The event we organized turned out to be a wonderful learning experience! I cannot say it was hugely successful, but I was very pleased to have pulled it off in less than 3 days.

We had about 100 people show up, maybe 30 signs and lots of flyers, which we were not allowed to distribute anyway.

The police gave us a hard time, first telling us to move to the other corner (which we refused to do). We stood ground and said that we had a right to be there. The police also said we could not hold up our signs, which I challenged them on. They called in another 20 officers or so, warning that we must move or face possible arrest, but when the other officers arrived, they could not find legal grounds by which we could not be there or hold up our signs - simply that the signs could not be attached to sticks (which they weren't). I am proud that they were not able to remove us, but they hassled us for a good half hour (much of it caught by the reporters, who they hassled, too) and our signs were down for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, we lost about half of the crowd as a result.

Because of our presence, the show stopped cutting down to the sidewalk (a tradition, which happens throughout the show every time, and the reason why we chose that location). So in terms of that angle, being on in the background of the show, it was not a big success and I'm not sure we could be seen at all.

I had notified the host of the show, Carson Daly, and invited him to come down - although he didn't, he did flash us a peace sign from the window on the 2nd floor, likely off-camera, but at the very least acknowledging that we were there.

Perhaps the most successful part of the event was the media turnout, though of course no mainstream coverage. Those who showed up included Bloomberg radio, PBS - In the Mix, FreespeechTV, the Independent Media Center, a Japanese show on one of the biggest channels in Japan (they will air a show later this month and did some interviews with us the day before), a photographer working on a series that will be shopped to some major magazines and at least 5 freelancers, documentary-makers, etc.

This was a testing the waters kind of thing, because of the time factor. We learned a lot and had a good experience. We have yet to debrief fully and measure the impact, although I don't think we'll find much more on top of what I described here.

My hope is to this next week launch the Don't Buy This World Campaign, focusing on young people leveraging their economic influence in an effort to be heard. Please look at the discussion posts on that topic and add your thoughts. The feedback I'm getting is great, but not so sure it'll fly with the mainstream "apathetic" youth quite yet. The trick will be to create a simple and solid message, with a core base of support within the activist community, to bring the message mainstream, which will then hopefully inspire those labeled in apathy to join up.

I hope the International Youth Declaration continues to gain support, co-signing organizations and recognition, but believe that we must take more concerted steps if we are going to see any real change in the direction we're heading.