Why The Fitness Technology Council Is So Important To The Fitness Industry

Getting competitors to work together is hard. However, a lack of collaboration and the failure to create standards can result in missed opportunities for all. You know the adage, "rising tides lift all boats". The health club and fitness industry yearns for the potential of wide spread exercise prescription, physician referrals and truly integrated wellness which could lead to new business models and a greater impact on the health of our society in the future. Unfortunately without more standards that ideal future is going to be harder to achieve.

The importance of standards can be illustrated easily by looking at other industries. For example, prior to the advent of the nearly ubiquitous Internet of today, a few people in the computer industry got together to establish something called a Wi-Fi standard. The Wi-Fi standard (also known as IEEE 802.11) was created through the collaboration of several big  technology companies, including 3Com, Cisco, Nokia, Apple, and Microsoft. It took only a few years for Wi-Fi to become the biggest standard in wireless communications, and its domination continues to this day. The collaboration of competitors to create a standard makes a fine example of how technology companies can work together to create new markets, provide new services to customers, and still put plenty of money in the bank. Without the standard, the explosion of mobile devices, PC's, tablets and Internet adoption in general would have been severely curtailed.

On Wednesday February 22, 2012, FIT-C will offer a free webinar on its mission and share more details about how players in the fitness and health club business can come together to help create a brighter future for all participants. I hope you will click on the image below and register. Let's work together to make the future of our industry better for everyone.

About the author:

Bryan O’Rourke is a health club industry expert, technologist, financier, and shareholder and executive in several fitness companies. He consults with numerous global brands, serves as a member of the GGFA Think Tank is Chair of the Medical Fitness Association’s Education Committee and a partner in the Flywheel Group. To learn more contact Bryan here today .