1997-04-15|Canadian Information Productivity Awards (Nomination)
Nomination
Best Systems Solutions
- Define the business or organisational problem or opportunity
- There is an untapped market for coaching, especially in sport, but as well as other forms of adult education. Automated self-serve of coaching knowledge on-line on the Internet would contribute to the dissemination of specialised coaching knowledge.
- An intelligent system via World-Wide Web on the Internet can provide a specialised and highly transportable form of self-education. The service would serve as a personalised coaching resource to complement the knowledge and strategies of human coaches. In addition, both amateur and professional coaches can benefit from the system themselves for continuing education.
- The generic coaching techniques can be applied to other fields apart from the sport context, such as corporate training, internal business education, workfare, and for parental guidance. Customised solutions for these various client groups will be generated by the collective wisdom of Canada's Olympic and professional coaches.
- Description of information technology solution
- A World-Wide Web site called Potentium: The Coaching Network™ <http://WWW.Potentium.CA/> was set up on the Internet. The unique web site supports education and life-long learning, and attracts world-wide visitors to meet international standards of excellence.
- The knowledge-rich web site is designed to stress the content in the field of sport psychology and coaching instead of graphics. It makes use of the electronic commerce technology in the form of First Virtual™ Internet Payment System to allow the visitors not only to order the book but also, more importantly, to immediately read the contents chapter by chapter on-line at nominal cost.
- Here is a brief description of the electronic publication.
- The Great Job Coach! Getting the Edge from Proven Winners describes various aspects of how expert coaches got to the top of their field and how they remained there. This is the first book of its kind that gives a voice to Canadian expert coaches such as Jack Donohue, Dave King, and 20 other proven winners. They describe in colorful language the knowledge, strategies and communication skills that are used with international and national level athletes. The book is written in plain English citing vivid quotations from the coaches. It is useful for developing coaches, parents with talented children, and for athletes who wish to gain insights on the coaching process.
- Potentium Inc. has also attempted to create an interactive world wide network of individuals who are presently involved in coaching, either as participants, parents or coaches. They have provided, free of charge, extensive bibliographic literature on coaching as well as mechanisms for upgrading their skills through readings, seminars or workshops for young athletes, parents and coaches of all levels.
- Performance measurements: Improvement in Customer Service
- There is concrete evidence of the need for more resources on coaching and sport psychology, just by looking at the referer page of from 200 to 400 daily hits to the Potentium: The Coaching Network™ web site. Most visitors made contact through various search engines looking for "sport psychology". The Intelligent E-mail AutoResponder System called RoboCoach, together with HumanCoach have greatly improved the level of Customer Service as well as External Communications.
- Performance measurements: Increase in revenues
- There are now thousands of hits per week to the Potentium: The Coaching Network™ web site. The visitors to the web site, some of whom lead to on-line sales, come from around the world, including Australia, Canada, Croatia, France, Greece, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, The Netherlands, U.K., U.S.A.
- Technology and/or services employed
- Apple Power Macintosh computer (hardware)
- Apple Mac OS operating system (software)
- Apple HyperCard and AppleScript (software)
- StarNine WebSTAR HTTP and ListSTAR SMTP server (software)
- First Virtual™ Internet Payment System (service)
- dedicated ISDN-Internet connection (service)
- Potentium Inc., headquartered in Ottawa (Ontario) CANADA, specialises in Coaching and Sports Psychology. Its Home Page on the Internet World-Wide Web is at the following URL.
- Please direct comments to the following E-mail address.
[Go to]
[Mail any comments or suggestions to]
[Credit]
[Search/Recherche]
[Advertisement/Publicité]
