WorldChanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century November 14, 2006

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century [An Update] | WorldChanging Team
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If you've been reading Worldchanging for a while, you may know that we spent most of our waking hours from November to May working on our book, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century. It's all done now, and we must say, we're pretty proud of the result.

The entire Worldchanging team worked very hard under extremely tight deadlines to create what we hope you'll agree is the best overview of the tools, models and ideas for building a better future available in print anywhere.

What we didn't really expect is the kind of enthusiasm people are showing for it, even before it hits the book stores.

Early reviews have been incredibly positive, and our publisher, Harry N. Abrams Books, has already placed almost 80,000 with major book sellers and other groups, leading them to announce an initial print run of 200,000 copies. Indeed, due to increased demand, the book will now hit shelves on November 1, 2006!

We'll be hitting the road in early November for a 15-city book tour through the U.S. and Canada (See tour dates here). We're not going to do your standard tour - instead of just promoting the book, we want to make this tour about celebrating worldchanging work and connecting worldchanging people. More on this soon, but we'd like to hear your advice, solicit your help and see you at the events!

That's the news. Here's an update on what you already knew:

Besides the more than 60 contributing authors - all of whom are experts and innovators in their fields - our extended collaborative team is an all-star group, which includes book designer Stefan Sagmeister, winner of the 2005 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, and his team at Sagmeister, Inc; a photo team from Sideshow Media; and of course our publisher, Harry N. Abrams Books.

The book begins with a foreward from Al Gore and an introduction by Bruce Sterling, followed by 600 pages of innovative ideas for creating a bright green future, divided into seven main chapters:

# Stuff (which covers topics like green design, reducing one's ecological footprint, biomimicry, sustainable agriculture, clothing, cars and emerging technologies);

# Shelter (covering topics like green building and landscaping, bright green home decor, clean energy, sustainable water systems, disaster relief and humanitarian design);

# Cities (topics like smart growth, sustainable communities, transportation, greening infrastructure, product-service systems, leapfrogging and megacity challenges);

# Communities (topics like education, women's rights, public health, holistic approaches to community development, copyleft, South-South science, social entrepreneurship and micro-lending, and philanthropy);

# Business (topics like socially responsible investment, worldchanging start-ups, ecological economics, corporate social responsibility and green business);

# Politics (topics like networked politics, new media, transparency, human rights, non-violent revolution and peacemaking);

# Planet (the big picture -- everything from placing oneself in a bioregion to climate foresight to environmental history to green space exploration).

The Worldchanging staff has had a chance to flip through the nearly-finalized galleys and we are overjoyed with how it's turned out. It's beautifully designed, the photos are magnificent, and the thing has some serious heft. As the release date progresses, we'll be sure to keep you posted on new developments and plans for visiting your city. We can't wait to see you all out there!

The book tour is stopping in Toronto on the 14th of November...
Tuesday, November 14th 2006
Berkeley Church, 315 Queen St East Toronto
PLEASE RSVP BY NOVEMBER 3rd to worldchangingtoronto@gmail.com
http://www.worldchanging.com/local/canada/

Official Website: http://www.worldchanging.com/local/canada/%20