Socially Warcraft is the new golf, but golf is still coached professionally

I mentioned in my 2009 predictions that there were some exciting things I had seen going on with both social media/web 2.0 and virtual worlds and specific applications to deal with something as a whole.
One such business currently in development, that got my interest, is around the sports coaching profession. Sports coaches all around the world in every sport from amateur to elite have mandated processes from their sport governing bodies and country governments to maintain their professional standards. Much of this can now benefit from the online tools and social interaction that we have seen grow the past few years.
Peter Meli is the man behind the formation of The Global Coaches Social Network, The Coaches Centre GCSN/TCC. A business currently building prototypes and expanding on extensive research into what coaches need, what their governing bodies require and how to improve and expand on the potential of a global approach to sports coaching.
Education, training and certification combined with professional directed social networks clearly make a great deal of sense. In addition the physical and spatial nature of sport is ideal to be represented with virtual world technology, as we have shown with our experiments with Wimbledon. That can range from the sort of simulations we see in todays high end games, to the more basic needs of a business meeting of a committee, to a convention for coaches, to a coaching masterclass from an elite coach.
The project itself is for the International Council for Coach Education(ICCE) and is in partnership with Pearson Learning and ECS.
coaches centre
Image from GCSN/TCC & ECS

This project is not about one technology, or one platform but about the set of people who can benefit from it. In this case the sports coaches and hence the athletes they motivate, train and grow. It is also about global partnerships, tailoring to local country needs and hence has some interesting challenges.
It is very ambitious, but the groundwork has been done over the past few years and its ready to take the next steps.
Peter told me “The objectives are straight forward: Build and organize an online community of coaches, transition offline transactions online, create new revenue streams to ICCE member organizations”
The last element is where I am sure many of you can see the potential here. The provision of services to a known community for sports coaches in a virtual world or social media platform has elements of both professional subscription, advertising, sponsorship, content distribution, physical and virtual product sales and also elements of entertainment (fantasy leagues, coaching games etc).
If you want to know more Peter is on Linkedin and keen to talk to prospective partners and share his very real passion for where his business is heading.
Given the online games and sports and the new golf what is World Of Warcraft whilst not yet having quite the same recognition professionally already by their very nature use all the online tools to both compete, train and communicate it makes sense that the old golf and all the other sports should get in on the act.

coaches centre
Image from GCSN/TCC & ECS

9 thoughts on “Socially Warcraft is the new golf, but golf is still coached professionally

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