#H2HChat Social & Visual Media to Create a Litter Free World with Jeff Kirschner, Founder Litterati

Hi everyone. Welcome to another week of H2H Chat. I'm Suzie and I'm super excited to be joined by Jeff Kushner, who is the CEO of Literati. Hey Suzie. Hey Jeff. You may notice that my fabulous co-host is missing in action. Send positive vibes to Bryan. He's down for the count with the dreaded flu. So, um, I don't know. I wish if there's any way to like send chicken soup or something through the internet, that would be absolutely fabulous. But I think we're going to have to wait, wait on that. So I have Rachel Miller, who's the other senior social strategist at Peer Matter, is on the chat for me. And go ahead and tweet in any questions that you have to her. Um, so without Without further ado, Jeff, welcome. How are you?

It's a pleasure to be here.

Good. I'm super psyched. I've admired what you're doing at Literati, and I just want to dive in. I love this opportunity to really let all of our community know about this super cool thing that you've built. Give me a summary. What is Literati?

We are a community that is crowdsourced cleaning the planet one piece of litter at a time. And through that process, we are using technology to collect a ton of data about exactly what is on the ground.

See, and that is singing my song. I am a total data geek. So tell me, what are you doing with this data?

Well, we are starting to really try and understand what is clearly a global problem that we frankly know very little about. And the way it all happened, I think, is kind of an interesting story.

Yeah, tell me about it.

I was hiking through the woods in Oakland with my 2 little kids, and my daughter, who was 4, noticed that somebody had thrown this plastic tub of cat litter into a creek. And she looked at me and she said, Daddy, that doesn't go there. And it was this innocent comment that was really an eye-opening moment for me. And when she said that, it reminded me of when— I know, it's amazing how a 4-year-old can get you to see the world in a little bit of a different way, right?

Yeah.

But when she said that, it reminded me of when I went to camp as a kid. And on the morning of visiting day, before they'd let our parents come in, our camp director would say, quick, everybody go pick up 5 pieces of trash.

Yeah.

So now you had a couple hundred kids each picking up a few pieces, and within a few minutes, we had a much cleaner camp. We were effectively crowdsourced cleaning the camp long before that phrase meant anything to anybody.

Right.

And so I thought, well, why can't we apply that model, a very simple idea, to the entire planet? And that was the inspiration for starting Litterati. What happened next was just really weird. I took a photograph of a cigarette butt using Instagram just because. Suzy, I had no rhyme or reason for doing it. It's just what happened. And then I took another photo and another photo. And for some context, A, I'm not a good photographer, and B, I was never an active environmentalist. But I noticed that Instagram allowed me to turn individual works of litter into pieces of art. Litter became approachable simply because of Instagram. The second thing that happened was that after a couple of days, I looked at my phone and I had like 30 or 40 pieces, 30 or 40 photographs, and I picked up and thrown out or recycled every single piece that I photographed. I realized that I was effectively keeping a record of the impact I was having on the planet. No clue what I could do with that information. I just thought it was kind of cool. And so I started telling people what I was doing. And what started out with that one cigarette butt has, as of this morning, turned into 185,000 pieces around the world.

Wow. Wow. That's seriously amazing. So why Literati? What's behind that term? For you.

So I used to teach a story class at a place called the Miami Ad School. It's a graduate school for people who are trying to become creative, art directors and writers in the world of advertising. So I taught this class on story, and I just started picking up pieces of litter, and I had horrible names like Planet Clean, Trash 101. I mean, just really bad. And one of my students said, Well, you've got cameras and photographs, what about literazzi? And then he then said, actually, no, that makes me think of the Nazis. Yeah, exactly. And so another student said immediately, well, what about literati? And that was it.

I love it.

It was sort of this organic, what just happens, oh, literati, that sounds great, let's move on.

That seems to be a common theme for your story, just moving, this serendipity. What happened next?

The next thing I did was I went out and got literati.org, because I had no idea what else to do. I figured we may as well start with that. We started looking into— you have all these Instagram pictures that started surfacing with this hashtag #literati. Let me back up for a second. What I was doing early on was I was taking a photo with Instagram. I was adding the hashtag #Literati, and then throwing it out and recycling the piece, right?

Yeah.

So I start telling people what I'm doing, and all of a sudden I see just in my Instagram feed other Literati-tagged photos showing up that weren't mine. Early on it was my brother, my wife, a friend, but then it started organically spreading to people that I didn't know. That's when I went out and got Literati.org, and the very next thing we did was put up what we now call the digital landfill, which is just a photo gallery of all these images on Instagram with the hashtag #Literati. The way we did that was we just reached into Instagram's database and extracted any #Literati tagged photograph and threw it up on our digital landfill. That was it. What was fascinating was pictures started coming in from lots of different perspectives. One thing I've noticed is that the way that I'll photograph something is usually top-down centered, right? Yes. But suddenly there were photos showing up where there was a piece of litter in the foreground with this expansive background, other filters, interesting takes and perspectives. And all of a sudden one day a photograph showed up with a plastic wrapper in the foreground and the Great Wall of China in the background.

Holy cow!

