Last night, I went on a trash tour and dumpster dive sponsored by the NYC Freegan Meetup.

What an unforgettable experience.

I did it because 1) I’m curious and 2) I think there’s a lot to be learned from people who are taking such a seemingly extreme position and pushing sustainability to new levels.

For those who haven’t been exposed to this term, freegans are people who don’t like waste and are making a conscious attempt to live outside capitalist culture.  Freegans are most often associated with dumpster diving which involves looking through the trash for food and other items. They also are known for building bikes out of used parts and sewing their own clothes.   They are everything the Housewives of NJ are not.

On the cultural change tip, Freegans have been instrumental in raising public awareness about how much food gets thrown out by supermarkets and restaurants each night.   And,  it’s a lot. An enormous amount. Go on a trash tour and see first hand.   But, freegans are quick to point out they aren’t just “about garbage.” Freegans are also big on foraging and gardening. For example, I learned last night that it’s mulberry season in NYC and there are bushes throughout Riverside Park just waiting to be picked. Who knew?

Freegans also become something of a fixture at NYU on “moving out day” when students leave for the summer and leave behind all sorts of valuable and reusable items.

And I want to go on the record : The freegans I met last night were incredibly gracious and eager to share their knowledge/time.

Very refreshing.

I felt like I was with a band of Christians during the Roman Empire or a roving tribe walking through ruins of culture that only their eyes could see.  For someone like myself who spends time shopping and thinking about shopping and thinking about ways brands can help consumers shop better, it was a very jolting experience.

The takeaway:

There’s an opportunity here for consumer brands and others to learn from the Freegans. Freegans are operating, living and agitating for change at an extreme edge. But is what they are advocating so extreme? I don’t think so. In ways ways, they represent common sense.

They are a wake up call.  A shout heard throughout the shopping mall. A kick in the pants to all sanctimonious recyclers (myself included) to take a closer look at how we consume.

Some specific ideas for brands to consider:

On a conceptual level, pay close attention to what the Freegans are doing and saying. It’s no trend-tracking secret that the edge of culture can shed light on where the center is going—or should be going. If you want to be a green leader and innovator, Freegans are worth learning from and incorporating some of their thinking into green policy-making.

Send entire and corporate teams departments on trash tours. It’s so enlightening and inspiring. It will definitely catalyze a lot of discussion.

Invite a freegan into consumer focus groups for another perspective. I doubt they’d be open to participating but it would be useful to understand their POV on capitalism and out of control consumer culture.

Take a freegan to work day. Probably won’t happen, but it should.

Find ways to support freegans and others who might benefit from old or extra supplies.  This applies to anyone from supermarkets to stationary stores. (An old friend from college recently suggested that food stores set up a separate bin or shelving space for goods that were being thrown out, but could be consumed. She also mentioned that a Farmer’s Market in Santa Barbara had a bin set up for slightly bruised fruit and vegetables. She has a rabbit and would pull items from the bin for her rabbit. )

If you run bike brand, sponsor Freegan “build a bike” workshops. They offer these for free and help people build bikes from used parts.

If you run a sewing machine company, give the Freegans unused or old equipment. The same goes for fabric companies.  Freegans are promoting sewing.

Support community swap events. Give away old merchandise.

Plant a garden on your corporate headquarters grounds and encourage gardening.

Just some fast ideas.

More later.

Daniel will be leading a workshop on social media metrics titled “What’s that Tweet Worth?: Measuring the Value of Social Media and the Search for ROI” at the IQPC Strategic Social Media for Healthcare conference in New York. The event runs from July 26th through 28th. Daniel’s presentation will be on the afternoon of the 26th. You can read more about it on the conference site here.

Registration is still open if anyone is interested in attending!

I was looking around the MediaPost blogs, which are great by the way, and came across a piece by Morgan Stewart: 3 Things about Social Media That May Shock You.

He writes:

More teens check MySpace than Twitter first thing.

For many teens, the first place they check in the morning is MySpace — four times the number that start their day on Twitter.

But isn’t MySpace dead? No, it’s just that MySpace is no longer top of mind — at least not on the coasts, where marketers and market researchers tend to be concentrated. According to Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, associate professor at Harvard Business School, MySpace hotbeds are in states like Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia and Oklahoma. Even California, but in Fresno.

Teens’ preferred social networks are a function of the school they attend. You’re more likely to find MySpace schools in rural areas. While Facebook spread in urban areas, where students are more likely to interact across schools, it has been slower in rural areas, where schools are more isolated.

This presents challenges for national and regional marketers alike. Social networks are fragmented. We need to understand which social networks are most prominent in which areas. Figuring this out can give you a leg-up in certain markets while saving money.

The important point for us here is not about Twitter being less dominant, but about MySpace still having relevance.

We’re inspired here at SnapDragon to look into this–especially since Natalie, our SnapDragon colleague, has been asking all her friends to share their “first in the morning” tech habits.  And we clearly need to remind ourselves not to forget MySpace in the work we do.

MySpace also needs to do some branding work.  It’s clearly falling off the marketing radar and discussion.

It seems like they have an opportunity here to get some attention and new traction.

Hello all! As Deidre mentioned, I am jumping into the Twitter pool and although, I’m a bit late in the game, my objective is to talk and connect with my peers (20-something college grads living in and around NYC) and get a pulse on what we are thinking about, dreaming about and doing online. So, here it goes…

At the end of my first week as a Twitter user, I have found that posing questions to users is more difficult than I initially suspected. Everyone is broadcasting products, highlighting news stories, promoting something, replying and re-tweeting celebrities, and getting users (even your friends) to answer a few questions about their thoughts and opinions is more daunting than expected.

Nevertheless, my lesson after Week 1 is the more active and engaged I am with other users, the more likely other users will take part in my polls. So, if you follow me, I will follow you.

My first question to users is “Thinking about my usual website rotation this morning and wondering which site you all visit most often?”

For me, it’s always: NYTimes.com for a quick look at the headlines and the Style Section on Thursdays and Sundays, Gawker.com for anything by Richard Lawson, Facebook.com to keep track of family and friends and gauge how comparatively boring and or exciting my life is at any time, and finally, NYMag.com for the television recaps and the Daily Intel. When I’m feeling especially adventurous, I’ll read Anthony Bourdain’s blog on the TravelChannel.com.

What about you?

Follow me @ NataliesPals and tell me about your morning website rotation. The poll is ongoing and I will publish the results next week.

Roundup for Week #1:

13 Tweets              75  Following         23  Followers     1 Question Posed            3 Responses

In the coming weeks, we’re going to be experimenting with gathering and sharing insights via various social media tools.  Leading this effort is Natalie Sullivan (no relation), a social media researcher here at SnapDragon.

Natalie is a recent grad of Hamilton where she majored Religious Studies and Studio Art. She was also head of the wine club which we love. At SnapDragon, she’s been overseeing various influencer analysis and outreach efforts.

One of Natalie’s first experiments is using Twitter for polling. She’s been signing up her friends, most of whom are twenty-something college grads.  She’s going to use different Twitter tools to ask them various questions and, over the course of the summer, she will be posting the results. The questions will focus on a wide range of subjects from attitudes about jobs and relationships to what’s next among her friends.

If you’d like to participate in what she has named At Natalie’s Pals, please connect with her via Twitter.  Natalie’s Twitter is @Nataliespals .