The delineation between our online and offline selves will disappear as more devices become linked
it wants on its competitors. Thinking without boundaries, or fitness facilities’ walls, came up again and again.
Drowning in data? The discussion centred for some time on the ‘end of the internet’. The view from experts is that the delineation between our online and offline selves is going to disappear as devices become increasingly linked through their core functions. The discussion led to a conclusion that the operator of the future will have to fit seamlessly into this connected world, in which the Internet of Things determines the way consumers run their entire household, let alone their fitness routine. This trend is going to lead to
organisations potentially drowning in data, and failing to reach their potential as a result. The organisations that successfully create a role for themselves in this new connected world, and march ahead of their competitors as a result, will be those that are able to extract insights from the data they possess – those that can see the pictures this data can help them to draw. This was a debate that only just got
started and will no doubt be a defining factor of what the physical activity sector looks like in five years’ time.
August 2015 © Cybertrek 2015 EUROPEAN INF LUENCE I
t was clear at the event how established our sector is becoming with the European Commission, with
the event attended by a leading official from the Commission’s Sport Unit. EuropeActive is increasingly seen
as a key stakeholder in Brussels and counted alongside bodies such as UEFA and the UCI as a priority for partnership, aided by statistics that demonstrate that fitness is a European’s favourite participation ‘sport’. Indeed, EuropeActive has been enlisted as one of the primary stakeholders in the
Winds of change The speed of change in the technology world can render entire categories of product, and even total industries, obsolete; I struggle to comprehend sometimes that it’s only seven years since the first iPhone came out, given the level of disruption and enhancement it has brought to everyday life. A conversation with any of the major equipment manufacturers will tell you this is something they’re grappling with on behalf of the industry.
European Week of Sport, which will take place in September. The initiative has a range of superstars to lend it support – including Steven Gerrard and ukactive chair Baroness Tanni Grey- Thompson – and it’s the type of thing the Commission will continue to get behind, and invest in, for years to come. Encouragingly the European
Commission spoke our language at the event, talking of the challenges posed by inactivity across Europe, and I would expect future research and policy opportunities to open up as a result.
This technological change also
helps create an environment in which breakthrough innovation can happen in our sector – anywhere in the world. That’s why our sector needs a strong
infrastructure through which best practice and knowledge can be shared. We truly have a European market in the health and fitness sector – one in which operators freely move across borders and ideas move even quicker. If only we could replicate that globally, I’d be one very happy policy geek. ●
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 71
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