This week’s guest is Michael Arena, who brings the unique perspective of leading talent development and management for not just major New Economy global brands like Amazon Web Services, but also stalwart Old Economy blue chips like General Motors and Bank of America. Along the way, he’s also done serious research and training in network analysis and the power of social science to truly understand what’s happening with today’s corporations. That combination of frontline management and crisis response and a lens for viewing all our recent challenges in people practices, gives him, we’d argue, the right to be heard on what he thinks is really happening out there for both individuals (and especially a voice often left out of the Future of Work conversation, the leader) and teams as we progress through what he jokes is both, Dickens-wise, ‘the best and the worst’ times to be in work right now. If you’re still sceptical, a few minutes on his evidence of bridging and bonding social capital and its impact on the Hybrid Workspace we’re seeing evolve around us will change your mind: and we say that as Data ‘Til I Die! converts. Social capital is a tool, we predict, that you’ll soon be using as much as Michael is in his new role in Connected Commons.