Hear and see the beauty of teamwork in this gently corny video and this beautifully startling one.

Then watch this contagious public dance and this huge singalong.

Me to We in action can lift our spirits.

Instead of staying in a hotel, rent a room from a local. Travel cheap.  Discover more.  Try the “temporary bed and breakfast” peer-to-peer sites, AirBed & Breakfast or Roomorama where a night’s stay can range from $45 to $100 or so.   Anyone with a bed, airbed or couch can rent it out for the night.   Reserve your night online, paying with a credit card or via PayPal. AB & B charges guests a 5 to 12 percent service fee and Roomorama charges 8.   Live in a hotly-contested state for the upcoming presidential election?  Then AirBed & Breakfast suggests you host at your home a visiting, get-out-the vote volunteer.

Want to sidestep the service fee oh brave one? See house swaps or vacation rentals at the venerable Craigslist. Braver still?  Get a free room through couchsurfing. While you’re laughing at this approach know that it has nearly 470,000 users.

Going upscale a bit, reserve a private room in a hostel. Marin Headlands, near me, has priceless views.  Want a more posh and private place to stay where you can still benefit from a local’s recommendations?  Then join Home Exchange.  Enjoy encampment in a villa or a vacation home.  There’s always that reliable place where Tom Bodett promises, “We’ll leave the light on for you.”

You’re strolling down a boutique-lined street. A restaurant catches your eye. You whip out your phone, scan the bar code on the window then go online to peak at reviews. It got raves so why not go in? After all, you’ll get a ring on your phone if your parking meter runs low whilst you’re dining. Then you can pay for more time – by phone. These are just two of the mobile phone location-based scenarios that have launched here in San Francisco. More to come.

We’ve come a long way since Howard Rheingold first wrote about Smart Mobs. The U.S. still lags behind some countries in the proliferation of uses for cell phones. Soon we’ll see a flood of location-based services (and ads?!) for those out shopping or exploring, according to Geographical Sciences professor, Paul Torrens, who is studying crowd behavior.

“Crowds of shoppers, endowed with smart chip credit cards and RFID tagged merchandise are trailed by long-lasting data shadows that follow them ubiquitously. Embedded in urban infrastructure and in the very products we consume, new technologies are emerging to enable cities to think about—and process—the people that pulse through them, with a burgeoning code-space being developed to capture the actions and interactions of individuals within large dynamic crowds.”

Recall soccer fans’ post-match riots? Notice the apparent increase of teen and tweens’ cyber bullying and other tragically belittling behavior via computer, texting and Twittering? Now staging flash mobs from a distance and anonymously, using technology, can create havoc and/or change opinions almost as quickly as inciting a riot at a stadium.

And one can attract larger crowds. People don’t even have to know each other to gather. They can literally take their rage and revenge to the streets faster, armed with the right location-based technology. They can swarm to surround a victim with less forethought and more speed.

In short the stakes are higher, for good and bad location-based crowd behavior now. The flip side of this sometimes lethal, tech-supported action is the ability to swarm to a location to play, protest or even surround people who in danger – a human ring of protection. For buying products, collaborating, sharing opinions – and so much more – the trend toward technology-supported, location-based services will probably touch your mobile life.

That’s why I wanted to interview the far-sighted, thoughtful Howard Rheingold.

Nike invites us to join a million runners around the world, “for a worldwide 10K like no other.”  And they invited celebrities to join them. There’s a small catch.  “You need a Nike+ SportBand or Nike+iPod and Sport Kit” to run with them. You can’t fault them.  They want you to buy their products of course.  But if their underlying brand is Just Do It, why require the gear?  Yes, it would be way cool to have the iPod sensor track when I start and stop and provide music. Yet why run alone?   Set a weekly time to run (or walk) with a friend or three and just enjoy the experience together – without the tech toys.

Also, Nike, to encourage even more people to check out your outdoor gear and to build goodwill, why not partner with local communities, at least in the U.S.? And encourage people to, not only get out and run, but to walk and to bike?  Nike has gear for both, after all. And you want to be more inclusive. After all, most everybody want to get out and play with others.

In my small town of Sausalito and in other U.S. communities the feds are giving grants to for public education campaigns to encourage people to get out and walk, bike or run. That seems like the Way to Go to make this already viral campaign involve more people.  Plus, by partnering on local community campaigns, Nike encourages neighbors to find someone nearby for that exercise. Somehow the government concocted title for their project (a Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program) could use some naming sizzle from Nike. Thanks, Buzz Canuck.  On my wish list is a go4awalk for the U.S. Nike, interested in underwriting it?

In this slow economy, cities are strapped for cash.  Many would be open to companies underwriting imaginative public outreach campaigns tied to their events and other activities on everything from public safety to attracting visitors.

For starters, a warped sense of humor helps. When he first came from New York, shortly after college, Paul Geffner began selling handmade leather bound journals, along with a crowd of other street vendors on the sidewalk near The Embarcadero in S.F. Even then people were drawn to him.

Soon, with childhood friends, he started Captain Video. They designed the first video rental display shelves, a style still used today. Video rentals popped up on many street corners back then yet his stores were packed, staff became like family. Some went on to be managers and then part owners.

With Blockbuster looming, he and his partners sold the rental outlets, with money from the sale flowing through to many employees. Along the way, he continued his weekly basketball games, read and wrote poetry, took friends on rock mining trips for Herkimer diamonds and amethysts and more – all pursuits he started in childhood. Longtime partners became friends, split off and invested in each other’s businesses, still staying in touch. Over the years the ones I recall include Amoeba Records, Escape From New York Pizza (pizza and poetry), Purity and (my favorite name) a chicken take-out place in S.F. called Poultry in Motion.

