Finding Direction in the Age of AI joined Hughes’ Executive Bookshelf in September. The Digital Compass is now in his Executive Leadership Playbook.
CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES, October 27, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Two books by author and enterprise cloud and AI leader Michael Earls have been selected for two ten-book executive reading lists from Tim Hughes, co-founder and CEO of DLA ignite and author of Social Selling and Smarketing, in the space of two months.
In September 2026, Hughes named Finding Direction in the Age of AI to his Executive Bookshelf, calling it “the refreshing, deeply human wake-up call that today’s tech-saturated corporate world desperately needs.” On October 22, 2026, he featured The Digital Compass: Finding Direction When Everything Moves Too Fast in The Executive Leadership Playbook, a collection of ten in-depth reviews of books by leaders across executive strategy, enterprise sales, intelligence, and the future of work.
Both books make the same argument to the same audience: leaders are under pressure to move faster than ever, and speed without direction doesn’t make an organization stronger. It makes it noisier. Hughes’ review describes The Digital Compass as a counterintuitive reality check on that pressure, and captures its central idea in one line: speed without direction is just expensive noise.
“Executives aren’t short on speed. They’re short on direction,” said Earls. “When we misread our signals and don’t align the right priorities, noise just becomes more expensive. It shows up as AI projects that stall, meetings that move nothing forward, and teams that are always available but rarely present. Being radically human in a digital world means deciding what deserves our attention before the tools decide for us.”
“Having one book chosen was an honor,” Earls added. “Having the second one chosen tells me the message is landing with the leaders it was written for. I’m grateful to Tim for the care he puts into every review.”
The Digital Compass offers a four-direction framework leaders can use on a single day or a full strategy: North (what actually matters), East (what you let in), South (how you spend your time), and West (what you choose to ignore). It completes a three-book series: Finding Direction in the Age of AI (the map), Wired for Purpose: A Daily Devotional for IT Professionals (the practice), and The Digital Compass (the compass).
The Executive Leadership Playbook also features Nick Day, George Pillari, Charles E. Goslin, Lintao (LT) Lu, Kerry Siggins, Marc D. Kirshbaum, Adrian Wolfberg, Ph.D., Kelly Monahan, Ph.D., and Dr. Diane Hamilton, with additional books by Adam Gray and Hugo Whicher. The full Playbook is available on DLA ignite’s blog.
About Michael Earls
Michael Earls is an Enterprise Cloud & AI Transformation Leader with over 20 years of experience helping organizations navigate complex technology shifts. He has partnered with enterprise clients across financial services and beyond to drive cloud adoption, AI strategy, and modern transformation. He is the author of Finding Direction in the Age of AI, Wired for Purpose, and The Digital Compass. All three books are available on Amazon. Learn more at michaelearls.com.
Michael Earls
Michael Earls, Author
press@michaelearls.com
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