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 .

Augmented Reality - Technology Is Remaking Business

The digital and physical worlds continue to merge. As the adoption of the Internet hits its apex, more mobile and other devices become connected at higher speeds to the web and as applications deliver interesting ways for people to benefit from the convergence of these and other mobile technology trends, augmented reality is going to become more mainstream.

The implications to organizations and business models are significant.  Health, fitness and wellness business, which I write about, will experience increasing impacts from the application of these unique augmented reality solutions, many of which are going to be unanticipated.

Check out this application platform, Layar . Layar is a mobile platform for discovering information about the world around you. Using Augmented Reality (AR) technology, Layar displays digital information called “layers” in a user’s field of vision through their mobile device. Watch the video to see what I mean.

So what do you think ? Have you tried mobile augmented applications ? Let me, Bryan O'Rourke, know what you think. What will augemented reality mean for the fitness and health club business ?

5 Important Technology Trends For 2011

5 Important Technology Trends For 2011

View more presentations from Bryan ORourke

During my upcoming IHRSA presentation on using technology to improve member sales and retention I'll touch on 5 key technology trends. I'll also be sharing some of these concepts and more during the FILEX presentation in April on the future of the fitness industry.

Let me know what you think. How are these trends impacting your fitness or wellness business ? Contact me Bryan O'Rourke and please share your thoughts.

Athletic Business Conference Presentation on Technology

Last week I presented at Athletic Business regarding technologies impact on the fitness and wellness industry. The bottom line is rapidly advancing technologies, a shift in values resulting from a maturing culture and traditional organizations failures to adopt collaboration as a key strategy, have contributed to the fitness and wellness industry largely failing to meet the opportunity of impacting obesity and promoting wellness. Look at the facts, thousands of new facilities and endeavors yet the same number of  people exercising and more prevalent obesity. Because of financial pressures related to soaring health care costs, new business models will emerge with many encompassing direct to consumer components that bypass traditional gym or fitness facilities. Some traditional facility competitors in the fitness business will use this as an opportunity to distiguish themselves based on the experience economy, providing more engaging and meaningful experiences through unique program solutions offered by strategic partners (an adoption of orchestration strategy). As with many industries designed around past paradigms, the fitness and wellness industry should prepare for an approaching upheaval that will leave many of its participants irrelevant to the future of wellness.