This booklet was written to share our experiences with the as a tool to bring people together on a corporate or institutional campus and pass on some insights that might be interesting and useful to you if you are involved in the areas of communication, motivation and therapy.

Bringing People Together

Introduction...... 3 The ConferenceBike...... 4 Corporate Campus Life...... 6 Bike Fleets ...... 6 Liability and Risk Management ...... 6 Bike Repair and Maintenance ...... 6 Events and Campaigns ...... 7 Google is using ConferenceBikes for team-building...... 9 Institutional Campus Life...... 10 Colorado Rocky Mountain School ...... 10 Alfred University ...... 11 Touring a Campus on a Built for 7 ...... 15 An Educated Guess: What's About To Change At Colleges Across America Before 2050...... 16 In Closing...... 19

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Bringing on campus, whether corporate or institutional creates a win-win-win situation as all pillars of sustainability are addressed:

Economic

Environment

Social

And as Mary Poppins says:

In every job that must be done

There is an element of fun

You find the fun and snap!

The job's a game

Introducing the ConferenceBike, a bike intentionally built to create community, communication and creativity.

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“Every group you can think of can use a 'CoBi' as a TOOL and a SYMBOL for bringing people together... the CoBi makes every owner/operator FEEL like an artist; behind the wheel of this bike you SEE the joy that YOU are bringing to people. (Emphasis most definitely theirs).”

The ConferenceBike is a unique that is pedaled by 7 riders sitting in a circle. One person steers while the other 6 pedal (or not), as the bike moves effortlessly along.

The ConferenceBike is now being enjoyed by diverse groups all over the world. It is a tour bike in London, a tool for corporate team-building in Amsterdam, a way for blind people to bike in Dublin, a human-powered school bus in America and a vehicle to convey people at theme parks in England, Germany and Israel. Every week new uses are being discovered: seminars, clubs, festivals, therapy groups are amazed at the powerful sharing effect that these bikes have.

The ConferenceBike or CoBi-7 came out of performance artist Eric Staller’s “Urban UFO” series of mobile public artworks that he began in 1985.

In 1991 Eric Staller built the Octos, a circular 8-person bike, complete with futuristic black and white costumes worn by his crew when he performed it in NYC. When he moved to Amsterdam in 1991 there was such an enthusiasm for Octos that it occurred to him to turn it into a product.

He collaborated with a Dutch bike builder to prototype 8-person and then 7-person iterations that he sold to a number of European parks. Here is where he learned that there is a big difference between a performance art one-off and a product, as these early models were very maintenance-intensive, if not prone to mechanical failure!

In 2000, he made the acquaintance of a German engineer from Volkswagen, so inspired by the ConferenceBike that he quit his job and went into business with Eric. Together they evolved the robust and reliable machine that it is today.

There are now almost 400 CoBies in more than 20 countries. Owner/operators have come up with uses for my bikes that even he never dreamed of. Some of our favorites:

VOYAGE POUR LA PAIX CoBies used by a mid-east peace organization in Paris with Palestinian and Israeli kids riding and laughing TOGETHER.

HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER and FLORIDA SCHOOL FOR DEAF AND BLIND: institutes for the deaf and blind using CoBies for recreation and as a tool to teach trust.

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GOOGLE CAMPUS getting executives out of the boardroom and thinking outside the box. Also used as 'soft transportation', when it's too far to walk, but too near to drive: take the CoBi!

THE ROYAL ENGINEERS OF THE BRITISH ARMY are using a CoBi to raise awareness and money for soldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq.

THE BRICK CHURCH in St. Louis uses one for Sunday school. Young people getting some exercise and getting to know one another.

CIRQUE DE SOLEIL uses one for community outreach in Montreal.

STONY BROOK and ALFRED UNIVERSITIES are using them for orientation and campus tours.

THE COLORADO ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCHOOL uses one to raise awareness about fitness and alternative energy transportation.

