“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – JFK
Last Thanksgiving, The Dragonfly Effect was certainly coming together, but it was far from a coherent, readable book. Our research and interviews were mostly complete, but the work of kneading the broad ranging collection of stories, research and practical tips was still a long way off. We enjoyed a holiday season of all-nighters, reminiscent of graduate school and wonderful in its own way with our kind friends delivering meals to us as if we were shut-ins. Last year, as now, we were thankful for friends and family believing in us unconditionally and supporting us in our times of doubt (will anyone want to read this book?) and need (dinners cooked, kids play dates arranged, chapters reviewed).
This year (has it been only a year?) our lives are so different that we have an embarrassment of people and things to be grateful for. Our family and old friends have come through once again, but in addition to them we have made so many wonderful new friends who found inspiration in and contributed immeasurably to The Dragonfly Effect’s success and impact.
The creative and technical team behind the website continues to amaze me with their ingenuity and energy. That team is: Courtney Meehan, Jessie Young, Sindy Lee, Purin Phanichphant and Justin Gammon. Friends at startups saw versions of themselves in Dragonfly stories and contributed talent and technology to support our effort including Ning, VideoGenie, Crowdbooster 140Proof, Klean.dk, Polite in Public, Black Mahal, Plancast and Wildfire. In addition to the gratifying amount of attention the book has received in both traditional and social media, new friends have worked to share The Dragonfly Effect with their constituents including Sarah Milstein of the Web 2.0 Expo, FWE & E, Tracy Barba and Daniel Pink, Dan Ariely, Chip Heath, Peter Sims, Steve Denning, Charlene Li, Tim Ferriss, Jay Adelson, Chris Brogan, Beth Kanter, J.D. Lasica, Shel Holtz, Gary Bolles of SoCap, Jeff Pulver, Nancy Duarte, the Nonprofit Management Institute, Bernadette Clavier and Meredith Haase of the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford, Robert Chatwani, Social Media 4 Nonprofits and the team at Cooper. We also owe thanks to Malcolm Gladwell for writing about Dragonfly in the New Yorker and getting us a flurry of mainstream media attention the first week we were in stores.
The greatest gift of all for us is to see the energy and enthusiasm with which readers of The Dragonfly Effect consume its stories, add to them and put them to work. Our single focused goal was to create something that people would use to inject more good into the world. We give thanks today that that is happening, and it inspries us to redouble our efforts.