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…

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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: 5

It 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.

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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.

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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?)

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…

http://www.carrotmob.org/mission.html

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!

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.

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….