New Improvements Coming!

Navsports has been a work in progress for a few years now and the development was really never meant to be easy.

But as a consequence of the longer period of time to build the site we have had the opportunity to learn, learn what works and what does not.

So graphics change, user interface gets better and new features are added in.Thanks to Marcelo and our small team that are contantly moulding Navsports into a great and successful website.

These are just some of the things we are working on at the moment and should have them up in the very near future.

1. A discount voucher system, this discount system is tied into the NavPoints rewards system which rewards Navsports users with points when they interact with the site.

This means that when you as a user followers a Team/Club/Organization you will get discount vouchers to use at those businesess.

For details see here navsports.com/project/cheerit/voucher_system.php

2. New and improved graphics, The look and feel of Navsports is very important to us and our users. we have hundreds of content pages on Navsports and over the last few years many pages had started to runaway from where they should be, So we have contracted Jenna Law an award winning Graphic design and user interface specialist who is based out of London.

Jenna has been instrumental in bringing Navsports upto date as a fresh clean and crisp site.

3. Navigating around Navsports huge site can get messy and we realised that, so thats why we sat back and went oh crap and then contacted Jenna who has improved the site 100%Well we have a few more things under development like allowing Users to create groups, these groups could be a fan page, sporting activity pages or just a general hang out for you and your friends.

Hope you enjoy Navsports and remember that this site is a stand alone product that has been custom built from the ground up over many years, with a very small team of dedicated people with a vision and that vision is to bring sport to everyone.

Cheers,

Stewart

Navsports Inc.

Well its official, Navsports Limited has an international arm in the United States of America. Navsports Inc has been established.

Navsports Inc. will make doing business in the States so much easier.

Anne Burgot Navsports Inc`s secretary and treasurer will be making contact with many organisations to get involved with Navsports.

With the upcoming trip to the States in October, we are busy organizing investor meetings and the like.

Also Navsports board has been extended to include Suzy Balogh (Olympic and Commonwealth Gold Medalist) and Marcelo Moraes.

The whole Board welcomes Suzy and Marcelo and looks forward to the many benefits they will bring to Navsports.

Cheers,
Stewart

Marcelo Moraes

Marcelo Moraes has join the board as an Executive Director.

Marcelo has long been Navsports Chief Information Officer responsible for the development of the software architecture that makes up the Navsports website.

Having Marcelo on the board only strenghtens the company in such a competitive market.We now have six Board members, they are Stewart Whicker CEO, Dean Viglione Chairman, Anne Burgot Managing Director, Marcelo Moraes Chief Infomation Officer, Mark Whicker Executive Director and Suzy Balogh Athlete Representitive.

The Navsports Board consists of the most passionate sports lovers and enthusiastic business people I know.

Having the right people on the bus makes for an exciting adventure.

Enough from me today.

Cheers,

Stewart

Navsports Board

Hi, its been a few weeks and its time for an update.

I would like to personally welcome Anne Burgot to the executive team, Joining the Navsports board as its fourth executive director.

Welcome Anne and we all look forward to the expertise you will bring to the company.

Further updates include the Navsports American version of the information memorandum and Mark and I have booked our flights to Texas for the 18th October 2009.

If someone said will Navsports become a very successful company, I would say it is already just have alook at the people on the board and the people involved in its development.

As time goes on more and more of the right people are becoming involved in an idea born out of making sport more transparent and easily accessible by all.

Oh I forgot to mention that Marcelo and his lovely wife Telma have moved back to Brazil from Japan to live and will be joining Mark and I in Texas in October.

Well thats the latest update on Navsports.

Cheers for now,
Stewart

Radio Interview - Deeper than the Game

My first radio interview was a blast.

Ar Lena Richardson the host of Deeper than the Game broadcasted out of Houston Texas USA interviewed me on Skype on the 21st August.

You can hear the interview here spiritquestradio.com/archiveweb/?p=Ar_Lena_Richardson-Deeper_Than_The_Game A big thanks to Ar Lena for having me on her show.

