Disrupt North East and Human Connection with Alexander Bell

What happens when a 7-year-old's innocent question about smartphones forces us to confront our own digital habits? Technology expert Alexander Bell joins Bill Banham on the HRchat Show to share the powerful moment that transformed his relationship with technology and launched his mission to help others reclaim control over their digital lives.

Alex draws from over two decades of experience working with global brands like Google and IBM to provide practical insights on building what he calls "attention intelligence." He explains how our cognitive abilities decrease by 26% when phones are merely visible on our desks—yet acknowledges that simply removing devices isn't feasible in today's connected workplace. Instead, he offers innovative strategies like "body doubling," where working alongside others (virtually or in-person) creates accountability and minimizes digital distraction.

For HR professionals looking to improve digital wellbeing in their organizations, Alex recommends a systematic approach: first observe existing technology habits, then evaluate whether they align with company values, and finally implement targeted changes. Throughout the conversation, he emphasizes that despite technology's powerful pull, we retain ultimate agency over our digital relationships. 

His refreshing, humor-filled approach to this critical topic makes complex behavioral challenges accessible and actionable for individuals and organizations alike. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Alexander Bell
• 2:42 The Inspiration Behind Tech Rules
• 4:51 The 7-Year-Old's iPhone Request
• 7:13 Taking Control of Technology
• 9:05 Digital Habits for Remote Work
• 12:50 The Disrupt HR Preview
• 14:25 Advice for HR Professionals
• 16:07 Closing and Contact Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom. And visit hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannum, and my guest this time is Alexander Bell, speaker and technology and productivity expert, who works with orgs to maximize performance, reclaim balance and inspire human connection in the digital age. With over two decades of experience I guess he started when he was about five as a serial entrepreneur and thought leader in technology. Alexander has led teams and built startups with global brands, including Google.

Speaker 2: 1:00

IBM and Warner Brothers. Alex, welcome to the show today. How are you doing? Great to be here. Thank you for having me. I should start. There Is Alex. Okay, are you super posh? Do you prefer Alexander?

Speaker 4: 1:18

The brand is Alexander Bell. When you're talking about technology and you're named after the inventor of the telephone, you are crazy not to try and insist that people call you Alexander Bell. But nobody has ever, really ever, called me Alexander. None of my family have called me Alexander, none of my friends. My kids don't call me. My wife hates it. So you know, I quite like the name, but the whole world seems to be destined not to call me Alexander. So I'm totally fine, you can call me Alex.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show. Thank you, I think I'll just go interchangeably then.

Speaker 4: 2:01

And there's no Graham in the middle there interchangeably then, and there's no Graham in the middle there. So, sadly, I'm Philip. Interestingly, he wasn't Graham either. He was born Alexander Bell and his two older brothers had middle names and he didn't. So for his 11th birthday he asked his father for a middle name, and Graham was a family friend, actually a patient, of his father's, and so Grahamham uh became, you know, known from from up there. So there's actually, there is no alexander. Grain bell doesn't exist, never has you know. It's a total fraud, um but um, there you go there you go listeners, we learn all sorts on this show.

Speaker 2: 2:37

Who knew? Uh, alex alexander. Let's start with the big idea. What inspired you to create Tech Rules and how does it help individuals and teams build what you call attention intelligence?

Speaker 4: 2:52

So right from a young age I've always been obsessed with technology. I grew up through that era of the internet coming online and the first mobile devices sort you know, sort of coming into the market. But I'm old enough to remember a time prior to all of that as well, so I really sort of lived through that transition period and that's gone on through my career. I've been involved in sort of VR and sort of mixed reality projects. You know I've worked with the likes of Google Maps and Street View and things like that. So I've always immersed myself in technology. But during the lockdowns everybody had different epiphanies, life epiphanies during the lockdowns, you know. I think I started off with, you know, drink less, exercise more, be healthier and then by the second lockdown that had all reversed. But it sort of tied in with. We have three boys although at the time we had two boys and a lockdown baby on the way and our eldest, who was seven at the time, dexter, who was a little. He turned around and it was about the November time during the sort of second lockdown and he turned around and he's a really sweet, innocent kid. You know, he was the perfect baby. He was the reason that we got hoodwinked into having more. We thought parenting is easy when the children are like this. So he turned around he said Dad, I've been thinking about Christmas, I know what I really want and I kind of, you know, did the typical parent thing, rolled my eyes and said, okay, what is it? And he said I want an iPhone for Christmas. And he was seven, right, and I just wasn't prepared for that conversation, you know, as a parent, and it just sort of totally caught me off guard and I remember reacting sort of the typical green monster parents saying they're dangerous, you know, they're highly addictive, you're not having one, you're too young. And he just turned around all sweet and innocent, and said but dad, if they're really that bad, why are you and mummy on yours all the time? And you know, my head just exploded. I had no answer, you know, I had no comeback and of course he was absolutely right. He was just, you know, acknowledging and sort of witnessing the overuse of technology and wondering what he's missing out on.

