The Blog

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Team Building Time

The Green Riders are all gathered together for a short while before Tinki heads back to Sweden to finish her Masters in Public Health program. So, it's time to take the opportunity to build a team who will help make this project a success.
This evening all 3 Green Riders will be at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco to present the ride to a group of Green MBA students who are looking for marketing opportunities as part of their Project Oriented Learning requirement. We have one enthusiastic student but we need to get a couple more before the project will be accepted. Michael will bring the electric bicycle he is currently building for Tinki. He says it's beautiful thanks to the work of Charlie Cunningham who knows how to do things right.
The other team building news is that I have a commitment from a couple who just moved into our neighborhood, Ryan and Hope to help us however they can. Ryan is a musician among other things and understands production much better than any of us. They are both delightful folks who have a daughter my daughter's age and a dog friend for our dog. Life is good!!
In a couple of hours, I am meeting with a new friend who is a leadership coach for businesses and organizations. I'm going to have a walking conversation about how to proceed on the team building process. I hope to enlist his ongoing advice as we build this project.
There's a lot more going on but I've got to get my daughter to school so more details later.

Oliver

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Moving forward after a summer away

My family visited friends and family in Europe this summer and I kept an eye out for electric vehicles. I saw a bunch and learned that in Europe, many countries require liscenses for electric vehicles that go over 20 miles per hour. As a result most of the bikes have small hub motors and relatively small battery packs. Truly a design for power assist.
One of my favorite scenes was the classic family outing on bicycles that crossed in front of us. The dad had a child in a trailer while the Mom worked with the other child on their own bike. Dad waited impatiently while the child tried to get the bike up the hill with the tired support of the mother. Like a flash, an older man on his electric bicycle passed through the scene and disappeared without a sound. I liked it!!
Back on the home front, we are team building. Presidio School of Management has an MBA program that requires students to choose a project and we are on the list. So far we have some interest and we'll know more early next week.
We made a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm8dxgFfonQ that briefly describes the ride and that is what got us interest so far.
On the technology side, Michael has advanced the battery management by incorporating a Battery management system designed for the small battery powered airplanes that hobbyists fly around. It seems to work just fine. He is also getting a bid on battery packs custom made for our trip that will get us the range we need.
My sister Tinki and I spend a lot of time together in Europe and then again when we got back home. She's excited about the ride and I know it will be a lot of fun.

I hope to post more regularly now that I'm back in the saddle.

Oliver