2010 FLAME Conference

As we start a new decade 'change' seems to be the key theme - we might have a change of government: the economy will look and behave differently from the way it did in the last 10 years: the way we view the health agenda - politically, professionally and as 'consumers' of healthcare services - has to change, because as a nation and as tax payers, we have no option.
The question for us as an industry is what does ‘change’ look like. Not just in terms of how will we change but more importantly, how do we have to change. For me it’s not enough to talk about improving service levels. We have to change our DNA – what we offer, how we deliver it, when we deliver it, where we deliver it, to whom we deliver it to, how we measure what we have delivered, how we assess and analyse that information, what we learn from it and what we do with it.

Who will be our new partners? If the noughties were about partnering with Government (tick: done that) who are our new partners?

Doctors?
Food companies?
Media companies?

The industry is like a teenager becoming a youth. There are things we cannot and should not change – our personality, our energy, our ability to innovate and adapt – but there are qualities and attributes we have to evolve and cultivate IF we want to be taken seriously. What are these things?

Coming up is a starter for 10, from experts who think as passionately as they do innovatively about where we are and what we have to do. They are the keynote speakers at the industry’s 2010 FLAME Conference (date for your diary.......14th July 2010........Cheltenham race course).

What do you think?

David Stalker
Executive Director
Fitness Industry Association