Speaker 4: 5:15

And so from that sort of moment onwards I knew that I had sort of this overriding responsibility, both as a parent for sort of, you know, handling their journey through technology, but also a greater sort of sense of awareness of my own sort of relationship with technology and how that's impacting the people around me. And so I started researching it and looking online and trying to find sort of parenting strategies around digital. And there was a few bits out there. There were a few experts, but there wasn't this sort of wealth of information or sort of experiences or you know, a library of sort of go to. This is how you do it, and so I thought that's strange. You know we live in such a tech dominated sort of world. Why isn't that sort of wealth of knowledge that can be shared?

Speaker 4: 6:06

And then, when I started sort of really thinking about it more deeply, I realized that actually in organizations this problem exists. You know we've all been guilty of, you know, being sat in a meeting and somebody is on their phone and not being totally present, you know. Or or in a restaurant and you know you look around and everybody's just on their devices and nobody's really talking anymore. You know, or being in a situation with a client where you are trying to give them your best attention and your knowledge, but you know all they're interested in is just the immediate. Now they're not interested in developing a relationship because they want to treat you like Amazon. They just want to click a button, get what they want and get it today.

Speaker 4: 6:47

So I kind of, you know, it just dawned on me that there's this opportunity for us to sort of kind of take stock and take back control of our sort of relationship with technology because ultimately we are in control. You know, it is said that it does control us and certainly there's a lot of sort of behaviorisms that we tend to do that would suggest that we have no sense of agency over technology at all. But actually we do. We're still the users, tech rules and this idea of attention, intelligence to say well, actually you get to call the shots, you get to decide what that relationship looks like and as an organization you should take a greater responsibility as to how your sort of team players react with technology, because ultimately you're providing that technology for them to do their jobs for them to do their jobs.

Speaker 5: 7:51

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Speaker 2: 8:31

There's a lot, there's a lot to dig in there. There's a lot to begin there, and let's hone in on one one, one aspect of that. Um, so, in a, in a remote or a hybrid work environment, as many people now work within what? What are? What are some simple but powerful digital habits, alexander, that teams can implement to stay focused and connected in the right ways, where it's real personal connection. But they're getting what they need to get done, they're being productive, they're leveraging that technology without it, I guess, taking over so there's there's two very simple examples.

Speaker 4: 9:05

There's one which is actually there's research that's been done that sort of proves that having devices out on your desk you know your phone in view that type of thing can actually decrease your cognitive capabilities by about 26%. And Kaspersky remember the antivirus conglomerate teamed up with the University of Nottingham and another university as well, and they sort of did you know, lab condition exam kind of tests and they scored people who had phones on their desk, phones in their pockets and phones out of the room and it proved, you know, that remove the devices. You're more focused. You know it sounds really simple, we all know this, but it's not kind of, it's not that easy. We can't just say, okay, well, let's, you know, let's remove all the digital devices and hide them, you know, in different rooms, because, of course, we need to be available at certain times of the day. You know we all have information that we need to be able to respond to really quickly, so it's not as simple as saying, well, if you take them away, the problem is solved, we can be more productive, even though the science tells us that that is the case. So there's another kind of area that I really sort of recommend to people, which is when you introduce people back into your day, you can really sort of turbocharge your productivity, and especially in a hybrid environment.

