Welcome to Carrotmob.org! Carrotmob organizes consumers to make purchases that give financial rewards to those companies who agree to make environmentally friendly choices. For a video of our very first campaign, click here! For the blog, scroll down. For more general info, explore the links to the right....Plop your email in here and we'll keep you in the loop...
Hello
Do we reward specific steps, or overall good?
I will soon post a link to some of the press that Carrotmob has been getting...I have been doing a lot of that, a lot of emails, and a lot of meetings, and the basic situation is that everything is going well, but I still haven't been able to start planning the next campaign. For now I thought I would post this thought and see what you guys think.... I wrote up a little thing for a blog interview, and after reading that and hearing me do a radio interview, my girlfriend called me out: "you flip flop on this... in your radio interview you say that the most important thing on the large scale will be reputation value... here you imply that it's just the cash reward. this is just generally an issue on which i think you need to come up with a more defined position...on the radio you say a bunch of different things (all of which i've heard you say at some point to other people...): what matters is reputation value; what matters is the cash reward; we'll give a limited time endorsement; we'll "define" which coffee company is "good"; we won't make judgments on whether companies are good or bad. get it straight!" She's right. So I organized my thoughts a bit, and here they are:
Rather than focus on how good or how bad companies are overall, we are going to focus on whether or not they have earned a carrot. When we offer a carrot to a company, we are signaling to consumers that this company has done something good and they deserve a carrot. This "carrot" can be thought of as a "recommended status", that is finite, and doesn't imply perfection, but it means that it would be appropriate for consumers to favor that company in the future. So we will boost the company's reputation in this way, as well as give them cash with our purchases. The downside to this approach would be that we may offer a carrot to a company that is not the MOST socially responsible company in it's industry. The upside to this approach would be that this will allow us to have much bigger impact, because we can engage with the least sustainable companies and get them to take more drastic steps. My opinion is that our priority should be on maximizing our impact, rather than making sure the most overall responsible company gets the most money. Furthermore, it would be extremely difficult to define which company is the most responsible, overall. That is a worthwhile endeavor, but for the time being I don't think it should be Carrotmob's endeavor. So with this system, many businesses that are already doing lots of good (but who don't bid enough to win our carrot) may feel slighted. Hopefully we will find ways to transparently acknowledge the good that they are doing without diluting the value of the carrot that we offer to the winner. However, if not, my stance would be that it's more important to increase the positive impact of our buying power than it is to help out the most responsible business.
This is a tough call. Do you think I'm getting it right?
What Should We Do Next?
I've been getting this question constantly. Let us discuss it. The next thing we do will depend on the answers to a couple questions: What have we proven? What resources do we have?
We've done our first campaign, and it was a success. We proved that the concept worked, and that both businesses and consumers are excited about participating (by the way, I've had a restaurant, a winery, and a sporting goods store all email me to request to participate in campaigns...). One option is to go right into another campaign. Maybe we should grow our mob by doing another campaign, but this time in Palo Alto/Berkeley/New York/Boston/Rexburg, Idaho (we've had a special request for Rexburg).... We could do another round of corner stores, or take it up to big grocers. Or we could make the jump from rewarding retail stores to rewarding brands/products. It sort of depends on what else people think we need to prove. Do people think that this only worked in SF because it's SF? I don't think that, but maybe some of us do? Do we need to prove that it will work with products and brands in a campaign where everyone isn't all in the same place at the same time?
Honestly, my preference would be to hold off on doing another campaign for the moment, and try to take care of funding, incorporation, hiring, 501c3, making a new website, etc. I would be a more effective leader if I was doing it full-time, and I didn't have another job. We could take this up a notch, and quickly start getting bigger environmental results than we can get by focusing on small businesses. The climate crisis is, after all, direly urgent. But what resources do we have?
Maybe I'm blinded by optimism, but I sort of want some wealthy person to just come along a couple hundred thousand dollars and say, "here, let's hire a few people and take this up a notch." If that happens in the near future, that would be perfect. If that doesn't come along, then I need to decide whether to keep hustling to do little campaigns, or whether to buy a book on grant-writing and plan on spending most of the year trying to figure out the usual channels for getting funds. So for now I'll keep playing it by ear, but if you have ideas or resources, please do share in the comments...