That was pretty much what I thought. And I turned to my— I was sitting with my wife and I was like, we've made it to China! And she said, take it easy, my brother is backpacking through China, he is the one who took the photograph. But that is not important, because here is what is important. That photograph was the moment that I realized that there is actually something much more impactful than pretty pictures, and it is all the data. Right, so I had no clue that we could look at a photograph and really start to understand more about where a piece of litter was picked up, what the piece of litter was, So an easy way to look at it is we're able to look at who, what, where, and when just from a photograph. We can see who's picking up what object because they're tagging it Starbucks, plastic, cigarette, et cetera. Every photo is geotagged. So that led us to creating what we now call the impact map, where we're plotting the precise point where every piece of litter is being picked up. And then there's a timestamp. So who, what, where, and when. We're able to start looking at that kind of data. And that's really how we've— Built the website. It went from the digital landfill to the map to a list of the most commonly found brands and products. That was just how we started.

The interesting thing to me is you've stayed basically, correct me if I'm wrong, with Instagram. It doesn't look like you've spread this to other platforms. Why is that?

You're partially correct. We launched on Instagram at— no, we launched on Instagram, as I said, just because. We have continued to work with Instagram because, first of all, it's a global community of hundreds of millions of people. It's also been working.

Yep.

And it's been a great way for us to create awareness about a massive environmental problem. But we've just recently launched an iOS application. Early stages, beta version, MVP. And the idea is that long-term, we think there's an opportunity to really grow a big community, but we need to be able to design the right type of user experience for that to happen. And so we launched the iOS app maybe a month and a half ago. Android's in development. And the idea is, can we bring together this community around the world over solving a greater common problem through these individual local acts, right? So there are people in Wales that are highly— are big users of the Literati app, and people in Australia, and people in California, but we're all contributing to the same greater good, right? If you pick up a bottle cap in Seattle and I pick up one in Sydney, traditionally those have been quiet isolated acts. I don't know you exist, you don't know I exist. What Litterati is starting to do is act as a unifying umbrella. It's taking those individual quiet acts and making them social and shareable. And the beauty of that is that it takes a problem as big as litter and it empowers us as an individual to say, you know what, I'm not doing this all by myself. There are other people around the world who have the same goal, who have the same concerns. And that's given us quite a bit of momentum.

So is this— is your spread— would you credit your spread as kind of word of mouth, people seeing the hashtag and jumping on it? How do people find out about this?

That's a good question. I think it's happened through a couple of different ways. Word of mouth certainly was how it all started, and I think part of the reason we've had some success with word of mouth is this is a problem that everybody gets, right? It affects every single one of us in every community around the world, and it's very tangible and highly visual, right? We all see it. So that's helped, is that this problem is just really universal. And our solution is pretty simple. It's easy and clear to understand. We've also been lucky. We've gotten quite a bit of press. So we've been featured in National Geographic and Time Magazine and USA Today and That certainly helped spread the word. And then finally, I've been out talking. We've been doing quite a bit of work with schools as an example and spreading the word that way, which has been an incredibly rewarding experience because frankly, if we're going to change habits—

So it looks like we may be frozen for a sec. Jeff, if you want to try and log out, log back in. For everyone, while we have this little bit of a gap, don't forget to please tweet in your questions for Jeff on anything related to— this is just an amazing opportunity to hear someone who has taken the initiative to mount this movement in social good. He's now moving into an app. Utilizing, you know, Instagram. I love what I'm hearing right now. I just, I love this concept about sticking with a single social platform simply because, you know, as he said, that's what works. That's where, you know, his community is. That's what he was doing. Make sure to double-check, to check out literati.org as well. It's just amazing what they have. They have this digital landfill where they're able to basically geotag everything that's coming in there. So we're working right now to get Jeff logged back in. In the middle, in the, the— For the time being, I want to go ahead and take, take some time to just give a shout out to so many people that we have right now tuning in on H2H Chat. You guys, it sounds— what I love is, you know, we're hearing a lot. It sounds like a lot of you guys are really, really appreciating this whole idea of user-generated content, which I think is just— it's like so cool, right, to connect in this way. I also love, you know, the way that they're utilizing data. Hey, Jeff, are you here?

We're back.

You're back. Awesome.

I went for a quick winter walk.

We're getting some awesome, awesome comments right now on the Twitter chat. People are really responding well. We have some people too, I have one person who said that he first used the hashtag back in 2013. He was kind of with you at the very start, which is cool. Can

I tell you something, Susie? Yeah. One thing that's been incredibly rewarding and humbling is that I have met people from literally around the world because of this. Literati has connected them, and it's so fascinating watching people who before had no idea that each other existed but are now connected because they're both concerned about how do we solve this massive problem. That's happening quite a bit. I think with the tools that we're building, it's going to happen quite a bit more.

I love that. I love that. That really strikes home for me. The whole reason I actually got into social media was around community and bringing people together. It's actually one reason I adore H2HChat, because we have this amazing community around a hashtag. What have you learned as you've gone through this? You said at the very beginning, which I thought was curious, that You weren't an environmentalist, and yet I look now and I go, you must be, right? Tell me, how has this thought process caused you to evolve?