When I skyped into the interview Ar Lena was in the middle of a thunder storm in Houston, but after a few minutes of technical issues we set off on a great journey through my early sporting involvements to running a successful Tennis Academy to the dream that Navsports is.

The interview starts about four minutes in so fast forward.Cheers for now and catch you soon.

Stewart

Here we are!

Here we are after many a winding road.

Yes, we have finally landed in the United States of America the land of the Free and home of the Brave.

I have long dreamt of launching a sports website in the States and I have to thank a few people.

Number one has to be the Family and friends that have invested in a dream and number two has to be Marcelo Moraes a very humble and amazing man.Without these people Navsports would not be a reality.

So here it is Navsports America, I hope you enjoy, tell your friends and join a great website that can help you better enjoy your sport.

Cheers,

Stewart WhickerFounder/CEONavsports

Top photo - Thats Marcelo (left) and Me in Japan November 2008

So What Now?

So we have launched the Navsports USA site, so what are we going to do now?Well work even harder to market, develop relationships and improve the functioning of the site.

I made contact with a very delightful lady in Houston Texas who I met through Sportsmarketing2.0 her name is Arlena Richardson and she is a sports publicist.

We will be working closely with Arlena to promote and develop relationships with the site.

Mark and I are looking forward to traveling to Texas in October to meet with potential investors and meet up with Arlena and someone who has been working very hard on the Navsports USA site Anne Burgot.

We just added a comprehensive children’s policy and new features to notify minors parents of their children’s activities on the site, so now kids 6 to 13 can enjoy the many benefits Navsports has to offer including the Scout Me! area.

Our Linked Data Administration is fully functional and has been made available to National and State bodies to help them better promote their sport by accessing real time metrics on their sport country wide.

Well that’s the update for today.

Sign up, tell some friends and enjoy the site.

Cheers,
Stewart

Branding

Navsports as a brand should be an easy thing to market; it has so many things going for it.

Navsports appeals to the young and old alike, its a young fresh company, a practical online utility that lets you connect with local and national sports clubs and your sporty friends, it’s a great resource for all sports news and a great environment to contribute to and participate in many different sporting discussions.

So how do we brand Navsports? Well one of our ideas is to sponsor some of our aspiring young up and coming athletes by way of a clothing deal.Navsports has set its eyes on two young tennis players named Zachary Garland and Jonathan Bejar.

Zac and Jonny both train at the Marconi Tennis Academy and are a lead example of professionalism when it comes to their sport.

Two role models that will wear our newly designed warm up tracksuits at tournaments around Australia.Zac trains at the National High Performance Academy at the international tennis centre Home Bush NSW twice per week and is a stand out player amongst he’s peers.

And Jonny is a standout at tournaments around the State, continually making semis and finals of tournaments.

The Tracksuits have been specially designed by a leading Sydney design company called “Percept”.

Percept has worked closely with us to find the right fit when it comes to branding Navsports and we are excited about the fresh young and fashionable concepts they have delivered.

The look we have opted for is above, clean lines and a high fashion feel.

Thanks to Percept, Zac and Jonny Navsports will be branded in just the right way.

Cheers,

Stewart

The Problem with Australian Sport.

I am not sure if you have noticed lately but over the last ten to fifteen years Australia`s success on a National and International stage has declined dramatically.

Why is this so?I have been studying the decline of Australian sport now for the past five years and the conclusion that I have come to is not without controversy.

Let me be clear it’s not participation that has declined; participation is at its highest rate ever.

It’s the pursuit of excellence and the opportunities to become a world champion thathave declined.

The business of sport has stifled the dreams of so many young people and it’s a shame, human potential denied by greed.

In business the number one thing is to remain in business, the other is to not give your competitors advantages.And here in lies the problem, why give a customer the opportunity to improve by telling them that a better opportunity is just down the road at a competitors business, because that would be business suicide.

A few years ago I had a meeting with the General Manager of a major New SouthWales sporting organisation and the number one problem facing this organisation was, they just did not know how many private businesses and how many people frequent these businesses.