Bay To Breakers Brainstorm
I think Carrotmob should think about doing something for Bay To Breakers. I mean, it's the most fun day of the year. Brainstorm with me after the jump....
if you just read about us here, you can save 46 cents
It's been about a week, and things are going well! Here's a little rundown of some the buzz that's been coming out about us so far...this includes before and after the event, from news outlets, blogs, and everything in between: Wired.com, Smart Mobs, LA Times, GOOD Magazine's blog, BoingBoing.net, Team Jaded, Treehugger, Civic Actions, Earthfirst.com and a little mention in the SF Chronicle. There are a bunch of other blog posts out there, but I'll just leave you with one more for now.
Remember when I said I would finish that video by this weekend? It ain't gonna happen. I only need another day or two, but you're going to have to wait well over a week. Why? Because in order to pay rent I must make money, which requires me to fly to Virginia Beach tomorrow morning to set up a Go Game for a healthcare company, followed by a game for 300 people at the U of Michigan biz school. I get back Friday night. So the video has to wait, but in the meantime I am happy to unveil the official photo album from the first Carrotmob campaign! It's great.
The SF Food Bank reports that we gave 366 pounds of food! (With current exchange rates that translates to $730.83 American dollars of food. Ha.) Before we thought we had brought in more than 10k to the store, but that number was based on a rushed, and incorrect calculation by the store. Our actual total, including the Yahoo money, was $9276.50. Number crunching so far indicates that this will result in enough money for the store to replace all their lighting systems, as well as all their refrigeration gaskets. Yes! They may do more. More on this later. Here's a simplified categorized rundown of what we spent:
$3151 Grocery food items
$2268 Liquor
$1608 Wine
$999 Beer
$240 Deli items and Milk
$187 Candy
$94 Juice
$45 Soft Drinks
$42 Water
$41 Medicine
$36 Cigarettes
$31 Fruit
$22 Ice Cream
$3 A cigar and a lighter
$0.46 A newspaper
Yessssssss
We did it! Great success. People have been emailing me like crazy looking for a recap, sorry I just had to unplug yesterday and sleep. Here's the basic gist of what happened, for those of you who weren't there: A ton of people showed up. How many? Man, I don't know. It was hard to tell because we weren't all in one place at once, plus we were mingling with the public...I'm sure we had 300 people at a minimum. Could've been twice that. Any guesses? I'll try to see how many transactions were made to get a better idea. We had a bouncer to limit the number of people inside the store to a safe level. The line of people ran all the way to the end of the block. I think a lot of people ended up waiting around an hour to get from the back of the line to the register! I had suggested a few times that the store invest in another cash register, or at least move the register to accomodate another volunteer who could help bag groceries, but the store declined, which led to longer waits. But the whole scene was a party, so I don't think it was too big of a deal. Although, there were a LOT of people who showed up, but didn't have time to wait in line for an hour, so they left without buying anything. In other words, the final results actually underestimated the amount of money that our people were willing to spend. On a typical weekday David told me that their store might bring in $1800 or $2000, more like $3000 on a weekend. He predicted that they might hit four or five thousand with the help of Carrotmob. The amount of money we spent, including the $1000 from Yahoo, was
over $10,000!$9,276.50 (initial reports based on the store's quick math were mistaken). The store had multiple people constantly restocking the shelves, and we kept them busy.We bought a lot of liquor, cereal, tuna fish and other canned food, and cleaned out their entire stock of organic peanut butter. Part of the reason we bought more of those particular products was in order to give them away to the SF Food Bank. We had 2 barrels outside of the store, and even after two hungry passersby left with bags full of staple foods the barrels both ended up overflowing! The Carrotmob donation box raised over $700! About $710, but I didn't count all the small change....plus another $50 on Paypal! Thanks to all of you for pitching in! I'm still just about $1000 in the hole, if there's anyone who still wants to send me $5. There were lots of reporters and photographers in the house, so I'm sure we'll be seeing the fruits of their labors down the line. There are a bunch more shows that have been uploaded to the Carrotmob Kyte channel, so you should all feel free to add whatever you've got. There's also a little vid up on this blog post...I hope that can hold you guys for now. I'm going to take a week or so to do the following: recover, answer emails, pay some attention to my other job (the one where I get paid), tie up various loose ends, and put together a video about this campaign. But before I disappear for a week or so, I must hit you all with a few thank yous, after the jump...