The Washington DC Veterans Administration Medical Center has a ConferenceBike that was donated by Eric Staller's father. It is used by employees and Veterans for recreational and fundraising events.

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Bikes are finding their way into corporate and institutional transportation, sustainability and wellness programs because of their significant ability to impact daily efficiencies and the bottom line.

The League of American Bicyclists recognizes companies with “Bicycle Friendly Business” awards. The latest round included some of the world’s largest, most respected companies, like Facebook, Apple, Hewlett Packard and Williams-Sonoma.

Company bike fleets are an efficient way to navigate large corporate campuses; to travel to meetings in urban centers; to deliver packages in densely populated areas; and to bike commute.

Corporate campuses throughout Silicon Valley, including Google, Facebook and Apple, use bikes as an alternative to cars and company shuttles. Urban headquartered companies like Williams- Sonoma, with buildings throughout San Francisco, have bikes available for inter-office travel. Companies like FedEx and UPS use bikes for deliveries in dense cities like Paris, and in U.S. cities during the holidays. And General Mills and Sunpower have loaner fleets for employees who want to try bike commuting.

Liability and Risk Management

For company bike fleets, it’s important to make sure you’ve done everything you can to reduce liability. This includes plans for insurance, helmet use, education and maintenance. With careful upfront planning your program will operate smoothly, without undue risk.

Bike Repair and Maintenance

If you have a bike fleet, then you must have a plan for regular maintenance and repairs. Depending on your physical set-up, you may also need re-balancing services, as bikes will migrate and not always be available where and when employees want them. Some companies, like Google and Genentech, contract for on-site maintenance while others have staff to handle it.

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Like any good sustainability initiative, being a bike friendly business requires methods for motivating employee engagement.

The simplest is the federal Qualified Commuter Tax Benefit, $20/month for employees who meet the minimum requirements for bike commuting. Even though it’s a small amount, it’s highly desired by serious bike commuters as it offsets much of the cost of riding a bike. Even better are internal systems that track and reward employees for commuting by bike.

Some of these systems are evergreen, providing incentive throughout the year. Others are seasonal and tied to events like Bike-to-Work Day.

So how can a company get started? Kimberly-Clarke’s bike program and sponsorship of their “Get Up and Ride” global bike-to-work campaign began with a single employee in Wisconsin. The campaign spread quickly and now involves Kimberly-Clarke sites worldwide.

And for those who love to ride, there’s nothing more motivating than healthy competition. At Specialized, employees track their bike commuting stats against other members through their Commuter Club.

Employee passion starts the program

Bicycle friendly business program provides the blueprint

1. Engineering

2. Education

3. Encouragement

4. Evaluation

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Google currently has nine bikes in use for transportation and team building on their campus. They have had them for years in operation.

Head of Transportation at Google Brendon Harrington says about the ConferenceBike:

Photo credit Marcy Beard

“Imagine one person facing forward and then the other six people around a circle. And the way the bike is manufactured and constructed, everyone can actually pedal at the same time — all contributing to propel the bike forward. But since they’re facing each other, they can chat with each other, they can share ideas, they can have a team meeting if they’d like.”

Team activities are useful in many settings involving a group of people. For example, a company meeting may use competitive activities as team building exercises or to “break the ice” between personnel from different levels in the hierarchy or from different locations or divisions.

Likewise, parties or other gatherings may want competitive activities as a pastime or game. Although such activities are well-known and numerous, many require physical skills or prior knowledge to play well. This puts many participants at a serious disadvantage, thereby limiting the effectiveness of the activity. The CoBi creates a level playing field that allows players of different skill levels to participate on a more equal basis.

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Colorado entrepreneur Meg O’Shaughnessy donates a CoBi to the Colorado Rocky Mountain School.

Alternative energy advocate Meg O’Shaughnessy was wintering in San Francisco when she had her first CoBi ride. “This is more fun than the proverbial barrel of monkeys!! I need to have one of these for my town.”