There are so many ways, both as an entrepreneur and more importantly just as a human being. I'll tell you one impact it's had is I've changed my entire family. We've changed our purchasing habits. We see so much plastic wrapping all over the ground, right? And so that's informed the way that we'll choose to buy something or not buy something in a market. So for example, we won't buy bulk packaging that has lots of individual packages within it. And you can think of lots of brands and consumer packaged goods that do that, right? So And the reason we're making that decision is because we know there's a better way. That's been a result 100% because of the awareness that Literati has created. Another thing that has changed for me is this notion of shared responsibility. So I could walk by a Trident wrapper and think, well, that's not my problem, or I didn't put that there. Or I've got to bend down and pick that up. Yeah, I could take all of those approaches, but the reality is that we have a shared responsibility to the sustainability of the planet. And whether that's an individual picking something up, or whether that's a city having a better understanding of what's on its grounds so it can be smarter and more strategic about where we place trash cans, or how often the trash trucks clean their routes. or whether that's a brand taking more ownership and responsibility about the types of packaging we put into the world, we have this shared responsibility. And so that's something that I think has changed for me. On the entrepreneurial side, I think there's quite a few things I've learned. One is resilience is critical. So no matter what you're building, right, no matter what your idea is, no matter what stage you're in, You're going to have a million people tell you why it's not a good idea. There's going to be a thousand reasons why you shouldn't continue. There's going to be, you know, an infinite number of reasons why you can't do it one more day. And the reality is that if you believe in it, you just got to find a way to be resilient and push on. And it's amazing what doors will open when you do that sort of thing. I think that's been a big learning experience for me. And that's not to say that you operate with horse blinders and don't listen to external advice and don't look at how the market is accepting or not accepting what you're building. Those are all very critical realities. But I think keeping that sense of belief and resilience is really critical to whatever you're trying

to build. Yeah, absolutely. What would you say has been the biggest challenge that you faced getting this community growing, getting all this started?

You know, there's that great question that Peter Thiel asks, which is, what's the one thing that you believe that nobody else believes? I think that for us is getting people to believe that there's actually value in collecting the data and putting a community together to clean the planet. So that's a challenge for us, right? How do you prove to somebody, or how do you inspire somebody, I think is a better way of saying it, to say, actually, you can make a difference. As an individual, you can make a difference. Together we can create an impact, but you by yourself, you actually can make a change in the world. And what we think is so incredibly— the potential of Literati is really powerful for us. The key reason we believe that is because we're leveraging technology to bring those people together. Yeah. Not only bring them together to community, but allow an individual to also measure their impact, track their progress, and understand more about their environment, see their environment through a different lens, much the way my little girl did for me.

Yeah, so is that part of the thinking behind something like the digital landfill and impact?

Yeah, absolutely. So at least the way it works on Instagram, there's all these filters and we have these beautiful works of art. So we actually have a Literati exhibit that's been traveling the country. It features 24 different members of the Literati community from around the world, places like Austria and the British Virgin Islands and Virginia. And that artistic expression has been a wonderful way for people not only to get involved, but also for us to create more awareness about this community that's building. We have people who are really into it from the artistic side, people who are really into it from the data side, people who are really into it from the environmental side, and sort of all flavors in between. Our belief is whatever you want to do, whatever inspires you to get involved, it's great.

Yeah, I love that. So you're kind of at this nexus of multiple communities that are coming together to deal with this. That's fascinating. That's really interesting. So one thing I wanted to ask you about, I know, I believe I read you partnered with the City of San Francisco at one point to do trash can, place trash cans. Did I read that correctly?

Not exactly. So the quick story is in 2000, I think it was 2009, San Francisco, this is long before we existed, the City of San Francisco conducted a study. They wanted to understand what percentage of litter on their streets was cigarette-related. And what that means is a cigarette butt, a cigarette pack, or the plastic wrapper that goes around the cigarette pack.

Okay.

The reason they wanted that data was they used it to inform an excise tax on all cigarette sales. So here's what they did. They put a couple of people on the street with pencils and clipboards, and they went around and they spot-checked That's a cigarette, that's not, that is, that's not.

Right.

And they came up with a number, and that percentage translated into a current tax on all cigarette sales. Created a very sizable revenue stream for the city of San Francisco.

Yeah.

And then they got sued. The city got sued by Philip Morris because, you know, big tobacco said, your collection methodology for your data doesn't have a whole lot of integrity. We don't believe that we're responsible for the percentage that you say we are. So the city partnered with us and another company, and we did an analysis. The city approached me and they said, hey, can Litterati tell us whether this piece of litter is a cigarette or not? And I said, well, we can tell you if it's a Parliament or a Camel, and we can give you the precise point on the planet it's located and a timestamp. And come to think of it, we can give you a pretty robust set of analytics.

Yeah.

And so we started working with the city to do just that. And we conducted a 32-site analysis and gave them the type of data that they wanted. And what was fascinating about that work, Suzy, for me was 2 things. One, we did that all using Instagram, which was not the right tool for us to be using.

Yeah.

So it led us— that's what led to the creation of the app and the backend platform to do all that analytics.

Yes, absolutely.

