Two years ago today, Jamais and I launched what we thought was going to be a hobby project -- a blog called Worldchanging.com -- with a post on Jim Moore's essay, The Second Superpower. We followed up with pieces on ideas which would turn out to become themes over the next couple years (like open source, leapfrogging, biomimicry, green building and climate change). At the end of the month, when we checked our server stats and found we'd had 89 visitors, we knew were writing to an audience mainly of our friends.
We think that's still the case. These days, though, we have a lot more friends.
Hundreds of thousands of you read Worldchanging now. You guys have made over 10,000 comments to date -- many as interesting as the posts on which they comment -- and sent us at least that many suggestions, critiques and encouragements via email. Indeed, while the whole editorial team enjoys the hunt for worldchanging tools, models and ideas, it's the amazing extended team that's coalesced around Worldchanging that's the coolest part of this gig. We've said it before, but you guys rock.
I can't speak for everyone else, but being involved with Worldchanging has been the most fun, rewarding work I've ever done, and that's largely a function of how many amazing, dedicated, optimistic, clever, big-hearted people I've met through that involvement. Thank you.
So what does the next year hold in store for us?
As I mentioned at the end of August, we've started a small non-profit to house Worldchanging. We're still learning the ropes, but we're well underway now, with a great little board, a small staff (Jamais, Chanel and myself) and some emerging ideas for how to raise the funds we need to continue.
We are doing a Worldchanging book. Essentially, it's a handbook for building a better future. We're pretty stoked about it: the planned publication date is next Fall, but you'll be hearing a lot more about it over the next couple months, because we'd like to ask y'all to be our partners in creating it. More soon on this front.
We're adding more contributors, trying especially to increase the diversity of the team's expertise and perspective. We're also looking to make our weekend features -- WorldChanging Weekend and Sustainability Sundays -- more dynamic and interesting, so in addition to the team members we've brought on board recently (Mikki, Joel, Jill and Sarah), we're looking for people who can cover other aspects of sustainability (like urban design, or clean energy) and global culture (we'd like to cover more worldchanging books, music and arts). We're also looking for more contributors from the developing world.
We're working on our first awards program. We want to recognize those people and organizations out there who are doing transformative work, or who have at least made bold steps in the right direction. We'll be asking for your help on this as well.
We're still trying to figure out how to facilitate conversation here, both online and off. Our ideas on that front are still emerging, but we'll be sharing them as they mature.
And, more than anything, we'll continue to be out there exploring, looking for signs that another world is, in fact, here. It's an expedition we hope you'll continue to take with us. After all, as we wrote two years ago, changing the world is a team sport.
