In the past year, a dizzying number of books have been written on the mechanics of using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, yet none addresses one of the biggest desires among 18-34 year olds: how to leverage the incredible power of social media to make a difference. The Dragonfly Effect reveals how to use them to do something that really matters.
Small actions create big change and The Dragonfly Effect is what happens when you coordinate four individual efforts to produce colossal results. Named after the only insect that is able to move in any direction—with tremendous speed and force—when its four wings are working in concert. This book will teach you four key skills, explain how to coordinate them, and show you how to harness them to the social technology to achieve disproportionate impact.
Operating as “social change in a box,” The Dragonfly Effect illustrates how these synchronized ideas have been effectively used to create rapid transformations—and unveils the secrets so you can do it too. First, we’ll travel with the Obama campaign as they use social technology to create political change, with Kiva as they foster economic justice by making micro-loans easily available, and with people like you and me as they improve the chance of survival for cancer patients and change the bone marrow drives are conducted. Next, we’ll learn the four skills, gain insight from the founders of eBay’s World of Good, storytellers from Pixar, and leaders from Facebook, Twitter, and Google, and see what Stanford MBA students have been able to accomplish with these lessons in just eight weeks. Finally, we’ll reveal the Dragonfly Toolkit, which will get you started on using all the most important social media tools without having to read a whole book about each of them. (It even includes Cheat Sheets, specifically designed for people who aren’t technically proficient.)
Ultimately, The Dragonfly Effect demonstrates that you don’t need money or power to ignite seismic social change. We’ll show you how with energy, focus, and a good wireless connection, anything is possible.