The other thing that it really, I guess, caused for me was this notion that if you think about it, every city in the world has a litter profile or a litter signature. So what you see on the streets of Tokyo looks a lot different than what you see on the streets of Oakland. And even between Oakland and San Francisco, there are differences. Uh-huh. And even between, let's say, one neighborhood to the next within any given city. And so I started thinking about this in terms of what if you could go back to that data that we were collecting early on, the what, the where, and the when, and apply that analytics, apply those analytics to different cities. Could you give a city that level of intelligence to let them know exactly what was on the streets? And if they could create an excise tax for cigarettes, well, what could they do with information around coffee cups, or candy wrappers, or soda cans? Right, so when you think about the what, categorically it might be that cigarettes are the most common type of litter that you find on the ground, but it breaks down into brand specifics, right?

Yeah.

The where is self-explanatory. You might learn that there's a lot of Starbucks napkins outside one block that you don't have only one block adjacent. Why? Because there's a Starbucks store on that first block that doesn't have a napkin dispenser, so every time somebody buys a cup of coffee, they walk out with a stack of 10 or 20 napkins. Some of which inevitably end up on the ground. Then there's the when. So— Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Oh, no, no, please continue.

The last point is the when is really fascinating to me, but nobody ever thinks about it. In November, we see a lot of candy wrappers because of Halloween. In July, it's flags and fireworks. How can that help inform us about the problem so that our solutions can be driven by evidence and data rather than what's happening today, which is essentially nothing.

Yeah, and so on the East Coast, you said you grew up in Philadelphia, so where it's not as— you get the umbrella litter, right, as soon as a big storm has gone by. You have all the disposable crammed in. Tell me, what opportunities are you looking at to do with this data? Are you looking at potentially letting a local Starbucks know that they need a better napkin dispenser? What are the— I mean, because this is amazing. You can do all of this through your analytics.

Yeah, I think there are— so we're still exploring what are the different things we can do with all this information, but at a high level there are 3 types of organizations that we've started talking to and some we've started working with. So one is local government, right? Much like I discussed a moment ago, how can you inform a local government, how can you help provide them a level of intelligence that they haven't had before so that they can make decisions based on that data about where they place trash cans, right? Yes. Could we be smarter and more strategic strategic about placing trash cans here, here, and here based on what we are seeing on the ground, or how often the waste companies drive their routes and where we need more attention or where we need to divert certain resources. So working with cities, and really it's all about how can we help them either increase revenue, decrease expenses, or better allocate resources. Hmm. There is working with brands, and for us it's about really help— the brands are the ones that in many ways control the future of packaging sustainability, right? So can we help brands understand more about the life cycle of their packaging? Can we understand— help brands understand more about the footprint that their packaging is creating? And can we give them the opportunity to get out in front and become part of that solution and say, look, we recognize that, you know, we do create all this packaging, some of which ends up on the ground, but here are the steps we're taking to be part of that solution. And so what might a brand do with that information? Is that something they can share with their stakeholders or their shareholders to make them really be the hero in the story? It's not about shaming anybody. Yeah. It goes back to shared responsibility. We're all in this thing together. And the third group is schools. So we've had a ton of schools use Literati really as a citizen science platform. And one of my favorite stories is a school in Modesto, California, a group of 4th and 5th graders used Litterati to clean up their campus. Right. And they picked up 1,247 pieces over the course of a couple of weeks in like 5 and 10 minute increments. But more importantly than the amount that they picked up, they were able to look at the data. And they learned that the most common piece of litter on their campus were the individually wrapped straws from their cafeteria. So these 4th and 5th graders went to their principal and said, why are we still buying individually wrapped straws? And they stopped. They started looking for alternatives. They started bringing reusable water bottles. They used technology to gain insight about a problem that led to an action that's going to have a dramatically positive effect going forward. Those are the stories. How many other examples like that might exist out there?

I seriously just got chills hearing that. I love that. That is absolutely amazing. It all starts small, right? It's completely grassroots. So did you—

oh, yeah? No, I just wanted to reiterate what you said. It all starts small. This whole thing started with Yeah, and affordable. 185,000 pieces is nothing, but it's a good start.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to ask one question and then— sorry, I'm plugging in my laptop here. It is called H2H for a reason, very human moments occasionally. I'm going to ask one last question and then we're going to go ahead and turn to the questions which are They're pouring in. Everyone, please, please, please keep them rolling. Even if we can't get to all of them, I know Jeff and his team will definitely be, I'm hoping, jumping on afterwards to go ahead and interact with you guys. So last question, Jeff. When did you realize that this was going to— that this was really taking off? And that this was going to be an idea that you were going to really run with and commit to? At what point?

I think we're still realizing

it.

