Steady Mobbin'

As I woke up early this morning to feed the little one, I jumped back into bed planning to drift right back to sleep. On a whim, however, I grabbed my phone and started scanning some of the day's headlines. When a headline about a "Cash Mob" in Malden caught my eye, I clicked, thinking, "Hey, didn't we just have one of those here?"

Sure enough, Lowell got some great coverage in this article. The author, Kathleen Pierce, notes that a cash mob earlier this week descended upon Humanity and Mambo Grill. Owner Franky Descoteaux, is on record referring to the "strong sense that the community was supporting you through the effort. It was a great blessing." She experienced a 15-20 percent sales spike during the cash mob.

Interestingly, the article mentions at the end how the guy who hatched the idea had no idea how it would go, and were really just hoping that "a single person would show up." The neat thing is that once a movement gains enough steam to get coverage like this in the Globe, it will attract more participants. Like any trend, it just needs a big enough tailwind to really take off initially...and sometimes, people are drawn to it just because lots of other people are drawn to it.

My unsolicited $0.02 to the folks running the Lowell Cash Mob is to just make sure they're done often enough to buoy people's interest, but that they're *rare* enough to remain special. I'm not sure what the magical periodicity would be on this, but my hunch is once a month.

If you're curious about when the next one might pop up in Lowell, follow @LowellCashMob on Twitter. (That's how the Mayor's Office got tipped off, btw).