Winter Olympics

I am going to go out on a limb here and say I prefer the Winter Olympics to the Summer Olympics. I have enjoyed watching the Ice Skating and Snowboarding events and can’t wait for the Bobsleigh.

One thing which I find impressive is when countries who aren’t famed for their snow, ice or winter conditions do well at the winter sports like, China, Germany etc. the Winter Olympics also give the chance for smaller countries who may not do well at the summer Olympics to excel like the Scandinavian countries.

In British schools as part of PE youngsters get taught track and field events in the summer but in the winter its team sports like Rugby / Football / Hockey and Netball that get taught, I can’t think of many schools that would offer skiing or ice skating. Now I know this is because we don’t have the conditions and these sports can be very expensive to deliver but I think more needs to be done to encourage young people in to winter sports. This can be done through the use of ice-rinks, dry ski-slopes etc. I personally would have loved to have had the chance at school to do Snowboarding.

I hope the Winter Olympics can capture the imagination in this country and encourage more young people to give winter sports a try. I also hope that sporting bodies, education bodies and the government can put more money in to the development of winter sports in the UK, now that I care about how many medals we win any Olympics it would just be great to see young people getting the chance to participate in winter sports and excelling in them.

The Winter Olympics is the subject of our weekly topic, and you can share your views on the games by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=804

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Monetisation

I read a great article last week on monetisation in the music world. I am always a fan of people and industries who when faced with a problem think of a way around the problem or new avenues in which they can go down. The music industry has the problem of dwindling music sales so musicians and labels have had to diversify and find new ways to make money and to survive.

Back in the boom of the music industry it was record sales, royalties and sales of tickets to gigs which were in its bread and butter. Then in the late twentieth century other avenues of revenue were opened up like sponsorship and commercials following on from this in the early part of this century we then had reality TV which provided another way to make money.

Now however with the rise of the internet, the way we get hold of music and our attitudes towards paying for music artists and labels are having to be even more innovative with their ideas as they become entrepreneurs. What a lot of music acts are doing is instead of putting money in to trying to attract a bigger audience they are working hard to get their hardcore devoted fan base to fork out more money. Successful ideas have been artists writing personalized songs to their highest bidding fan, artists selling the ability to remix their songs and artists recording a version of any track the fan wanted them to cover to the highest bidder.

Now as a business model it is dangerous as if you are only marketing towards a small group of hardcore fans they are eventually going to run out of money but for the short term these ideas can generate a good sum of income. The best idea along this vein I have seen is bands selling the live recordings of their concert to their fans at the gig to take home on a USB pen drive as a memento of the experience.

I for one can’t wait to see or hear about the next innovative idea in the music world.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com