I don't think there was ever sort of a moment in time that sort of the light bulb went on. I think it's been a constant, it's really been an evolution. So there's always something that's been— somebody's raised a point like, have you thought of that? Or what if we did this? It's just been this constant. Yeah, there was a point where I said, Wow, suddenly I'm seeing nothing but litter. All of a sudden, everywhere I looked, I noticed my level of awareness changed. In all fairness to your question, I do think we're still realizing and having those epiphanies all the time. To your point, I realized we might have gotten somewhere when one day I was on a beach, actually with my kids. and there was another mother and her son, and he must have been 10 years old. He was in the water and he pulled out this plastic bag out of the water. It was covered in sand and it was really filthy. Yeah. And the mother looked at him and said, we should add that to Litterati. And the only other people on the beach were me and my kids, and my daughter went up to that mother and said, do you know Litterati? And she said, yeah, do you? And my daughter just kind of looked at me like, Do I know it?

I've grown up with it. Wow, that's amazing.

That was a heartwarming moment.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that's seriously amazing. Alright, so we are going to jump into our questions. A lot of different ones here coming at you. So first one from Andy. Thank you so much, Andy. So he wants to know whether you're seeing offline participation in the community. So he says, how are literati people coming together locally? For example, power in numbers, any flash mob style meetups, anything like that going on?

Yeah, Andy, it's a good question and something we've actually been talking quite a bit about. The first time it ever happened was actually in Detroit. A group of people got together and they picked up like 2,000 pieces within the span of, I think, like 30 minutes. They just came together, so they started offline and then they met at, I think it was just at a local restaurant afterwards and looked at the data to see the impact that they had created. We're hoping that more— I think it's on us, right? We need to build the tools that enable that. Yeah. I think it's great because it's back to what you said, Suzie. It's like this local opportunity to make a difference in your neighborhood, in your community. But if we're all doing that around the world, all in service to this greater good, it affects each and every one of us. We're starting to see a little of that. We hope to see a lot more.

Is that going to be part of the iOS app that you're looking at potentially?

No, it is, Suzie. One of the features we are considering, and I never want to put the cart ahead of the horse, and it's all back to user experience, but one of the features we are looking at is how do we let people know, like find a local cleanup or start a local cleanup and then invite people from your community to help, to join you.

I love it. I love it. That's, yep, that's what you do. I love it. So let's see. This is a great one actually from Lisa Loeffler. Shout out to Lisa, one of our weekly H2H chatters. She says, how can people educate tourists who come to a city and litter heavily? She says she's in Flagstaff and she says she's experiencing major snow play and sledding litter issues, which is just horrible. It's horrifying. So what are your thoughts on that?

It's a tough one, right? So our position is that being critical and shaming doesn't really serve for a couple of reasons. If I were the person throwing something on the ground, I wouldn't want somebody else coming and telling me, hey, don't do that, even though that's probably the right thing to say. We're sort of a lead by the way you act. So if we can demonstrate that there's value in what we're doing, then hopefully not only will that individual not litter, but maybe they may actually join the community. And, you know, this is a tough question because one, how often do you actually see somebody littering? Besides cigarettes, which is probably the only item in the world that it is still culturally acceptable to throw on the ground where people won't look at you funny. But it's tough. You don't often see people throwing a coffee cup on the ground. So if you actually do see somebody doing that, I think it's okay to approach them respectfully and say, look, maybe there's a better way, or did you consider not doing that? But it's a delicate balancing act for sure.

So here's just a follow-up question. If, you know, it's absolutely true, I hardly ever see people actually litter, and yet obviously there is a lot of litter. How do you mentally reconcile that? It's not like litter just appears. Now my brain is like, okay, where is that coming from? Is it like at night? Night littering. I love that idea.

Do you remember when I talked about shared responsibility?

Yes.

So one of the elements of that is designing receptacles that are more intact, right? So you are absolutely right. With all the litter on the ground, all those pieces are not purposely thrown there. So some may have accidentally fallen out of somebody's pocket. Some may have been windblown out of a trash can that was overflowing. Some happen during trash pickup day, and when the cans are emptied, or if the truck gets too full. There's lots of different reasons that an individual piece of litter might end up on the ground. And here's why the data is so potentially valuable. It allows us to start asking those questions. Right. So if you were to see a Wrigley's wrapper on the ground, or a piece of chewing gum, you can at least start asking, like, Why did that end up there? Is it because somebody threw it on the ground? Is it because, oh, there's a trash can 5 feet away that's completely not— you know, it's completely overflowing?

Right.

It allows us to get smarter about this bigger problem. You know, and a little bit of a tangent here, but we're starting to think and see opportunities to use the data for other forms of public service. So for example, in San Francisco, the company Square leads a litter walk Twice a month on Fridays.

Oh wow.

And one of the things our data has shown from that particular neighborhood, what they are doing has been tremendously wonderful. But one of the things that we are seeing a lot of in that area are unfortunately hypodermic needles. And so some of the folks at Square and I have talked about, well, what if we could use that data to put up a needle exchange or messaging about that. Once again, it's not about shaming anybody, it's about there is a problem. How do we use data to come up with a solution that benefits everybody? And whether that's cleaning the planet, or whether that's giving an addict a safer place to exchange a needle so that it doesn't end up on the ground where it might get stepped on or harm some animal, there's lots of possibilities for the data.

I have to say right now, I love, love, love the emphasis you're putting on not doing the name and shame. aspect, because that's just bringing everyone together and creating this opportunity for people to really get buy-in. I have to imagine that that's huge for you guys.

