—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Jeff Kirschner created a global community that's eradicating litter one piece at a time.
When his 4-year old daughter saw a plastic tub of cat litter in the woods, little did Jeff Kirschner realize that it would be the spark for creating Litterati -- a global movement that's "crowdsource-cleaning" the planet one piece of litter at a time.
Featured in National Geographic, Time Magazine, Fast Company and USA Today, Litterati has become a shining example of how communities are using technology and data to solve our world's most complex problems.
Kirschner has shared the Litterati story at Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Facebook and Uber, keynoted environmental summits at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Keep America Beautiful, as well as leading schools including Stanford, MIT and the University of Michigan. He was a TED Resident, where he developed Litterati into an idea worth spreading.
Here's his TED talk:
I'm releasing Jeff's part 2 at the same time as 1.5 since they're both short episodes and still haven't led to achieving his goal. You'll hear we joke about it but, if I'm open, I'm frustrated at what I feel as my failure. I intend in these interactions, beyond helping guests share and act on an environmental value, to deepen their appreciation of that value so they feel they acted meaningfully and want to share something joyful. I believe everyone cares about something environmental enough to unearth that meaning. Jeff seemed to appreciate the project as something to manage, but I failed at unearthing and deepening the environmental aspect of it. I'm not saying that's bad, but incomplete. For someone who has made such a successful app, business, and community, I would have thought I'd unearth and activate plenty in terms of results and feeling of meaning and purpose. I don't think I did. If you hear it differently, let me know. I view my conversations with Jeff as lessons to learn from, but I'm not sure what to learn.
Jeff felt his challenge wasn't big but openly shared that, in his terms, he failed at it. We all fail. I haven't studied it scientifically, but I believe that the more successful the leader, the more openly they share their failures. Jeff shares his and I learned from his openness and comfort with vulnerability. If you'd like to learn to face failure better, I predict you can learn from Jeff. It's short so I'm calling it episode 1.5 and will post episode 2 at the same time.
Since I don't use many apps and pick up litter already, I felt modest expectations of Jeff's Litterati, but I love it. It delivers the main things I look for: fun, community, connection, effectiveness, and free---the opposite of what many people connect with litter. As I'm writing, the app has recorded over 5 million pieces of litter picked up by over 150,000 people in over 165 countries. I think we can safely say the app led to a huge majority of those people connecting and picking up those pieces of litter. I hope those of you who haven't picked up litter are feeling the tug to try it out. My experience is that the more you pick up, the more acting on litter goes to the clean part of your brain, not the dirty part, if you know what I mean. I don't feel like I'm touching dirt, I feel like I'm cleaning my world. See where waste ends up motivates me to buy less stuff with packaging and other sources of litter, which lowers demands and can change systems. Jeff started all that. This episode covers Jeff's start and leads to his first environmental challenge. Those considering acting entrepreneurially to solve environmental (or any other) problems can learn a lot from Jeff's experience and success.