At 400 pounds, Colorado Rocky Mountain School’s new addition could be mistaken for a giant squid or spider, but in reality, “The Big Red” is a seven-seat bike that helps to re- enforce the concepts of cooperation and teamwork. The Combined Energy Vehicle, as it has come to be known, has been used around the world for corporate team building, to tour popular cities, a way for blind people to bike, and to transport employees. At CRMS the main reason for using the bike is to generate enthusiasm for alternative modes of transportation and capture people’s imaginations about the overall advantage and enjoyment of riding bikes. It is also a great tool for reminding other roadway users to “Share the Road,” lighten up, and enjoy the journey. By design, the bike allows a single driver to steer, brake, and pedal, with up to six other passengers also pedaling and enjoying the ride. The bike was donated to the school by Meg

O’Shaughnessy, mother of alumni Josh Paigen ’03, and was one of the original pieces of artwork from Eric Staller’s collection. Staller started to make the bikes in New York in 2001 and, according to him, “The bright red color was chosen for the bike because it’s cheerful and (red) stands out for safety.” The bike started out as performance artwork, ridden by a crew wearing special black and white costumes. When Staller moved to Amsterdam in 1994, there was so much enthusiasm for this mode of transportation that he decided to develop it into a product. Today there are 300 bikes in 18 countries that are produced from Staller’s small factory in Hanover, Germany. CRMS Students get ready to pedal around on the Combined Energy Vehicle as part of sports training.

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On the CRMS campus, the Combined Energy Vehicle has sparked great enthusiasm from the students and community. Outdoor Program Director Darryl Fuller writes, “The students love it. They are fascinated and excited whenever they get a chance to ride on it.” Any CRMS group with an authorized adult driver can reserve and use the bike.

When the bike is ridden to town, people are also just as fascinated, Fuller comments. “Cars stop in the middle of the road to gawk or ask questions. Almost everyone smiles. I haven’t yet noticed any annoyance or impatience from cars that are invariably held up by its slow progress (something you often can’t say when riding a regular two-wheeled bicycle).” The bike now belongs to CRMS on a full-time basis with the guidelines that O’Shaughnessy can borrow it for events in Paonia or elsewhere. As part of this donation, CRMS is also discussing how they are going to use the bike in town events, such as Bonedale Bike Week, and for general town-related bicycle advocacy.

It’s a college tour with a twist, a turn, and a couple of hills. It also comes with a dash of “green” and, eventually, a flash of purple and gold.

As colleges and universities across the country revamp that tried-and-true recruitment tool, the college tour, Alfred University is putting a new spin on it, offering a new “green” alternative: a bicycle tour. But don’t expect to see a fleet of two-wheel Schwinns® parked in the driveway of Alumni Hall, home to the Admissions office.

AU’s special tour bike, to be unveiled at 11 this morning, has 14 pedals, seven seats and four wheels. It looks like a cross between a bicycle and tricycle, with a steering wheel.

“I showed the bike to our tour guides, and they loved it,” said Jodi Bailey, director of marketing for the University, located in New York’s Southern Tier. The guides – called “AlFriends” – are enthusiastic about the bike, which they plan to paint in school colors of purple and gold, embellished with streamers and bells. Guides will wear special tee-shirts as well, which they will give to all prospective students and their parents who opt for the bike-powered tour.

She took the idea to Wendy Beckemeyer, vice president for Enrollment Management, who also liked the idea. “It fits perfectly with what Alfred University is all about,” said Beckemeyer. “Our students are very aware of environmental issues, and many of them enjoy outdoor sports that take advantage of our location in the Allegheny foothills. Plus, this is just different enough to be

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Bringing People Together appealing to the type of students who are most attracted to Alfred, from the engineers, who will appreciate the niceties of the steering by Porsche, to the artists who will like the design.”

Nick Alberti, a sophomore art and design major from Saratoga Springs, NY, is one of the tour guides who took an early test drive on the bike. “When you’re riding this, you just have to smile,” he said.