Yes, he’s made money, and deep friendships. He’s happily married to Lisa Bennett. Along the way he’s been a retail start-up helper, owner of several mines, board member, Big Brother, team mate, frequent best man, jokester, – and the rich source of a quirky, soulful life philosophy. He started a “do good” fund called For Love or Money. He launched a holiday that you, too, can celebrate simply by wearing your shirt inside out, an easy way to recognize others who’re celebrating it, eh? I thought of Paul when I first saw The Wire because I knew he’d love the brilliant script, chaotic storyline and true-to-life characters.

This has been a stellar year for him, even by his standards. I thought of him when I read Rita Carter’s Multiplicity and Marci Alboher’s Slash Life.

Paul embodies the spirit, generosity and ingenuity of the Me2We spirit in enjoying work and life – with others. Want an emotional lift, a few laughs and some insights on how to grow your business and live a life that takes in into different worlds, a life you can savor with steadfast friends? As Robin Sharma wrote, Who Will Cry When You Die?

Want to see somber-looking pedestrians suddenly break out in smiles, start posing with each other – even laying on the pavement together, looking up and taking photos in a very public place? Like to see yourself literally in many different ways? Then visit Anish Kapoor’s play-inducing Cloud Gate.

After I spoke at an IABC in Chicago we decided to take an architectural tour of the magnificent early skyscrapers.

Across the wide Michigan Avenue from the Chicago Architectural Foundation, where our tour gathered you see the magnificent Millennium Park. Three imaginative structures were designed to be tourist magnets. All are Me2We art, moving people to interact, sometimes even with strangers. Frank Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion was expected to be the top attraction, yet Cloud Gate and the Crown Fountain are the real crowd-involvers.

Looking like a gigantic liquid mercury bean, Cloud Gate is an elliptical, mirror-like sculpture. It that looms large yet is so inviting. Walking up to it, under and around it to see shape shifting portraits of yourself, your friends, nearby strangers and many sides of the sky and buildings around you. People touch it and join in making faces at it. Often they turn to look back at “The Bean” from different directions. That feeling of joy extends to the proud craft people involved in its making, many of whom have not yet been able to see it on site.

Nearby, Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain is actually two 50-foot high towers, separated by a 48-foot wide pond of water that flows over an edge at sidewalk level. But the spectacular action happens in four short acts. First, you see led light-generated Chicagoan’s face appears on each tower. Moments later that person purses her or his mouth. Then, in modern gargoyle fashion, and a spout of water spews out. For a finale before the next 12-minute show starts with the face of another Chicagoan, a wall of water falls down both towers. (Over 1,000 photos are in this free show.)

Two other large public ‘sculptures” that fall into the Me2We category because they draw people closer, albeit via a much different emotion – to viscerally remind us of a war. One is Maya Lin’s famously moving Vietnam Memorial.

For Oregonians, an especially touching, if lesser-known, monument also involves people in walking through the experience. Like Lin’s monument, Walker Macy’s wall is made of polished, black granite. See the names of Oregonians who died. Yet, as you walk up along this wall and follow it around a curve, the wall rises higher as the number of war deaths rose over time and then lower as the end nears. Along the bottom of the wall, if memory serves me right, you see listed, one after the other, significant events in that faraway war. Right above each war event you find an event that happened in Oregon at the same time, for example our Portland Rose Festival. The juxtaposition is appropriately jarring – as it would be if we build the same kind of wall, one day, to remind us of the effects the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some are starting with their own monuments now.

We can learn more from our mistakes than our successes. That’s especially likely if a small, supportive group of peers probes to understand us better before they offer advice. In part, that’s what Learning Circles can offer. Mutual mentorship.

While most are created for people to learn from each other at work (especially schools and other non-profits), you could start an LC with people from different workplaces or within a larger organization to which you belong. These groups can be safe, supportive and specific in helping you grow in some part of your life. While some experts recommend a group size of 15 to 20 people, five to nine feels like the most comfortable and efficient size to me. Learning Circles don’t have leaders which felt odd to me at first. You learn at your own pace. Yet there are suggested rules and formats. One of my favorites is that the group ask at least twenty questions before offering advice or problem-solving.

We learn so much from each other in what we ask about and how. Hear how to start your own from WorkPlay blogger and coach Chris Bailey. Much of his work life has been dedicated to creating Learning Circles for non-profits. Now he is helping people in companies learn more from each other, using this approach.

To complement this growth work, become more resilient and discover your strengths and how to use them more at work and in your life.

Until The New York Times asked for his opinion about this trend, Erik Torkells did not even notice it. Yet he was a part of the trend – and it related to his area of expertise.

Trend: Increasingly, people are traveling together (or meeting in new places) as their way of celebrating special events, such as weddings, birthdays and anniversaries.

Then Torkells looked back on this year and recognized that “…the vast majority of my trips were as much about being with people I care about as they were about the destination.”

Hint: Sometimes we are simply too close to a “Me2We” approach to life that we just don’t recognize it.

How can you mark significant dates with others by taking a getaway trip, enjoy the journey and play in a new place or one that holds special significance? From adventure and cultural travel to spas and taking seminars we can see new sides in each other when we share unfamiliar places.

Next year we already have plans to travel to Miami (speaking and seeing friends), Los Angeles (speaking and seeing god daughter and her mother), New Zealand (speaking and seeing friends), Neapolis, Greece (wedding) and Croatia (meeting new and old friends). Plus several friends are gathering here in Sausalito for a reunion.