If you're Internet-savvy, there's a good chance you know about flash mobs. One part performance art and one part happening, they're a hip and quirky concept. A large group of people assembles at a pre-established place, does something unusual like freezing in place, and then disperses. They're a relatively new concept—the first flash mob dates back to 2003—and they're driven by Internet communications, including social networks, which is how word gets out about them.

Flash mobs are conspicuously—and indeed, self-consciously—apolitical. In fact, that's where they get their charm. People join a flash mob because it's a fun and offbeat thing to do, not because it will help them achieve something practical, like buy a coat or get a job.

Beneath this artsy concept, there's serious social-change potential. What if flash mobs were organized around a public purpose? Instead of, say, entering a Hyatt hotel to synchronized applause (the theme of an early flash mob), what if people were asked to show up at a retail store at a given hour and buy lots of stuff, as a way to reward the company for going green?

This was the insight that set budding twenty-something entrepreneur Brent Schulkin on a path that has led to the formation of an innovative start-up called Virgance.

Earlier this year, Schulkin organized a socially conscious flash mob that he called a CarrotMob because it uses a carrot, not a stick, to drive positive change. He went to over twenty convenience stores in the Bay area, offered to deliver them lots of customers, and asked what percentage of the revenue they would be willing to dedicate to an energy retrofit. The winning bid came in at 22%, and on a March Saturday, the company got its reward as hundreds of CarrotMobsters lined up to buy stuff at their store. By the time the mob had dispersed, the store's tills had swollen by close to $10,000, generating around $2,000 for the retrofit.

It was a win all around: the CarrotMob participants had a great time, the store had a Really Big Day and got a "free" money-saving retrofit, and the environment got a modest but measurable reduction in pollution.

Schulkin's idea had succeeded beyond his expectations—and, more importantly still, it was scalable. If you could do it in the Bay area, you could do it anywhere. Why not Memphis or Munich or Manila? The next thing Schulkin knew, he had teamed up with entrepreneur Steve Newcomb, and Virgance, a new concept in socially responsible business—and activist campaigning—had been born.

In the less than a year since that first CarrotMob event, Schulkin and Newcomb have raised venture capital and a highly innovative Web 2.0 company is blooming.

"We want to facilitate thousands of CarrotMob events," says Schulkin. "We've decided that we don't need to plan the events ourselves. They're something anyone can organize. Our focus has been on creating a system that empowers people to create their own events."

It's a scalable concept in two senses—in the number of events that can be held, and in the size of the companies to be targeted. Schulkin's Bay Area CarrotMob proved the concept for a small retail business. What about a Procter & Gamble, though, or a Wal-Mart?

Schulkin is persuaded the concept can work at this level, too. "Companies will participate in the CarrotMob process for one of two reasons—to generate revenue or improve their reputation. We believe big companies will get involved because they want to build their reputation. They may even transfer dollars from their advertising budget."

Virgance is developing other initiatives as well. One project, Lend Me Some Sugar, is "a way to crowdsource corporate philanthropy," according to Virgance's website. The notion is to let the Virgance community determine where the company's donations go.

Another project, 1 Block Off the Grid (1BOG), is, so sayeth the website, a "community-based program that organizes residents locally and negotiates group discounts with solar installers, using a comprehensive vendor selection process." A pilot project in the Bay area to group-buy solar power enlisted 450 participants, well over the minimum goal of 50 buyers. Fueled by this success, 1BOG is being expanded to 20 cities, five of which—San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Portland, and Berkeley—are already running full-on campaigns. Earlier this month in Brooklyn, a CarrotMob took over Tanzania Hardware, which set aside a portion of the profits to becoming more energy efficient.

Long-term, Newcomb and Schulkin envision Virgance as a platform for activist campaigns that confront, says Newcomb, the "core issues of our time, like health, education, poverty, and the environment ... Virgance will be a publishing house in the same way game publishers publish games, only we'll be 'publishing' campaigns. We want to build a portfolio of successful campaigns that can be used to seed new ideas and projects."

In addition to its lofty social goals, the company also has to succeed financially. Investors have this thing about wanting a return on their investment.

Virgance's business model, which includes advertising and commissions from successful bidders, varies from initiative to initiative. In one way, though, it's consistent across the board. "We will never take a piece of the revenue our programs generate," says Schulkin. Translation: in a case like the first CarrotMob initiative in San Francisco, Virgance would not take a percentage of the money it generated.

The entrepreneurs have dubbed their approach Activism 2.0. That's aiming big—but it's not an inappropriate monicker. It's an exciting idea: hitch social networks to social activism and reap the benefits of Internet-driven People Power.

Let's hear some applause! And it doesn't have to be synchronized.

Image of CarrotMob courtesy of Flickr's Matti KK