The bike tours will be an option for prospective students and their families. Bailey said the tours will initially be offered on Mondays and Fridays, with additional slots offered if demand warrants.

To see the video or sign up for a tour, see http://www.alfred.edu/adm..."

Bailey said the idea of using the bicycle-built-for-seven had originally been suggested by Jeff Kallay of TargetX, a nationally recognized expert in helping colleges and universities change their college tours to make them more appealing to prospective students than the old “tour-guide- -backwards-reciting-facts” format.

He said Alfred’s campus, with academic buildings located primarily along a single, long, flat street, is ideal for offering the option of a bike tour, and the option of having a tour guide and six people on the SAME bike makes it even more attractive.

Kalley said he is not aware of another college or university in the United States offering the same kind of campus tour for prospective families.

Bailey said she has been told by the manufacturer, Conference Bike, based in Amsterdam, The , there are seven-passenger bikes at one or two other U.S. campuses, but they are not used for tours.

Alfred University, founded in 1836, is one of only 44 colleges and universities included in the 2010 edition of Fiske’s Guide to the “Top Financial Finds on the College Tuition Market.” That puts AU in the top 1 percent of colleges and universities in the country in value for price.

It is marketed on Alfred University’s Web site as “one-of-a-kind tour,” a seven-seat red bicycle cruising the grounds of the western New York State college, powered by the pedaling of prospective students and parents.

The bicycle, like ones used by tourists in Baltimore, Budapest and New York City, is the latest acquisition of Alfred’s admissions office, and it debuted on campus last week.

As The Choice recently noted, many colleges have been re-imagining their campus tours of late, eager to deliver “a more natural, spontaneous and, ideally, engaging experience.” Some are retaining consultants.

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One of those consultants, TargetX, recommended the to Alfred this summer, in response to a student’s suggestion of launching a bike tour.

The Conference Bike, as Alfred’s new contraption is called, is the 1991 invention of an American artist. Manufactured in Germany, the bike is eight feet long and six feet wide, and it costs $12,750. It is promoted as having the power to lower its riders’ inhibitions, according to the manufacturer’s Web site, which says, “After just a few minutes even complete strangers begin talking to one another.”

Wendy Beckemeyer, vice president of enrollment management at Alfred, sees value in the bike’s capacity to open people up to each other. “It will change the conversation for the parents and students riding,” she said. “I think it will enhance it.”

Students are enthusiastic. On the phone, Logan Goulett, a senior, was winded, having just returned from a ride. “It’s a workout!” she said. “You know, this campus isn’t flat.”

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Speaking on behalf of Alfred’s student tour guides, Ms. Goulett went on to say: “We all love it. It’s social in a way that the regular tour isn’t. It’s difficult at times, so you’re getting kind of sweaty. You’re laughing and you’re smiling. It’s an immediate bond.”

Ms. Goulett said that if there’s an open seat, students are encouraged to jump on the bike as it tours, taking a spin around campus and giving visitors a sense of spontaneous, raw reality. The other day, she picked up two passersby to join her and a family from Elmira, N.Y.

She conceded that within the university community, “There’s a little confusion over what it is.”

But that intrigue might not be such a bad thing, said Nick Alberti, another student guide. “People see me and say, ‘You’re the guy on the bike.’ I’ve made some friends from it. It’s an interesting ice breaker.”

There is no liability waiver for riders of the Conference Bike to sign, but, Ms. Beckemeryer said, given the harsh winters of Alfred, N.Y., the bike will be a seasonal offering.

Per New York State law, riders 14 or younger are required to wear helmets, and there are also adult helmets on hand for passengers wanting them.

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ALFRED UNIVERSITY, CONFERENCE BIKE, TARGETX

“I was present at the inaugural run of the Alfred Conference Tour Bike and have to agree with Logan – it’s a workout, but it’s fun it makes you smile!

Families who chose to add this option to their Alfred visit earn a “I Toured Hard” t-shirt (a theme Logan conceived during the same brainstorming session when the conference bike was originally floated).