It also, look, the Literati community is not just a bunch of do-gooders, it's a bunch of people who are interested in being more intelligent about a problem and doing a lot of good. And so if we can do that in a way that just says, look, there's a better way than what's currently going on, and not calling out individuals or organizations, we think that's the right way forward.

Yeah, yeah. So this leads right into a great question from a team called Walk Off, first-time H2H chatters. Hey guys. And they have a really interesting question. They say, are you looking to apply the Literati model to other areas of life, such as, for example, prejudice? I love thinking of this as a model.

Yeah, it's a great question. And so it's something that we've been asked before. Back to one of the things I've learned about, you know, the world of entrepreneurship, I think focus is really important. So could we leverage sort of this simple platform and simple concept that we've built for other ideas? Absolutely. I don't exactly know what that might look like in the world of prejudice, but it could be applied to other— there are other applications for sure. But that being said, I think litter is a big enough problem for us to go after, and who knows what comes of that. But look, we're always open to hearing ideas, and if anybody wants to reach out and and connect with us. We're just support@literati.org, or my email directly is just jess@literati.org, and I'm happy to talk and teach you what we've learned and share what we've learned, and maybe you can apply that to whatever you're building.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just so— there are so many different— I know that my imagination is immediately spinning, and it sounds like our community is as well. So Sarah, another one of our weekly H2H chatters, has a question. She wants to know, do you see yourself expanding to more social platforms as your community grows?

The answer is we'll wait and see, and that will completely be dictated, I think, by the experience that we're providing. We want to make sure that the individuals in the community are really finding value and feeling a sense of reward for participating. for what they're doing and for what we've built. So yes, we're on Instagram, that's going to continue. We've launched this iOS app, Android's in development. Beyond that, I don't know yet, but whatever all goes in service to this broader community, we would certainly be open to looking at. I'd be curious what else Sarah's thinking about, other platforms that we haven't talked about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you find that people are cross-posting Instagram, the Instagram photos, say on Facebook and hashtagging it #Literati or on Twitter?

Some, yes, and great, right? It just spreads awareness about this problem. We have a pretty active Facebook page which we use as just a way of building community, so every single day we have something called Today's Pick. and we feature somebody in the community from around the world. It's just a great way to get people— first of all, to shine a positive spotlight on an individual in the community who's making a difference, and just a way to bring people together. And Twitter we kind of treat in a bit of a similar fashion, but also reaching out to organizations and listening to hear what our community members think. But other platforms we'll take a look at as we go forward.

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that approach, and I was checking out your Facebook page. One thing I have to say I just love, especially coming from a social strategist perspective, I love that you're listening to the community and not feeling the pressure to be on— must be on all these social networks, must have the same type of presence. It's refreshing to hear that.

Well, there's also a question of just resource. We're a very small team, so we can only do a couple of things well. And so, yeah, that's kind of how we guide those decisions.

Major kudos for recognizing that. It is not necessarily the most common thing to recognize your limitations on that. So great, great question here from Neil Milken, another one of our H2H chatters. Thanks for turning out today, Neil. So he wants to know—

By the way, do you hear that noise behind me?

Yes, I do.

That's a charger, right? So that's a trash truck, because today is trash day in San Francisco.

Nice.

And let's just hope that it's not overflowing and that when it takes up the receptacle, everything makes it into the can.

And you're not going to have to run out there with your phone and start snapping a whole bunch of photos. So we'll know. I'll double-check Instagram afterwards, and if I see a whole bunch of things going, oh man, you're going to have to write a note to your local trash company. So Neil has a question. He says, how can How can we support more social good movements like Literati to grow and be sustainable? So let's put this in a way of how can people help you?

Well, anybody who is currently on an iOS device, iPad or iPhone, we would love your feedback on the app. It's the earliest, it's the first version, and we're looking for as much feedback, good, bad, or otherwise. That would certainly be a help. Just sharing our message and sharing with people in your life what we're doing and becoming part of the community, that would certainly be something that would be helpful. Whether that's on Facebook or Twitter or on our iOS app, we would love that sort of help. That would be great. Also, if you have ideas about how you can help us organizationally, We'd love to hear from you. Again, just support@literati.org. We're always looking for people who are really trying to make a difference.

That's awesome, that's great. Alright, so let's go ahead and jump to Andy, Andy, I'm not going to pronounce your last name, apologies to that, but first-time H2H chatter, thanks for joining us. So he wants to know, have you ever thought or partnered with art galleries? Seems like a smart connection in his terms.

Yeah, Andy, the answer is yes, because this Literati art exhibit has been, it's probably been at 14 or 15 places at this point. So we have had 2 art galleries that we've shown, put the exhibit on display. But we've actually talked internally about maybe there's something bigger we could do in the world of art. We don't exactly know what, but clearly art was one of the things that kind of got us off the ground, and so we understand the value of it. But that's the answer to your question. So far there's been just 2 galleries that we've partnered with, but we're open to— we'd certainly love to bring the exhibit to more.

Is that— that's in San Francisco?

No, actually neither of them were in San Francisco. They were sort of between San Jose and San Francisco in Hayward.

Okay, gotcha. Well, let me know if you ever have something in the New York area. I would absolutely love to go to that type of exhibit.

