Trends call for deeper discernment on your part. The ones that are most likely to last are those that are at work both inside and outside the fitness industry. Societal and technological change eventually change the expectations of the public at large. Unless a fitness business changes to meet these expectations, it will miss some important opportunities. In this issue of Fitness Management we deal with some issues in computer software and interactivity that clubs cannot afford to ignore. Fifty percent of people in San Francisco are connected to the Internet; I believe that even 38 percent of our laid-back San Diego neighbors are hooked up. A skyrocketing number of consumers are researching and even buying products and services on line. If your Website is not up, you’re not meeting some prospects’ expectations.

But fundamentals cannot be abandoned. Pearl is right. However you apply the new technology, it needs to fit with fundamental human motivation and physiology. If it does not, all the technological sophistication in the world will not make it succeed.

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The voice of experience was Bill Pearl, four-time Mr. Universe, who had been a club owner and equipment designer since the 1950s. Nothing much has changed over the past 20 years is Pearl’s conclusion. Free weights were big when he entered the business, machines came along, but free weights have become a favorite once again. The part of the population that works out regularly remains in the 11 to 15 percent range. It is hard to argue with the position that the fundamentals of strength and fitness training and participation are pretty much the same.

Other members of the panel in Chicago last month were from major equipment manufacturers — of both exercise devices and systems for programming them. While Pearl is in a position to be philosophical, these people are charged with inventing the future of fitness so far as the shape of the equipment and how users relate to it are concerned. Trends and fads are important to them, as they are to you at the fitness services delivery level. If you catch a trend, you might build a new business or way of doing business. If you catch a fad you can cash in for a while, assuming you get in and out at the right times.

A key to success in the fitness business is knowing the difference between fads, trends and fundamentals.

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More so than the Net itself, in-progress deregulation of the utilities industry is driving change here. Consumers in 21 states can now choose their power and gas supplier, and nationwide deregulation should be complete by 2008. Meanwhile, the Net has merely given utility companies a user-friendly makeover, and generated a few online middlemen with moderate effect.

Deregulation and the Internet have forced utilities to become more customer-friendly through online services. Led by Con Edison and Boston Edison, the industry has been the fastest adopter of online bill presentment and payment, which saves $1.15 per bill — that’s $23 million for the industry in 1999 and a whole lot of trees. Real-time billing and metering online is coming soon. Problem is customers must adopt the services in order for them to matter. Companies such as Con Edison send bills online and through snail mail unless customers request otherwise. But over the next two years billing will migrate online, predicts Datamonitor’s Alison C. Hills.

Here’s where the action is: Altra is the online B-to-B energy exchange where utilities buy and sell oil, natural gas, and energy. Other companies have emerged as online power middlemen who buy wholesale from power producers, and then mark it up for online sales. Utility.com promises cheaper rates (though the difference is minimal to most consumers) and GreenMountain.com sells only wind, hydroelectric, solar, and geothermal power. Essential.com bundles energy with phone and Internet access. Feasible…if customers want brand-name power.

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That’s why we joked in our Light Bulbs to Yottabits book that in the future, you’ll go to answer your front door, and see the Maytag repairman. “I didn’t call you,” you’ll say. “No, your fridge did.”

Far-fetched? Perhaps, but more believable than the idea of ordering fried chicken with my TV remote through the MegaConvergeCorp Multimedia Interactive SuperChannel.

Once you start thinking about the Internet chip, you begin to realize how far reaching the implications of the converged world will be. As anyone involved with Y2K knows, we are already surrounded by microprocessors. Intel suggests that by noon, most of us have already interacted with 130 different microprocessors. They’re in our cars, cellphones, toaster ovens and garage door openers. It is estimated that there are 600 billion of them.

And the simple fact is, the next generation of microprocessors, in development now, is being engineered with the ability to talk TCP/IP. And once you do that, the fundamental role of the microprocessor, and the device in which it is embedded, forever changes.

One of the most fascinating areas of opportunity is the manufacturing sector. IP-chips permit a level of interaction and monitoring of the production process never possible previously. Or consider a $5 device with a chip in it that can monitor the flow in a flood prone river. Attach a few to several bridge supports, build an application, and you’ve got a tool by which emergency crews can monitor for dangerous conditions. The possibilities are endless, and intriguing.

Career opportunities? I think there will be plenty with anything having to do with the word “embedded.” There are already many companies actively working in the area of hardware. The embedded software market is extremely active. Then there are the control and monitoring systems that go with this interconnected world, not to mention the opportunities that will emerge in interface design. I think this will prove to be one of the most fascinating and fast-paced areas in the world of technology in the years to come.

As for the other idea of convergence? Twenty years from now, we will have the same old, tired entertainment telecom and broadcast executives pushing their idea of the supercharged ad-driven couch-potato entertainment universe. And most of us will still continue ignoring them.

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After all, it is the most over- used, overdone, overhyped phrase to come out of the Information Age.

I shudder every time I see yet another telecom, broadcast or entertainment executive talk about their vision of convergence. From their perspective, it is a world in which we become wired couch potatoes. We’ll watch their latest entertainment pap on TV, and as soon as something catches our eye — zap — we’ll click our way into consumer heaven, instantly using our remote control to buy the latest, greatest Chia-Pet.

Gosh, when are these people going to get a clue?

To many, convergence is more than warmed-over, stale, rehashed ideas that have little likelihood of succeeding. Indeed, the real concept of convergence is found in the fact that in the next 10 years, much of the Internet is going to disappear as the world of microprocessors becomes tightly linked to the Internet.

