The Granny Effect

Drop a pebble into a pond and there is a splash. And then ripples...

We stood from a great height to launch our book Teach Your Granny to Text & Other Ways to Change the World because we had a big responsibility to its 4,386 authors. A year previously we had asked them, ‘What small, simple action would you ask millions of people to do to change the world?’

Their response made our book. And it was our job to make sure a million people read about it. And acted.

After fantastic coverage in The Times we held a great splash-of-a-bash at Walkers Books to introduce Teach Your Granny to Text to the wider world. Children mingled with young speakers, media met with activists and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State (Kevin Brennan) talked world-changing with ten year olds all getting thoroughly dusted with icing sugar in the process. (Gingerbread grans, don’t ask.)

Then came the ripples. And what ripples. The Times had set the scene with a double page spread and leader comment stating this wasn’t just "do-goodery for the digital age" rather a child-flavoured movement to test the theory that small actions x lots of people = big change. Broadsheets, tabloids, radio and daytime telly leapt on it. There were half page adverts in the Guardian, features in the Daily Telegraph, First News and the free sheets and galvanising calls to action in the Scotsman. BBC Breakfast asked the nation if ‘children really could save the world?’ and in the midst of a credit crunch gloom child-sized chinks of optimism appeared as child authors talked up how their action could help us all.

Interest was piqued. And supply was sorted with promotional stands of Granny up front in 450 Sainsbury’s. (And local nans near tills in Market Harborough should you get lost, need texting advice or simply want a nice cup of tea and a sit down.)

Elsewhere there was little in the way of sitting down. In schools across the country free copies of Granny had magically appeared on desks (a copy for every maintained school, provided by the DCSF) and pupils were upstanding.

‘The best book I’ve seen in a looooooong time!’ said one year 7, ‘Thank you very much for sending through a copy of TYGTT and for all the amazing work and creativity that has gone into it’ said a hardworking teacher for whom Granny has becomea lesson plan pillar. There were group projects, reading clubs and a frenetic filling in of our Action Tracking wall-charts.

Ripples happen naturally, but the odd nudge never hurts. Wise to this we sent our secret weapon, the Young Speakers into the action heartlands - school assemblies the length and breath of the country. The 11- 18 year olds gave 210 world-changing presentations, reaching 7,348 children (and counting) with their own stories and in their own words. Back at the ranch our co-founder Eugenie Harvey was busy spreading the word, getting new teachers on board at the General Teaching Council of England, talking world-changing with world-leaders at the illustrious Schumacher Conference and championing the efforts of 100 hugely energetic 11-13 year olds at npower’s Green SOS Academy.

What next? Why, world domination since you ask. From November, go into Starbucks for a Teach Your Granny to Text teaser with your latte (There will be 105,000 copies in 700 stores. Who ever said there’s no such thing as a free world-changing sampler?) Walkers Books will have taken Granny on the road to the Frankfurt Book Fair and with our book launches of Change the World for a Fiver in Spain and the US we welcome a whole new market of Granny-friendly global activishts. (‘Howdy’ and ‘Bienvenido’)

Of course the waves reach further than WAWWD can see – eye’s cupped, from our limited vantage of six people in an office. We’ve had glimpses; testimonials and book sales, actions tracked and emails. But the real ripples resist quantification. They have been released into the wild. Which, as luck would have it, is exactly where they belong.

Happy world changing

The team