Introduction

Hello:

My name is Ken Harris. I am Chairman of a futurist consultancy called The Consilience Group, LLC. We at Consilience have a mission of helping everyone interested in what the future may hold to see the parts of the future that can be seen up to as a much as a half century ahead. You can learn more about us by visiting our website http://www.theconsiiencegroup.com.

So why I am calling this blog Exerfuture? In it, I will be dealing with a myriad of issues related to the future of fitness and sports. My expertise in this field comes from my training and experience as a professional futurist (Gained by self-teaching and by taking training courses given by the World Future Society and others), my consulting work for a company called Sports Business Research, and my own participation in recreational fitness and sports activities and being a professional sports fan (mainly of baseball, football, and golf). Sports Business Research sells a vast array of data on the business of sports. You can learn more about their work by visiting their website (http://www.sbrnet.com). Sports Business Research has commissioned Consilience to write a series of studies on the future of fitness and sports. We published the first one Physical Activity Trends: Business and Policy Implications in October 2005 and the second Global Aging and Sports: The Impact of Aging on The World of Sports in October 2006. We plan to pubish report #3, the 2007 edition of Physical Activity Trends: Business and Policy Implications no later than October 2007. The first two reports are for sale. You can order them in print or on CD or DVD by calling me at 301-657-3731 or by emailing me at kenharris39@mac.com if you will pay by check or by calling the President of Sports Business Research, Mr. Dick Lipsey at 609-896-1996 if you will pay by credit card.

One of the most exciting phenomena in fitness and sports is the emergence of a vast network of recreational trails in all parts of the United States. These trails provide car-free places for Americans to get many forms of exercise like running, walking and bicycling, and Americans are flocking to them. For example, the one nearest my home in suburban Washington, DC, the Capital Crescent Trail is heavily used on weekends. I recently wrote a trend alert on recreational trails for the online newsletter Shaping Tomorrow. It was published in the June 13 issue.

Shaping Tomorrow is a wonderful publication for getting up-to-date information on many aspects of the future, not just the ones I am concentrating on right now--exercise, fitness, health, and sports. You can check out what they have to offer by visiting their website http://www.shapingtomorrow.com/a.cfm?a=consil.