The NOW Revolution: A Big Thank You

Photo by Benjy Feen at BenjyFeen.com

It’s been an amazing, exciting, and sometimes unexpected journey. But this week actually marks the “official” end to The NOW Revolution road show book tour. Crazy, that.

Oh, we’ll still be out and about. We’ve still got some great dates on the calendar from now through the rest of the year, but we couldn’t let the officially scheduled end to the tour pass without note.

I have to say that this – this entire book experience – has been one of the most rewarding, challenging, and fascinating adventures of my life. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Will I? Not just yet. There’s a ton to do on the personal and career fronts, and my focus will be there for the forseeable future. But.

There are so many people that need a thousand thanks for their role in helping make this tour a success. So Jay and I wanted to take this chance to recognize those folks, and share our personal gratitude.

To the team….

….that made all of the book stuff possible. To our ebullient editor Shannon Vargo and the entire team at Wiley, thanks for believing in us and this project. To Jason Amunwa for the amazing work on the book site (that gets rave reviews to this day) and to Jess Ostroff for her tireless assistance and Chris Sietsema for the outstanding illustrations that became such an important part of the book.

To the awesome team at Ethos3 that helped us put together a presentation for the road show out of which we have most definitely wrenched every bit of mileage. It’s embedded below for the first time.

To the supporters….

…that threw their support and enthusiasm behind this project from day one.

I have to give a very special, very personal thank you to my colleagues at Radian6. They have supported me in ways that go well above and beyond; from sponsoring the tour itself to sharing the book at our first annual user conference this year. My boss, Daniella Degrace and my former boss, David Alston shared me with this project for months and never uttered a word of complaint.

Marcel Lebrun, our CEO, believed that this project could be mutually beneficial for a host of reasons, and threw the support of our company behind it. And all of them believed in me, trusted me, and gave me the freedom to check one box off the list of professional accomplishments during my tenure at Radian6. For that, I will be eternally grateful. Thank you, thank you.

Thanks also to ExactTarget for helping sponsor the tour, to Tim Hayden and 44 Doors for making our kickoff party at SXSW such a smashing success, and to companies like Sweet Leaf Tea, Taylor Guitars, ThinkGeek, North Social and Swix for lending us a bit of their awesome to make the launch something to remember.

Thank you to the friends, colleagues, and event organizers all across the US and Canada for being excited enough about The NOW Revolution to bring us to their awesome cities. From Victoria, BC to my hometown of Chicago to Raleigh-Durham, we’ve been back and forth across this continent more times than I can count (pretty sure it’s 40-something). And each bit of it was incredible fun. Thank you, one and all.

And last but not least….

… to the amazing friends and family who have given me more support and encouragement than I can imagine, and certainly seemed to know when I neded it.

To my amazing Squirrels, who have made this year one of so many things to be grateful for. You were some of the first to really push me to do this project, and endured the adventure and challenges that it brought. For my very dearest friends Matt Ridings, Tamsen McMahon, Tom Webster, C.C. Chapman, Lauren Vargas, DJ Waldow and Melissa Case, I have overwhelming amounts of gratitude. More than I’ll ever find sufficient words for. I love you guys.

To friends Chris Penn, Michelle Wolverton, Julien Smith, Whitney Hoffman, and Ron Ploof for the Zen Acorn moments that made me realize that this was something I really and truly wanted to do.

To my book spouse, Jay Baer, for not only convincing me to do this project in the first place, but for enduring many months of my balancing this with the rest of my life, and for making the book and the ensuing adventures all the better (and funnier). I hope we’re always connected somehow, my friend. You’re one of the good guys.

And finally to my family, who has absolutely endured the hardest part of all: my being gone. A lot. And my energy and time being given to this project for over a year. You guys sacrificed so very much to make this possible for me, and I will never forget that.

For my beautiful and amazing daughter, Abby: baby girl, you have been so good and so brave when Mommy had to get on lots of airplanes and miss lots of bedtime stories for this. And someday, I hope you can understand what it means to believe that you can indeed do anything you set your mind to. I love you more than anything.

We’ll see you out there…

There are many more adventures around The NOW Revolution sure to come, both online and on the road. But for now, thanks for allowing me a moment to pause, take stock, and offer a sincere and heartfelt thank you to every one of YOU that bought the book, wrote a review, or simply offered a kind word or two, and to those that will yet give it a chance. We hear them all, read every word, and are amazed and humbled by your enthusiasm.

Thanks again for making this the adventure of a lifetime.

See you on the road.