Unplug Now

Slide 1: Unplug Now twitter.com/unplugnow Stanford University CS377P Daisuke Iizawa Keng-Teh Min Enrique Allen Greg Schwartz

Slide 2: 1 simple action

Slide 3: Unplug any unused appliance near you today

Slide 4: Why? • According to PG&E, if everyone in the United States unplugs his or her unused electronic appliances, it's like taking 8.5 million cars off the road • Wow… we can save energy and prevent unnecessary global warming with one simple action

Slide 6: Antecedents to Peace • People working together • Interconnectedness • Energy sustainability

Slide 7: Process • Facebook week-long event • Twitter account • 100 HITs on Amazon Mechanical Turk paying users $0.2/per uploaded picture of unplugged appliance to Facebook event

Slide 8: Step 2 Tweet “@unplugnow [appliance]” OR Step 1 Update Facebook status “unplugnow [appliance]” *HITs upload picture of unplugged appliance

Slide 9: Metrics for ATPs • How many people join Facebook event • How many people follow Twitter account • How many people actually unplug something- based on public tweets and Facebook status message updates • Estimated carbon emissions avoided

Slide 10: Results • “Attended” Facebook event: 35 (12.9%) • Twitter followers: 4 • HITs completed: 2 • Unplugged appliances: 22 • Estimated carbon emission avoided in 1 day: ~2 kg • Hypothetical carbon emissions avoided yearly: ~726 kg if constant participation rate *According to E-Day, unplugged phone charger when not in use = annual saving of 10 pounds and 33 kilograms of carbon emissions off of your annual CO2 total

Slide 11: What worked? • Exchanging comments on Facebook invite wall • Sending mobile photos with twitpic.com

Slide 12: Limitations • Did not scale beyond personal ties • No feedback loop after status update • No tweets despite rsvp to attend Facebook event • No spontaneous followers on twitter • HIT required Facebook account • No scalable analysis of Facebook status

Slide 13: Lessons Learned • Must use cue to trigger behavior change- eg SMS reminder to unplug • Facebook group has more potential for continued engagement • Must engage lead Twitter users and actively follow other users • Make HIT simpler • Provide feedback/progress for participants- X amount of carbon emissions avoided today

Slide 14: Unplug Now twitter.com/unplugnow Stanford University CS377P Daisuke Iizawa Keng-Teh Min Enrique Allen Greg Schwartz