WHAT'S THIS I HEAR ABOUT WORM POOP?

I don't know what it was this week, but I ran into worm poop several times. I was looking for websites to post intern jobs and happened upon an environmental company in Trenton that I never heard of before—Terracycle. They seem to have a pretty extensive internship program and their entire communications and PR team seems run by interns. Smart idea. They pay a stipend of 100 bucks per 40 hour work week, which likely pays for gas and lunch. They post on numerous job sites and I kept running into them on every site I posted which piqued my curiosity. When you read "changing the way the world thinks about waste" you wonder what that means.

When you get to their website you are introduced to the company which makes products that are organic and they package them in recycled soda bottles. Their plant food product is made by "feeding organic waste to millions of worms"—better known as worm poop! Interestingly the company also pays people to recycle plastic bottles, energy bar wrappers, yogurt containers and drink pouches. They've even held Annual Worm Poop Factory Graffiti Jams with graffiti artists painting to beautify the community and raise community spirit. 

I thought all of this was cool, but clicked out of the website without thinking much more about it. The next day I got my advance email copy of the Stanford Social Innovation Review and what was the lead story? Worm poop. And the talented social entrepreneur whose idea it was—self-described eco-capitalist and co-founder Tom Szaky. Who would ever believe you could turn millions of worms to work to generate $8.6 million in projected sales for 2008? Szaky also has a blog on Inc.'s website and he's giving out free advice. Listen up. This 27 year old Princeton University dropout gives a little insight on how to generate FREE buzz. And he's right.

Smart, resourceful guy. Interesting idea. Free labor. Social entrepreneur with waste solutions. Eco-capitalist: sounds like an oxymoron. 

HOW TO FUND A MILLION DOLLAR DOCUMENTARY iDEA

Well I have to say some people are very creative fund raisers. And there aren't many of them around. It took me some time to read and understand what Nirvan Mullick is doing with his 1-Second Film and this young guy is pure genius. Let me boil down what he's doing. First, Nirvan is a social entrepreneur. He's great with technology and he came up with an idea on how to create a social network that's interested in using art, technology and film to give back.

Now here's the genius part. While living in LA he began hitting the streets to pitch his 1-Second film. His pitch: for just $1 anyone could be a producer of his film. What's the film you ask? 1 Second of large-scale art murals that had been created at an event at CalArts in 2001, with 90 minutes of credits. The credits will include the story of the making of the collaborative effort and all the money donated will go to the Global Fund for Women.

My guess --it wasn't easy because most people would say 'What?-No!" or ignore him and just plain walk away. How different was he than a bum on the street? But then he ran across George Clooney and 1-Second Film history was made. Using well known advertising and sales techniques and lots of roll-up your sleeves attitude, apparently Nirvan lit the ground afire and starting pitching celebrities at places like Sundance. Meanwhile it might help to be at Sundance and win an award which can than give you the credibility to even talk to all these celebs. The celebs laughed at his idea, but some chalked up 100 bucks and more! And on camera to boot! So Nirvan now has a Foundation, he's made over $170,000 and he's raising money for a bus and road trip to pitch to Oprah.

The best part is that this is a huge coalition collaboration. Every person who gives a dollar gets to have a "Producers" profile on the website and there's now over 7000 of them. If you're feeling ambitious you can also submit your own film, create art, etc.

Back to the genius part. Website, 7000 people, $170,000, each producer can raise money on the site, rub elbows with celebrities and feel like they're part of something great and BIG. The only thing odd is that the charity doesn't have any reference to the project on their website. There's also 5 phases so this kind of social networking fun/fund raising could go on forever and gains momentum every day.

All I can say is "Geez why didn't I think of that?"