On our tour we picked up a music faculty member, a student from Sewanee, TN and another from China.

Alfred is a quirky place with unique and bright students. They’re about keeping it real and authentic but there’s a strong sense of community and the conference bike reveals it.” - Jeff Kallay

Note – Jodi Bailey, Alfred’s Director of Marketing actually procured their bike, a slightly used demo, at a substantially reduced rate from sticker price.

Jeff Kallay, Experience Evangelist, TargetX

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The Berlin School Of Creative Leadership , CONTRIBUTOR

We write about leadership and the creative fields.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

We are a global thought center operating an executive MBA program, as well as open and custom corporate learning programs, for leadership in the creative industries. The Berlin School of Creative Leadership serves top executives and creatives in advertising, design, entertainment, marketing, media, publishing and technology. With faculty and students from around the world, the school gives a unique global view into leadership and management issues for creative industries. The school has a special vantage point into building creative cultures and delivering innovation for companies big or small, with the goal of helping achieve creative excellence and business success.

Note: This essay was one of three top essays on the topic of online education in a class taught by Paul Glader, a journalism professor at The King’s College in New York City and an executive MBA student at The Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

By Leah Trouwborst

From weekend weather forecasts to fashion trends, experts predict the future with increasing confidence as the date in question approaches. We’re close enough to 2050 to forego sci-fi fantasy, roll up our sleeves, and talk reasonably about what our future will hold. By then, our leisure spaces will be dominated by the color green, Time magazine reports. The Pew Foundation projects that America’s population will reach 435 million (up from today’s 315 million). Expect slews of of 18-22 year olds underfoot. No discussion of future America would be complete without the topic of higher education coming up. As today’s undergrads doze off to the drone of lectures (not hyperbole—see declining test scores), can the college experience be modernized?

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1. Modernization and Innovation

It’s hard to imagine this happening. It’s about to happen. A burst of evolution seems fated to jerk the marble columns of higher education out of a long period of stasis. You might have seen foreshadowing even in unexpected places such as the 2013 comedy The Internship;though otherwise mediocre, the film offered viewers a rarely-seen tour of “Googleplex,” colorful headquarters in Mountain View, California. Alongside other trendsetting businesses, Google has pioneered a radically new internal structure. Theirs is an environment both generous to employees and conducive to breakneck productivity. This is a killer recipe. It simply hasn’t spread to the American educational model yet.

A Google sign from their campus in Mountain View, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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And Google’s motto—“don’t be evil”—isn’t so different than the unstated purpose of higher education—to whip those eye-rolling high-school seniors into shape. But what if the college experience has felt too close to a whipping? I know, I know, they’re adults. It’s still important to consider the psychology of productivity: balancing individual freedom with individual accountability. Google’s model errs on the side of individual freedom.

Last year, Fortune magazine named Google the best company to work for in America. Their cafeteria’s glorious spread, which includes “24-Hour Braised Ginger Beef” as a mere topping at their noodle bar, is a nice touch. What’s remarkable about Google is its knack for making tedious activities look attractive. Take the ConferenceBike—up to seven people can participate in a “conference” while pedaling outdoor paths. Who dreads a meeting that reminds them of riding a surrey down the Atlantic City boardwalk? The seven people face each other while one person steers, so distraction isn’t an issue. Another famous Google perk is “20 percent time,” the allotment of one day per week to work on side projects. (One of those side projects became Gmail.)

Source Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2014/03/31/an-educated-guess- whats-about-to-change-at-colleges-across-america-before-2050/#6cfa4c9c3850

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The challenge in attracting and retaining the right people it all comes down to communication. Being heard and being seen are essential values that supersede ulterior motives. More we introduce technology the more we yearn for authentic and real interaction. Developing tools that allow us to explore and share on all levels are in high demand. We invite you to explore the application of the ConferenceBike in your unique setting.

We would be very happy to talk to you about your special application.

Please send us an email to [email protected], and visit our website at www.conferencebike.com for more information.

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