From my perspective, one of the most significant developments today is that the very essence of the computer revolution — the microprocessor — is about to become an integral part of our global Internet.

The emergence of the Internet chip, or what I call the “IP-chip” (for Internet-Protocol-Chip) is going to lead to some pretty fascinating developments through the next 20 years. It leads us into a world in which the various devices that surround us in our day-to-day lives, whether used for personal or business reasons, are about to become linked to the Internet. And to me, that’s convergence.

Let’s contrast the “old” model of convergence with the IP-chip model. In the old model, bandied about by those who don’t have a clue, one day we’ll buy an Internet fridge. They believe consumers will want a fridge with a Web screen, and we will stand there and surf the Web, buying our groceries. A bar code reader built into the fridge will “see” that we have just emptied a milk carton, and instruct the fridge to go off and buy a carton or two. As it does so, it will flash us some great coupon offers for yogurt and instant Pina Colada mix.

In their converged world, our fridge — heck, our kitchen — becomes yet another shrine to consumerism, a world in which we are all too willing to turn our homes into a non-stop, flashy-trashy advertising extravaganza.

As if.

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Shivaree’s singer/song-writer Ambrosia Parsley combines simple, almost child-like music with distinctly un-childish lyrics (“You’re a back-stabbing Hollywood pill/You know you’re working for the devil.”). Parsley collaborated with Duke McVinnie on guitar and bass and Danny McGough on keyboards to infuse this debut album with an eclectic mix of everything from country to funk, with even a little waltz thrown in.

It’s hard to pin down a description of Shivaree’s music: songs range from the Sheryl Crow-esque “Daring Lousy Guy,” to “Lunch,” which sounds like late Cyndi Lauper.

But overall, the pleasantly experimental style could perhaps be best described as sounding like Beck on downers. (In fact, Shivaree worked with one of Beck’s producers on this album.)

The band says that much of I Oughtta was recorded in producer Joe Henry’s backyard, and it shows. Nothing is rushed about the album, and there are no hard edges. The dreamy, whimsical results would make the perfect soundtrack for a slacker summer afternoon-or a David Lynch film.

Scanners are very popular with users of the Internet. No wonder — if you have a Web site, you’ll find that a scanner is invaluable in converting a variety of images for use on your site.

But scanners have many more applications beyond making Web graphics. If you are in a line of business that involves a product catalogue or some other form of graphic representation, you may want to move this information into a computer database. Use a scanner to capture each image, and then try a program such as ThumbsPlus (http://www.cerious.com) to build a simple database of your images.

You can create more sophisticated databases using programs such as Polaroid DisplayCase (www.polaroid.com/products/displaycase/index.html). The software allows you to link each photo to a variety of other information. A real estate agent, for example, may use it to build a database of properties for sale.

Scanners are also extremely useful for those who need to transfer a large amount of printed text or other material to a computer. In the past few years, optical character recognition technology used in scanning devices has matured to the point where it is now very easy to transfer text on a paper document to a PC.

I’ve been using Adobe Acrobat Capture (http://www.adobe.com) to convert several hundred pages of text. The program does a fabulous job of scanning each page and creating a document that can be imported into a database. That alone has made the scanner investment worthwhile. There are some frustrations with the technology — generated documents are not always 100-per-cent accurate — but it beats retyping the information.

Finally, once you get a scanner, you may also end up with a makeshift photocopier. For example, my Hewlett Packard ScanJet came with copy software. Just insert a document into the scanner, press the copy button in this software, and a copy comes out of the printer. The quality is adequate for small needs, but you will still go to the local copy store with larger-scale jobs.

One thing to keep in mind when purchasing a scanner is that investing in a higher-quality product can be worth it. The scanner market has changed dramatically in the past several years, with a wide variety of inexpensive models becoming available for under $100. While these devices definitely work for basic scanning and copying, you may find that some will not do so well with an optical character recognition program.

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This reality is typical of what many in the work force face as the 21st century unfolds. We are entering a jobless economy.

What’s developing is an economy of consultants — nomadic workers, if you like. Those who work out of a small office/home office are the vanguard of a significant structural change to the work force.

What does this have to do with technology? Quite a bit — the Internet is laying the foundation for an economy in which a growing number of nomadic workers will serve clients far beyond their local geographic area. It’s an economy in which part-time or contract work will become the norm, rather than the exception.

Many large organizations are reluctant to hire full-time staff, not wanting to pay potentially huge severance packages if jobs have to be cut in the future. They worry that the next time there is a recession, it will cost a fortune to downsize. Not only that, but many companies realize they only need certain skills for a short period.

Both factors have led to an increasing reliance on part-time or contract workers. There has also been a seismic shift in many entrepreneurs’ attitude toward work. So many were rightsized, re-engineered and re-organized in the nineties that they have little corporate loyalty and prefer to be responsible for themselves.

Many people took their severance package and decided they would rather be self-employed. The result has been an explosion in the number who contract out their skills and talents to the corporate sector on an as-needed basis.

We’ve got the perfect situation where companies need a lot of part-time help, and a large group of people fit the mould.

Where does the Internet come in? It is the technology that links the corporate sector, hungry for needed skills, and the part-time worker eager to provide them.

It gives the nomadic worker the opportunity to post an on-line re sume to market their talents to a potential global audience in search of them. It allows them to instantly communicate with existing and potential clients via E-mail. It also provides resources they can use to constantly enhance and upgrade their skills.

You only need to scan at the careers section in a newspaper for an idea of where the economy is headed as this structural change occurs. Take a look at careers in the information technology sector — it is probably fair to say that the majority of the positions available are on a contract basis.

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