Bigger Stronger Faster

I watched an incredibly thought provoking film on the flight back from San Francisco last week. Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a 2008 documentary directed by Christopher Bell about the use of anabolic steroids as performance enhancing drugs in the United States and how this practice is linked to 'the Amercian Dream' in terms of sports and appearance.

It's a really clever film that manages to also be funny and troubling at the same time. Christopher Bell turns a spotlight on the US as a country that that willingly turns a blind eye to cheating until it decides to get completely hysterical about it.

Having had a conversation with someone representing Dwain Chambers just the night before, the film was particularly pertinent, especially the sections questioning the consistency of attitudes to steroid abuse in the US, and interviews with Carl Lewis.

I would recommend it to anyone working in sports and fitness - very enlightening.

27 facts and 20 examples about social media

Enjoyed this presentation from Slideshare...

27 facts and 20 examples about social media

View more presentations from Christian Palau.

Promote meet Jonny G - Mr Spinning

First day at the IHRSA trade show yesterday and we were lucky enough to chat to Jonny G, the founder of spinning.

Such a nice guy and it was great to witness his new product in action - Kranking. It's already been a massive success in the US, and we can't wait to start shouting about it in the media when it launches in the UK, where it will be distributed by Matrix Fitness Systems.

The Kindness of Strangers

A nice story that perfectly illustrates the new attitude towards sharing in the world of social media.

In preparing my presentation for IHRSA next week, I came across a wonderful powerpoint deck on a site called Slideshare. Positioned as the world’s largest presentation sharing community, the site has hundreds of wonderful presentations on a range of topics from Finance and Education to Health and Fashion. This presentation I found included lots of the facts and figures I planned to use, but displayed on beautifully designed slides.

I will admit that my initial instinct was 'wow - how can I steal this for my presentation it would save me hours'. I emailed the lady that had created the presentation to explain my situation and not only did she say she was happy for me to use the slides, but she emailed over her entire deck with notes too!

So a big thank you to Marta Z. Kagan and here are her details for anyone in the US looking for a talented and very kind social media specialist:
Blog - http://bonafidemarketinggenius.com/ Twitter - http://twitter.com/mzkagan

New developments in Google Calendar

We've used Google calendar in the office for a couple of years and find it's brilliant for sharing diaries across the team.

This week Google announced that you can now access the Google calendar even when you are offline, which will be really useful for when the team are out of the office.

Other fab free applications that we really like...

Logmein - allows everyone to access their computer as if they were sat at their desk. Completely free and has been so useful for the team (especially when everyone was snowed in at home last month).

Powwownow - conference telephone calls. Again they offer a free service that literally takes 2 minutes to set up and works really well.

News from the FIA Vanguard meeting

I was really impressed today to see all that the FIA is doing both on the political front with Andree Deane and the public affairs department, and around events and campaigns with Dave Stalker and his team.


In terms of music licencing and potential changes in fees which could dramatically affect the industry, the FIA is talking with the PPL in order to prevent the potential crisis unfolding in Australia this month, where clubs could be faced with a possible 3,000 percent increase in fees for playing copyrighted music in Australian group exercise classes.

Fit for the Future launches in less than a month with a pilot in five areas - Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Suffolk and Torbay. The FIA is still recruiting operators to participate in this groundbreaking scheme, which sees government funding gym memberships for 1,000 young people in each area.

And it's full steam ahead for the FIA health and fitness conference in Bolton on June 9/10 which runs alongside the FIA Industry Summit. The whole event concludes with the FIA Ball of Fire where over 900 industry professionals with dress to impress and celebrate the FLAME Awards, which are sponsored again this year by Matrix. FLAME judging has just moved into the 3rd stage with over 90 sites still involved, more than ever before at this point in the process.

It also looks like this summer's moreactive4life campaign, which is an official sub-brand of the change4life campaign will be a huge success. Targetted to get some people 300,000 on the road to regular exercise - it will make a significant contribution to the government's goal of 1 million people this year.

Anyone that remembers the FIA's longterm success with Commit to Get Fit, will recognise that this is much bigger, hugely improved version that will be free to all participating sites and should have shedloads of national and regional media coverage.

Fingers crossed that it all comes off for the FIA. 2009 could be pretty significant year for the association and the entire industry.

Twitter etiquette?

I attended a conference last week and heard about a Political Editor from Reuters who was attending the Economic World Forum Annual Meeting in Davos last month and 'tweeted' some of the key announcements from the conference floor, which were then picked up and appeared on websites immediately.

In effect, the information was out there faster than the 'Reuters' wire' which is renown for being the first place journalists pick up news stories.

Apparently, when asked by his bosses about what happened, the individual concerned said that he was just moving with the times and the technology available. I guess if he wasn't tweeting then someone else at the conference might have been.

Following last week's furore as politicians used Twitter during President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress, it also begs the question about etiquette too.

Tempted as I was to 'Tweet' a few highlights from the FIA Vanguard session today, you'll be pleased to know that I didn't. But I will summarise them in my blog later this evening.

Twitter exposed

Very funny piece about Twitter from the Daily Show in the US.

What's not to love about ebay

Having heard at the weekend that a friend had found some great items of furniture his new office on ebay, I ventured onto the site on Sunday morning. I was delighted to find one massive 'lot' of furniture including 14 desks, 12 chairs, 12 pedastals, 12 full size dividers, 8 stationery cupboards, meeting room table and chairs, filing cabinets etc, from an office clearance near Oxford.

The excitement at winning the bid at 8pm on Sunday night (£1,020) was nothing compared to the excitement this morning when we saw all the fantastic furniture and the lovely vendor also suggested we might like to take all the huge white boards, telephones, cabling etc too.

It looks amazing in the new office. After 15 years of gradually gathering difference bits of furniture as we have grown, it's a wonderful feeling to have everything looking so professional.

Not sure what we will do with the eclectic range of furniture in the old office. Perhaps we should try ebay?

Warm up act for Seth Godin

Whilst I am thrilled about the fact that Katie and I have been invited back to speak at the IHRSA conference in San Francisco later this month, I have just discovered that the speaker on in the hour before us is no less than 'best selling author, entrepreneur and agent of change Seth Godin.'

Godin has written ten books that have been bestsellers around the world and has just posted his 3,000th blog. I'm on blog number 18 and my first book is still just an idea in my mind.

No pressure there then.

Two new people join the Promote team

So pleased to be welcoming two new recruits to Promote this month.

Kate Godber joins us following her journalism degree at Sheffield University. She's a bright cookie with 4 A grade A levels and Katie and I liked her so much that we almost offered her the job on the spot when we first met her at interview. Kate joins us tomorrow morning as an Account Executive.

Grant Rowley is our second brilliant appointment this month. Not only does he brings loads of sports PR experience (having worked on accounts including the London Marathon for Flora), but he's he appears to be a perfect 'Promote person' too. Grant joins us as an Account Manager and will be taking over the Gatorade account.

Exciting times ahead for us this year.