Radical Change in the Fitness Business

I had a great time today with my colleague Michael Scott Scudder, who conducted an Internet radio interview of me regarding "Radical Change in the Fitness Business".

Michael is a unique individual, always staying ahead of the industry and often times accurately predicting the future to come. He has been in the fitness business for over 30 years. Thank you Michael for the discussion and thanks to the long list of professionals in the industry who took time out to listen. The future of the fitness and wellness industries is going to be radical. Listen by visiting a recording of the interview here.

The Surprising Secret To A Better Organization - Watch

The secret isn't really secret: building a great organization is about getting talented people to work together toward a common goal. Actually doing it is the challenge and that is where many folks get it wrong.

I continue to see organizations and leaders approaching this challenge with old school methods that just don't work. For example, incentives and false motivational tactics; these are PROVEN to be ineffective, yet so many still attempt to operate their organizations in this manner.

Are you "old school" and have trouble believing that something like incentives don't work ? Read on.....

In Dan Pink's new book Drive he makes the distinction between extrinsic motivators like strict schedules and large bonuses and intrinsic motivators like autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Dan makes the case that employees performing jobs that require more than just basic cognition, are less productive when motivated by an extrinsic source than an intrinsic source. Watch the RSA presentation by Dan below and perhaps you'll get a grasp on the secret: helping people in an organization obtain more autonomy, purpose and mastery of their skills is the real secret to more productivity.

D8 - Watch Candid Interviews About the Future of Technology

With technology's rapid advancements, keeping up with the digital world's leadership and vision of the future is always interesting and educational. Since debuting in 2003, The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference has delivered straight-up conversations with the most influential figures in media and technology, you'll see the list below and it includes the unbiquitous Steve Jobs and others. I always find the content interesting and worthwhile.
 
The 2010 D8, the eighth annual All Things Digital Conference, ran from June 1-3. Creators and executive producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher put the industry’s top players to the test.

Visit AllThingsD.com’s D8 pages for blog coverage, video and photos. The speakers for D8 are outlined with links below. Read and watch !

Tim Armstrong | Chairman and CEO of AOL

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Lloyd Braun | Co-owner of BermanBraun

Steve Burke | COO of Comcast

James Cameron | Director, Producer, Writer

Steve Case | Chairman and CEO of Revolution

Peter Chou | CEO of HTC

John Donahoe | President and CEO of eBay

Julius Genachowski | Chairman of the FCC

Paul Jacobs | CEO of Qualcomm

Steve Jobs | CEO of Apple

Jeffrey Katzenberg | CEO of Dreamworks Animation SKG

Steven Levitan | Co-Creator and Executive Producer of “Modern Family”

Alan Mulally | CEO of Ford

Ray Ozzie | Chief Software Architect of Microsoft

Richard Rosenblatt | Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Demand Media

Vivian Schiller | President and CEO of NPR

Paul Steiger | Editor-in-Chief, President and Chief Executive of ProPublica

Mark Zuckerberg | Founder and CEO of Facebook



Telemedicine Going Mainstream - Is Telefitness Far Behind ?

Reliable video conferencing is having great impact on a variety of industries with health care now being one. There are not enough doctors and in particular not enough specialists available when and where they might be needed. Furthermore, the cost of delivering care when patients don't have access is much more costly than the relatively less expensive alternative of telemedicine. As a result, firms like NuPhysicia have emerged to deliver physician services anytime and anywhere.

As NYT reporter Milt Freudenheim recently reported in his article, "The Doctor Will See You Now, Please Log On":

The interactive telemedicine business has been growing by almost 10 percent annually, to more than $500 million in revenue in North America this year, according to Datamonitor, the market research firm. It is part of the $3.9 billion telemedicine category that includes monitoring devices in homes and hundreds of health care applications for smartphones.

Christine Chang, a health care technology analyst at Datamonitor’s Ovum unit, says telemedicine will allow doctors to take better care of larger numbers of patients. “Some patients will be seen by teleconferencing, some will send questions by e-mail, others will be monitored” using digitized data on symptoms or indicators like glucose levels, she says.Eventually, she predicts, “one patient a day might come into a doctor’s office, in person.”

If reimbursements for lower cost options like telemedicine in "sick-care" are emerging, why not fitness and wellness which generate an even greater ROI ? The day is coming when a combination of the economic incentive for being well, and the available technologies for delivering high value wellness and fitness services to individuals via new tools like videconferencing will emerge. Watch the brief video on NuPhysicia and welcome to the revolution.

Innovation Corruption - Why Our Government Isn't Working

For those of you who follow my writing, you know of my admiration for Professor Lawrence Lessig. He is one of the most relevant thinkers of our time. His recent speech “Innovation Corruption” was delivered May 20th at the Yahoo! campus in Santa Clara, CA (video below). The message was clear: government and business are corrupted by money. This corruption blocks innovation because regulation is designed not for everyone's good but to maximize money paid to Congress. The system Lessig referrs to is the “economy of influence.” Our government is completely corrupted, that it is why it doesn't work and people better wake up and pay attention.

From the Obama presidency, to the food business, to the broadband deployment problem in the U.S. and EU, Lessig cites examples of money's influence from a number of sources. His plea to the audience was to do something: the public is very much a part of the problem when clearly there are corruptive patterns that no one does anything about.

Did you know almost half of all senator and house members become lobbyist when they retire or lose their office ? This is just the beginning. Watch to learn more about just how corrupt the system is.

Update on 2010-05-29 16:37 by Bryan K. O'Rourke

When you think of what Lessig is saying about institutional corruption the British Petroleum disaster comes to mind. Read this excerpt from  Bob Hebert's  May 28, 2010 Op-ed in the NYT's "An Unnatural Disaster" :

The oil companies and other giant corporations have a stranglehold on American policies and behavior, and are choking off the prospects of a viable social and economic future for working people and their families.

President Obama spoke critically a couple of weeks ago about the “cozy relationship” between the oil companies and the federal government. It’s not just a cozy relationship. It’s an unholy alliance. And that alliance includes not just the oil companies but the entire spectrum of giant corporations that have used vast wealth to turn democratically elected officials into handmaidens, thus undermining not just the day-to-day interests of the people but the very essence of democracy itself.

Bob is right, but as Lessig points out, its up to us to do something about it.