Twas the night before Carrotmob
I love democracy. I have learned in the last day that democracy happens to be EVEN MORE fun when you have a population as consistently brilliant and insightful as all of you who have commented on yesterday's post. I am humbled by the huge response to this post, and I thank you for the advice. As of around 11:30 this morning, my count was this:
PRO: 37
CON: 5It was not an easy decision, and I think my mind gave more weight to each "con" vote than it did to each "pro" vote, but the wisdom of the crowd made my decision clear: Accept Yahoo!'s donation.
The comments brought up many interesting points, and I hope we will be able to discuss them further when we have time. But right now, I don't have any time, so I will address only two. First, a big thank you to "anonymous in Colorado" for the $100 donation. I'm sorry the decision didn't go the way you wanted, but your donation is a step towards the financial independence that will help us avoid any future "tainting", if one accepts the premise that a "tainting" is what happened today. And secondly, to another anonymous commenter, thank you much for the compliment, but I'm *not* single. I have a girlfriend, her name is Noor, and if she gets wind of any further advances on your part, you can expect a roundhouse to the dome. Well, she's pretty short, so if you're tall it might be a roundhouse to the hip or something. Either way, fair warning! If you're hanging out on such a classy website, you're obviously cool enough to find a special somebody soon enough.
Help Me With An Important Decision
Hello Carrotmob supporters! In a matter of hours I need to make a very significant decision about Carrotmob, and I don't feel like it's my decision to make so much as it is our decision to make. I'm going to outline the issue here, and ask you all to "vote" for what you think we should do in the comments section below.
I have recently been on a wild and crazy ride through SF bureaucracy. I may one day tell this tale in greater detail, but for now, time is short, so I'll stick to the basics. On Tuesday afternoon I went to the office where they give out permits. I went there in person because so far they had confused my application with another one, and later lost my application, and failed to give me any phone calls or emails with any information on the progress at all. I walked in with another copy of my application, and they approved it on the spot. I wrote a check for $556, plus another deposit check for $500. They told me it just had to be approved by the police, and I was set. And I had already talked to the police, so we were golden. With this permit in hand, I called Blue Turtle Seduction to tell them that the deal was final, they would be getting their money, the show was on.
Carrotmob Video Channel
Alright, I'm trying to figure out the best ways to promote this event, and I made this Kyte video channel to have a collective place where people can put their Carrotmob related photos or videos. Anyone can add content to this, and the widget embeds nicely on Facebook, Myspace, blogs, etc. Observe:
You can always find this player on this page. Have fun! (PS: This entire site is banned in China! Don't you feel oppressed?)
Prepare to Launch...
Yo mob, I'm back and I got a pocket full of logistics. I mean we're pretty set on what's going to happen in the store, but I've been trying to come up with a good afterparty. It didn't work out with Elbo Room, but why would people want to sit in a dark bar in the middle of the day anyway? So the new plan is Dolores Park. It looks like I'll get all the permits I need, I just don't have them yet. And I'm going to have to front some big money, but y'all will pay me back right? (crickets) Right? Several great bands were down to play, and it looks like we're going to end up going with Blue Turtle Seduction and 1865. I used to work up in Tahoe with some of the dudes in Blue Turtle...their sound is hard to classify, but I'll tell you that it will fit very nicely with an afternoon in Dolores Park. And 1865 is just my homie who lives around the block. He's blowing up right now so look out. Anyway, there's a lot more I've been working on, but for that I will refer you to the official page of our first campaign...
Save The Date: March 29th!
Carrotmob's first campaign will begin on Saturday, March 29th at 1pm. At that time, our mob will physically manifest for the first time, meeting at K & D Market, on 16th St between Valencia and Guerrero in San Francisco. We will buy as much as we can from this store. We will collect all the receipts and keep track of the total gross revenue that we bring to the store. Then, K & D Market will take 22% of that amount and spend it all on upgrades to make their store more environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient. We all buy our usual products at the usual prices, but suddenly almost a quarter of our money goes directly towards fighting global warming. K & D Market has generously committed this impressive amount of money with the hope that Carrotmob will be able to offer them real value in return. If the mob shows up, we'll revolutionize their store and finally get rid of their big white fridge that's been sucking down gobs of power since the early 80s. More info coming later, save the date!
