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The last few weeks have finally seen some much needed TLC for the PBscience website. One of the aspects that we have looked at is the role that the site has in supporting the PBscience community with their training and other preparations. Hidden behind the member login has been steadily building a big resource library, with close to 50 factsheets and a comprehensive session descriptions section to help with the execution and subsequent analysis of individual workouts. It’s long been my suspicion that these resources haven’t actually been that well used and sure enough, a quick look at the ‘stats’ reveals that none of the factsheets for example, have seen more than 20 hits in the last few years.
So, we’ve decided to open up our online library as a free to access resource.
 A morning in front of the computer screens was enough to get the majority of the structural changes in place. Some people have recently worried that Helen has dropped off the face of the planet but this picture shows she is still alive and well (I've just been working her hard!). Firstly, rather than just making the pdf documents freely available, we’ve taken the choice to move the content over to html based webpages. This means that every fact sheet will undergo a review (rather than just a cut and paste job) and it opens up the possibility of embedding videos and other types of media to help make the information a little clearer.
Initially I was concerned that in effect this was taking something away from our existing members. However, I’m fairly confident that they will also benefit from this move. I’ve become more and more aware, that the athletes who work with PBscience choose to do so to work with the PBscience team, NOT because of the material on the website. Also, our members weren’t able to make use of the material in its existing form. For many time is an issue – it’s hard enough fitting training around a busy schedule let alone finding time to sit and read about it as well. Moreover the navigation on the site is not the best at the moment, so by removing some of the ‘layers’ pertaining to the member login it’s hoped we can streamline this and make the information more accessible to members and non-members alike.
I’m a big fan of the growing online support for freedom of information, so much of what I have learnt has come from studying other peoples websites, blogs and articles and I do feel slightly hypocritical having paid for none of this freely available information and then hiding our own work behind a veil of secrecy...
From our perspective, a greater readership of our material should offer more frequent questioning of our ideas and beliefs. I certainly hope that this will help refine and update some of our practices – placing ourselves under the spotlight in this way can only help our ‘quality control’!
From a business perspective, the accumulation of this material represents more accurately than anything the philosophy and best practises that we believe in at PBscience. Making this freely available should help perspective clients make a more informed decision on whether PBscience is likely to offer a coaching service that meets their requirements
Anyhow, because of the time taken in transferring the factsheet material into webpages this process isn’t going to happen overnight, but in the interests of goal setting I’m publically declaring my intention to have the material freely available online by January 28th, 2012. As a starter for 10, 'Training in Zone 2', ‘The importance of base building’ and ‘Top 10 errors for athletes’ are now available under the new factsheet menu item (see pic). Look out for more titles as they become available.
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