Speaker 4: 10:28

I use a platform called Focusmatecom. There's lots of others that are available. It comes under this idea of body doubling, which some people may have heard of, but ultimately it says look, if you work-work with somebody else in in sort of in a live setting, either on a zoom call or on a team's call or even just, you know, on the phone or whatever it will be, you're able to sort of really cut through all of the digital distractions. Because it sort of goes back to that idea at college or university where you're in a library and you're sat with somebody else trying to get some work done. You know you have a greater sense of awareness and accountability. You've pre-planned the work that you're going to do.

Speaker 4: 11:14

You know, oh, I'm meeting with Bill, you know, at two o'clock and we're going to have an hour's co-working session, so I need to, you know, think ahead as to what I'm going to show up and actually do during that hour. There's that sense of human connection, because if I know that Bill's working and I'm meant to be working, then I feel that I need to work as well. So you have this kind of social connection that can really help you just to get work done. And then it brings into play the kind of the digital manners you know that we all should be better at doing. You know which is so if I'm on a call with Bill, I shouldn't be taking phone calls, or, you know, being distracted with my devices or multitasking between emails and between the job that I should be focused on. So you know, those are kind of two real sort of different bookends of the spectrum that people can focus on, but it can make a huge difference.

Speaker 3: 12:10

Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes things up, it makes you think differently and it leaves you inspired. That event is Disrupt HR. The format is 14 speakers, 5 minutes each and slides rotate every 15 seconds. If you're an HR professional, a CEO, a technologist or a community leader and you've got something to say about talent, culture or technology, disrupt is the place.

Speaker 2: 12:51

It's coming soon to a city near you Learn more at disrupthrco. Give us loads of time to do that, so I'm going to throw three very rapid fire questions at you. You and I connected because I've evolved with a bunch of the disrupt hr chapters uh, including the relaunch of disrupt up in the northeast. We've got an event on may 13th just outside of durham and alexander has kindly offered to be one of our speakers. Can you, in one minute or less, alexander, give our listeners a bit of a taste of what they can expect from you?

Speaker 4: 13:24

So I bring a lot of fun to this subject because I think humour is not only entertaining but it really opens up conversations and learning opportunities. Because if we can engage with something, if we can feel more human about a topic, then it means that we can kind of get into the right space to potentially start to think about changes that we can make for ourselves or for our organizations. So everything that I do I try and bring an element of humor and sort of fun to you know, along the way.

Speaker 2: 13:55

Very good, with many seconds to spare spare. By the way, I'm excited for the relaunch of disrupt northeast, just because most of the other locations in the uk that I'm involved with. I've heard my standard dad joke that I opened the events with um at least once, possibly multiple times. So durham offers me a new community to use my famous peanut joke, which I won't share right now because we're running out of time. Okay, again in 60 seconds or less. Alexander, what advice would you give to HR pros and L&D pros who want to bring digital wellbeing and performance training into their organisations but aren't really sure where to begin.

Speaker 4: 14:38

I think it starts with observing what's happening right now, because we all have habits, behaviors, you know. We all have our own sort of rules with technology that are already existing. So I think when I start working with an organization, the first thing is to say well, what's happening right now? What are the rules that are going on with technology, with emails? You know during meetings, you know in person and online, you know with shared sort of co-working spaces. What are the rules and habits and behaviors that are happening right now? Get them down, write them down, have a conversation with people, see how people feel about them, and then it's a case of do they align with the organization's missions, the values, the culture that you want to instill in that organization? And once you've got that, you can then pinpoint where it needs to change.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Excellent, and just finally for today. We have to get you on to do this, so we get longer, but just finally for today. How can our listeners connect with and learn more about?

Speaker 4: 15:35

you with and learn more about you. So alexanderbellco is the website and LinkedIn is the only platform I use, because I have taken back control over my technology and I've shut down Facebook. I am not on Instagram and I don't do TikTok.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Nice and simple, and I'm sure there'll be links in the show notes. That just leaves me to say for today, alexander, not Graham Bell. Thank you very much for being my guest on this episode of the HR Chat Show.

Speaker 4: 16:02

Thank you so much. Looking forward to the peanut joke.

Speaker 2: 16:06

You say that and listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 16:15

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.