It

would be so cool, seriously. The sky's the limit for you guys. So I have a great question here from Ira, who wants to know, is there a way to lobby local governments to participate in Literati and crowdsourcing cleaning our communities up?

Yeah, Ira, that's a— I think you just hit the nail on the head for a big opportunity. So like the work we did with San Francisco, we believe that there is really an interesting opportunity to work with government. So we actually did a project with the City of San Jose that was more of a photo contest where they during Valentine's Day had a campaign that was I Heart San Jose, and part of showing love for the city was to help keep it clean, right. So but beyond that, and I think this is probably what Ira is getting at, is, you know, can we leverage the community to work with local government to really make a difference? Yeah. And I think we can. 2 ways. One, the actual cleanup, but 2, the data. I mean, imagine if you could provide to any city almost a dashboard of exactly what's on the ground. What happens now is cities for the most part are pretty littered, right? I live in the Bay Area, a place known for being environmentally responsible, and the streets here are unfortunately not great. But all of a sudden if we had that data, Suddenly we're making decisions based on evidence, which now isn't happening. Maybe that evidence just leads to a conversation with the top most commonly found brands. Maybe it's a conversation with— and I'm making this up— Coca-Cola to say, hey Coca-Cola, you're the number 4— you're the 4th most commonly found brand on our particular city streets. We're not here to shame you. We're here to say— That's right. work with us to make a difference, because it's not good for the environment, and from your brand's marketing perspective, it's not great to see logos all over the street.

Yeah.

So I think it's a great one, and the right type of people within city government are, you know, the folks, certainly the mayors, but folks who run the departments of public works. There are a lot of chief resiliency officers in cities around the country now, people who are really in charge of growing and building resilience within communities, and litter beautification is a part of that. But yeah, I think there's a great opportunity to work closely with cities.

So do you have a network of people who are reaching out to different city governments? Are you working to build that?

So we don't have it yet, and yes, we're working to build it. So Susie, one of the things we're looking to start very soon, and in fact, if there's anybody listening that is interested in either being part of this or learning more is really an ambassador program. Uh-huh. So we think that there's an opportunity, because it's started happening already, people who become ambassadors in their communities, and we provide for them this toolkit, this platform, and really the instructions on how to start something locally. And whether that's through doing a local cleanup or working with a couple of schools or working with your local government, it's something we really feel can create a huge impact going forward.

That, yeah, yeah, seriously. So that actually plays right into this question from Sarah Walters. Thank you, Sarah. So she wants to know, have you relied on influencers to help with word of mouth?

Not yet, Sarah, and it's something that obviously would, I think, help spread the word that much faster. We have started kind of thinking about creating a list of who those potential influencers can be. And while, you know, there's the obvious, okay, find people like Leonardo DiCaprio, who I have an immense amount of respect for the environmental work that he's doing, like that's an obvious type of individual. But frankly, you identify those 1 or 2 school kids who really care And they can create a huge impact and drive a real influence, more so than any of us would ever believe.

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. Sometimes those voices are even more powerful. I think sometimes we get so used to hearing the other voices, we're just like, oh yeah, there's another cause. Yeah, totally. Here's a great question actually playing into what you were just talking about with brands from Carissa. Thanks for joining us, Carissa. She says, do you have plans for monetization or potentially sponsorships from brands that are most photographed?

The answer is yes. We have been thinking about how we can potentially monetize what we're doing because capital is the oxygen that we need to stay afloat. And there's a couple different ideas, and certainly brands are one of those groups that have capital, and if you can provide value for them, whether it's in a sponsorship or whether it's through data that they can then share with their shareholders in a way that makes them the hero, I think there's a number of different opportunities, and we're starting to think about that right now.

That's awesome. Alright, so everyone listen, tweet in if you have any ideas. So Dawn Carter says, in our city— she lives in Riverside— she says that Riverside does a citywide cleanup day each year. Have you piloted any citywide Literati campaigns?

We have not, Dawn, and it's something we would love to do going forward.

Alright, chat with Dawn. She says she actually wants to chat with you. So hey, we're making community connections right now.

I'd be happy to.

Yes, there we go. So let's see. Okay, I knew PayCompliment, I knew you guys would have an awesome question. They're our friends who join us every week from Australia. So he says, what's your view on open sourcing the data, so correlating Open source. I'm not going to elaborate on that.

Yeah, I think there's a really interesting opportunity to open source the data in a way that makes sense. And, you know, there's so much value that comes from open sourcing data. There's also some things you have to be careful of, and we understand those. But for example, let me give you one example of where I think open sourcing this becomes fantastically interesting and exciting. Right now we have data on litter, and we can filter that data based on those points I was saying earlier, right? Who's picking up what, where, and when, right? So what if you took that data and said, we're just going to look at all the Starbucks cups, and then we're going to open source that, and somebody who has a map of all the Starbucks stores is going to overlay that, right?

Right.

