it for your Kindle. Kidding. Get a paper copy, switch off your phone and take it to read in the park.

I wouldn't consider myself a fan of these kind of books - what best describes it: Personal development? Professional Guidance? The basic concept of the book is that it's quite likely that the reader has ended up wedding the use of technology into his/her professional life so intimately that certain parts of that relationship may not actually be very productive. Is that immaculately generated spreadsheet actually used for anything? Would the technically fancy video conference have been better replaced by a simple face-to-face meeting? Personally, I am not a massive fan of using high-tech gadgets so possibly not the target audience for this book, but I still found it quite inspiring. The area of biggest influence for me was using e-mail. Put simply, the advice is that you should determine specific times of day to check your e-mail and then respond to any with the appropriate action. The alternative is to respond piecemeal, which means it is difficult to focus on any one task well as you are forever jumping every time the inbox refreshes. This is great advice, and I have applied to my working day, suggesting people call or approach me personally if something needs attention within a few hours. So far, so good... though I am waiting for some kind of backlash! This clever book explains why psychologically we are prone to letting technology rule our life and gives good sound advice for getting the balance right.

This book is more about humanity than technology. It is about correcting an out of balance relationship with communications technology, which the author terms `e-diction'. The book contains a great message - get back in control - and plenty of tips on how to do so. It's common sense, but some people need to be shown what common sense looks like.There is a self-test exercise early in the book which to my surprise showed that I wasn't `e-dicted' at all - I expect members of my family would disagree! Of course I might be in 'denial', but that my relationship with communications technology is OK (relative to the authors perception), will have an impact on how I view the book.Page 109 - "it is not necessary for you to agree with everything in this book, but if you grab a resolution or two and improve your relationship with your technology even a little bit, then the exercise will have been worth it".I concur. There are plenty of very wise and challenging nuggets in this book - some of which were new or hadn't occurred to me before. They are worth having. But if you are seriously edicted, you probably won't be open to them (or even reading this). Whether you want to read 205 pages, curiously type-faced and liberally sprinkled with irrelevant illustrations, for a dozen nuggets of communications wisdom is also a pertinent question. There is quite a lot of repetition, but then if ediction is an issue for you, you might not get the message first time around.

I really enjoyed this book and the points are all well made. It's very easy to spend SO many hours surfing, facebooking, twittering bla bla bla when before you know it, you've spent half of your day on 'social networking' or related media.....there is an off switch and Kevin reminds us that it exists.In 7 easy-to-read chapters, he gently guides you into reviewing and thinking about how much time and energy you're spending with technology.There are a few little quizzes that help us understand where we're at with all the electrical devices we think we 'can't do without' and explains how to reduce and repair the damage to our personal world.Like any new invention, eventually the allure wears off, and this book represents a timely reminder that the off switch still works.....and when and how to use it.Great book.

This book covers a subject which runs through my mind every now and again. Are we getting completely absorbed by the technological revolution? Yes, and no is the answer, depending on who you are.This book covers a lot of tips and techniques to combat the revolution, the technical revolution. Some parts are good, some are elaborated one liners, but my general feeling is that the book contains lots of snippets of information about ways to improve your life without depending on technology.It's worth a read, but don't expect too much.