The Market Has Spoken!
This picture from "Trading Places" just feels right. I don't know if it makes sense because a liquor store is about to earn a whole lot of money, or because I just finished a successful round of trading. Either way, this is going to be fun.
From the original 23 stores who were invited, several stores were interested in participating. But once things got specific, stores began to drop out. Soon only three competitors remained. I rode my bike around to each store, getting to know the owners and facilitating the bidding process. We got started off quick with a bold bid of 10% of gross revenue from Gus and George, over at 24th and Valencia. The spotlight turned to Tim at 24th and Bartlett, who declined to match that number. Then over to Sam at 23rd and Valencia...Sam loves the idea, and he is determined to be the highest bidder. With no hesitation he goes up to 15%. I realize we are talking about some serious numbers here. Back to 24th and Valencia we go...but NO! Gus gracefully declines to top 15%. Does this leave Sam as the big winner? Not so fast! On the same morning of March 5th I got an email from a new dark horse candidate, David at K & D Market (16th and Guerrero). He throws his hat in the ring at the last possible moment. I got him on the phone and explained the situation. Would he top 15%? He says 17%. Oooooooh! I call Sam back. "Hey buddy, 16th and Guerrero says 17%. Can you top that?" Sam is cucumber cool. "Of course I can top that. I'm going to beat all the other offers! I'll do 20%." Oooooooooh! Big time. At this point I find that it's beginning to get awkward, me taking turns calling these guys and pitting them against each other. It's also fun. And hilarious. I call David back and tell him Sam said 20%. "We'll do 22%." Oooooooooh! I call Sam back. "David's doing 22%." I prepare to call David back with a new number, but Sam says he's hit his limit.
What?! I thought he was going to beat everyone's offer! This is where I got my first surprise of the campaign. Sam explained his situation: His store is known as a discount store. They keep their profit margins low to attract customers with their low prices. He claims that you might buy a bottle of wine for $4 at his store, but $8 at another store. He says he doesn't mark up his products as much as other stores, so this is why he can't offer as much. Is he just talking a big game? No. In fact he offers to give us 100% of his profits for our campaign once he pays his costs. That's a nice offer, but we need to know the percentage in advance to have a fair bidding competition. He says he is willing to go to 30%, but he would need to boost his prices in order to do so. Whoa. I tell him I'll have to think that through and call him back. He clearly likes having low prices, but what if he raised them just for the one day? From one perspective, this seems attractive because 30% is a huge number, and that would be a lot of money going to a good cause. But despite that, changing prices is just sketchy in this situation. That's not an appropriate precedent to set. When consumers think about Carrotmob, I don't want them to think of it as an organization that you "pay extra" to support. Consumers shouldn't have to sacrifice anything regarding price or quality for these campaigns. They should be able to make a difference by only adjusting their brand preferences and coordinating the timing of their purchases. It was a shame to see Sam lose out despite his commitment to the idea, but this is just due to the nature of his business.
We have a winner, the last store standing: K & D Market, 16th and Guerrero. David has reeled in a delicious fish. His store is perfect for us. Time to plan this caper.
Putting The Offer On The Table
I can't wait to do something. This idea has been kicking around in my head (at least in some form) for about five years now, and I can see that it's only going to be a short while longer before it bursts out of my head, into the realm of tangible, measurable things. I'm currently maxin' in a poofy "leather" recliner in a cabin in South Lake Tahoe. Nearly all of my 15 or so companions are all off at Kirkwood making a day of it, but I feel driven to sit here and continue my plotting and scheming. It's not an obligation, it's just excitement. Here's the latest:
I recruited and met with a few friends who are well-versed in how a liquor store could go green. Specifically: Robby Bearman, President of Village Green Energy and formerly a renewable energy and energy efficiency maven at kW Engineering; Lauren Casey, Energy Engineer at HDR with energy auditing experience; John Shen, Energy Engineer and Analyst for KEMA. Here's the plan we came up with. We considered doing our own energy audits of stores that were interested, and then connecting the owners with contractors who would do the job, but it seemed like an inefficient use of resources. We're now planning on going through an existing program, most likely SF Energy Watch, since we have a couple great contacts there. A problem we have been faced with is that because this is our first campaign, and our mob of people doesn't exist yet, on what basis can we ask a small business to front thousands of dollars to do what we ask when there's really no guarantee that people will come buy? Later, once we have a track record, I think we'll be able to make deals without a guarantee, but at this point we don't even have evidence that anyone will show up, unless you count my earnest soothing voice, telling store owners that yes, there are all sorts of people who would be interested in this, like, um, for example....