Could we correlate Starbucks litter as it relates to Starbucks map— to Starbucks stores? Maybe somebody else says, actually, we think that weather has a really interesting impact on where litter ends up, because we know that when 20-mile-an-hour winds come from this direction, it blows anything that weighs less than 1 pound in this direction, and there's a fence over here where everything gets stuck. So we're going to look at weather maps, and we're going to use weather forecasting to understand where litter is today and where it might end up in 2 or 3 days.

Interesting.

Somebody once had the idea of using topographical maps in San Francisco, because a Coke can that's at the top of Nob Hill, which is very steep, is going to flow to our bay a lot faster than a Coke can that's sitting in Noe Valley, which is sort of— it's a valley. So those types of datasets to be overlaid on top of Literati's dataset, I think, only serves the greater goal. Which is understanding more about this problem in a way that it allows us to do something about it. So I think open sourcing it is probably within our future, and I think it could be really cool. I'm excited to see what we might learn.

Yeah, I love this. You're a total data geek. This is so much fun. I was not expecting that.

Actually, Suzy, I'm not. In fact, I can't write a line of code. I don't really know what— and I'm being totally honest— like, I'm a writer. Remember, I used to teach a story class. I'm just the guy at the front of the line telling the story. But fortunately, I've been lucky that there are members of the Literati community and team who are data geeks and who can code. It takes a village, right?

Exactly. I think the key is being able to see the potential data. That for me is really the key. Because a lot of times, I know a lot of people who get mesmerized by the numbers and code all sorts of stuff. People who are statisticians, they're awesome, but you don't necessarily have the vision to think what you can do with this amazing concept. I love this.

And what story you can tell.

What story does the data tell? Exactly. We have a few more minutes here. Oh, here's a great one from one of our friends in the H2H Chat community. So she says, has the data that you've collected provided ideas for recycling campaigns?

Not yet, and I'm not exactly sure what she's getting at with the question.

Apologies, this is Dennis. Have you gotten some additional ideas as you've been doing this? Have you been thinking, okay, it would be really— yes, cities might do citywide cleanup campaigns, but maybe there are some other ways that we can educate or communicate different ideas for recycling campaigns.

So a couple things have happened, I think one of which has been We're starting to learn more about where cigarettes are really concentrating.

Right.

This is a bit of a random idea, but it is something that happened a while back. There's a great company called TerraCycle out of New Jersey, actually. TerraCycle has a program called the Cigarette Waste Brigade. They take cigarettes and cigarette filters and upcycle them into products that we can then use again. And so because our data can start to show heavier concentration— concentrations of cigarette butts and where those are, you can imagine going to those locations, aggregating all of those cigarettes, and then partnering with TerraCycle just so that you're able to accomplish quite a bit more based on what the data is showing.

Hmm.

Rather than if I just walk the streets and pick up one cigarette butt every 5 feet. I know that if I go outside a bar, I can accomplish quite a bit more. So that's one example of how the data can help us with recycling or upcycling. But I frankly think there's probably a lot more ideas that we just haven't stumbled upon yet.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, it's enough that it's getting you to think about recycling or upcycling in completely different ways, right? It's sparking different ideas through this concept.

I'm sorry.

I was going to say, it sounds like this approach to litter, in some ways, it's also beneficial in that it's just helping people to think about litter in a very different way. Do you say— That's

exactly what I was

going to say. Okay. It's really fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. So, okay, in our last few minutes, I'd like to— we have a lot of people in this chat who are definitely getting inspired and definitely thinking through— we have lots of people who want to jump in and become part of the Literati community if they aren't already. But I know that there are other people who are probably thinking through different other social good concepts, other ideas that maybe they've been thinking about and maybe they want to do something about. What would be a piece of advice that you could give to them? You've talked about resilience, but that first step maybe, tying themselves to the mast even.

Just start. I think with anything that doesn't have a well-defined path, there's so much ambiguity. It's the very definition of a startup. Uncertainty. And so no matter what you're trying to build or start, and that could be you want to write a screenplay, or you want to start a movement in the health sector, or you want to open a new charter school, whatever it is, there's always going to be uncertainty and ambiguity. And you just need to start, because once you take that first step, suddenly you'll learn what works and what doesn't. And you'll start to move accordingly. And you'll be surprised that just by taking that first step, how many doors will open that you didn't think would ever open. People— look, I started with one cigarette butt and now there's all these people that also believe. I never in a million years would have thought that or believed that it could happen. So just start. Take that first step in the face of uncertainty, in the face of ambiguity. Things They kind of have a knack for figuring themselves out.

That's great, that's awesome, great advice. Alright, we have 60 seconds less— left. You have the iOS app is the big thing people can download and send you feedback, is that correct?

Yeah, that would be really, really helpful, and we're going to look at building in features that really start connecting people and building the community and letting people measure their own impact. Again, be patient with us. We're just getting started. We would love that. We would love any feedback you have.

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jeff. This has been an absolute pleasure to interview you. I know our community has been super involved. If you have a chance to go through the stream, there are definitely questions I didn't get to and a lot of excitement. Thank you so much.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you to the H2H community. We're really appreciative of the opportunity.

Awesome. Awesome. All right, guys. Thanks so much. Make sure to tune in next Monday. We have a very, very special guest. I'll be announcing it tomorrow on the hashtag. Take care. Make it a great week.