But since we don't actually have real people to point to yet, here's our solution: On the day of the event, we'll set aside a couple hours for our people to come and buy stuff. During that time, we'll collect everyone's receipts in a little box. Afterwards we add it all up, and see how much revenue we brought to the store. Then, the store will invest a pre-set percentage of that revenue into energy-saving improvements as identified by the SFEW audit. And how do we choose which store gets the reward? We simply have them bid in advance on how high a percentage of their revenue they're willing to set aside. Highest bid percentage gets the carrot. Pretty cool eh?
One good thing about this system is that the store will invest an amount of money that is proportional to the value of the reward we bring. Our consumers will have incentive to spend a lot, because they know that every dollar they spend during this brief time period will result in more green improvements. There is only one potential downside to this plan: What is the enforcement mechanism? We require the store to do nothing except a free audit before they get their reward. We can make a written agreement, but in theory, they could just take our money and not do anything. Are we really going to litigation if they ignore their commitment? I think not. But I'm not worried because the stores will benefit so much regardless. They know that we can bring them business and we can take it away. Plus, in the interactions I've had so far with store owners, I've found some very trustworthy men who seem to have more than enough integrity to make a deal on a handshake.
What's that you ask? Have I already been talking to store owners? Yes. I've left written letters for the owners of all 23 liquor stores that I identified between 16th St and 24th St, between Mission and Dolores, inclusive. We have a pool of interested stores, and the bidding will commence this week! Stay tuned....
The Quicker Liquor Picker-Upper
It's time to start documenting this project more publicly. I would like one of Carrotmob's defining characteristics, as an organization, to be transparency. Radical transparency. So let me bring you up to speed.
At this point, Valentine's Day 2008, here's where Carrotmob stands:
We Got It We Ain't Got It A great concept. Proof of concept. One dude working part-time. A gigantic mob. Fisher Price Baby's First Website. A real website. A plan. A business plan. No profits. Non-profit status.
So what happens now? As I look down the "we ain't got it" column, it's tempting to work on getting money or spending months building a nice site, but instead I think I'll focus on proving that this will work, and starting to build a network of consumers. The way I see it, it will be easier to get the attention of funders and talented collaborators once we have earned that attention by actually doing something. So, how do we come up with the first campaign? Sure, someday we'll be talking turkey with Fortune 500 ballers, but for the first campaign we need to start small, so that our small network can have a huge impact rather than a negligible one. I think we start with a small business. Furthermore, I think we should have a physical manifestation of our mob, locally in the SF Bay Area. Like a flashmob. That's how we should launch it. The sight of people coming out to meet up together will be the proof that we exist. Here are the requirements for this campaign:
- a small business does something significant to help the environment
- to reward the business, consumers must be able to buy something they would probably buy anyway
- everyone must be able to make their purchases within a short amount of time (ie: a restaurant wouldn't work very well, since it would take an hour just for one purchase to be made)
- it should be fun
- it should be novel
- we should be able to make a sweet video of this campaign
What this says to me is: Liquor Stores in the Mission. Everyone has liquor cabinets to occasionally restock, or at least something they could buy at a liquor store. There is no "green" liquor store. People choose what liquor store they go to based on what is closest to their house, because otherwise it doesn't matter. If there is suddenly one "green" liquor store, why wouldn't people go buy stuff there? Especially if it's as part of a fun community event that launches a cool new non-profit? We can even throw in a free concert or something. Plus, there are plenty of people in SF who would be willing to spend, like, $100 at a liquor store. A couple nice bottles of wine, maybe some Patron...imagine we get 500 people to show up and make that purchase at the same time. That would be $50,000 in sales within, like, an hour. Surely that represents enough profit to entice a business to invest in an ultra-efficient fridge or two.... And what fun it will be to shoot a video in which a liquor store goes from full to empty! Yes?
So that's the project I'm working on. Suggestions appreciated. I'll let you know how it goes....