He knew who his affiliates where but not the sub affiliates in a given geographic area.I run a successful sporting complex and any overflow of customers I gladly refer to my competitors in our area.

I do this to keep the consumers interest alive in the sport they want to try.Sadly this does not happen in reverse, because it’s the belief that a lost customer to a competitor only emboldens the opposition.

This is so not true, it emboldens the consumer to know that they can participate when they want and to know that many opportunities exist to participate.

But what about the consumers that want to pursue their sport, the ones that want to reach the height’s that the sport can bring them, again this is stifled by the business of sport.I cannot blame a business person for putting their mortgage payments ahead offurthering an athlete’s development, that’s logical.

I was at a sports training lecture many years ago and the lecturer said that “Goodathletes cost you money”.

So in other words don’t work towards developing top athletes, just provide basic opportunities to keep them coming back to your business.

From a business point of view that statement is correct, so how do we change the way sport is run in Australia.Well businesses are not going to change; it has to be the consumer.

The consumer cannot afford to just stumble into their sport, they have to know exactly what, where and how sport can propel them forward in their endeavors.

In other words sport itself needs to become transparent and the internet is the perfect place to start.

A multiple sports directory and social friends site is the way forward, connect sports businesses, fans and athletes together and better opportunities will exist to get Australia back on top in the sporting world.

Cheers,

Stewart

Relevance

What is relevance?

According to Wikipedia "Relevance is a term used to describe how pertinent, connected, or applicable something is to a given matter.

A thing is relevant if it serves as a means to a given purpose."So the word relevance has been floating around my head the last few days and I have been meaning to write this blog about that word and how it relates or is relevant to Navsports.

As a social utility Navsports has been designed to be relevant to the consumer in many ways.1. Comprehensive sports club directory. 2.Latest sports news aggregator. 3. Sports social network of player’s, fans and athletes.

If Navsports is not relevant to consumers then the site fails and what’s relevant to one person may not be relevant to the other, so what is Navsports real relevance to the wider community?

The answer is transparency, that’s why I started creating Navsports in the first place.

To make sport open and easily accessible to the world, because I felt that the commercialization of sport had closed the doors on so many possibilities and opportunities.

I had the opportunity to meet and discuss the idea of Navsports with Suzy Balogh who is an amazing trap shooting athlete who has scaled the heights of her sport by winning an Olympic and Commonwealth Gold medal and she agrees that sport needs to be made more easily accessible to the wider community.

Since that meeting I have been fortunate enough to attend an open day held by Suzy at the Sydney International Shooting Range out at the Cecil Park complex, it was my first shooting experience and I loved it.

Sport allows so much opportunity in our lives from the satisfaction of personal achievement to the understanding of sacrifice, its character building and allows us to make lifelong friends.Suzy also shot a welcome to Navsports promo and a great interview for our Navsports sports intro video series.

Thanks to Suzy the concept of transparency has been reinforced, without it I would never have met her and had my first shooting lesson taught by an Olympic Gold medalist.

Navsports provides these opportunities not just to me but everyone.Over time I hope and pray that more and more people find Navsports helpful in showing them that their sporting opportunities might be just around the corner.

Cheers,

Stewart

A blog I posted on Sportmarketing2.0 (What have you learnt)

Hi Everybody,2009 with the world in economic crisis, I predict sports social media will explode.

Why because its sport, you can do it anytime and anywhere.

True it can cost but not to kick the ball around in the park or not to much cost to catch a live action game.

Interacting online is probably the quickest and one of the cheapest was to keep informed and to engage with your favourite team.So what have you learned in the last year, have you become wiser and more optimistic or have you hit a brick wall.

Jason Peck has it right on the money when he talks about brands interacting with their consumer base, providing one to one interaction is the key to success.

I want to know who in the group is doing this and how has it worked for you?.

Consumers want to not only feel that they are part of a team they want to feel they are the star of the team and rightly so, they are the ones who drive up the revenue.

Widgets, blogging, ratings and reviews are just a few of the things some major brands are starting to use, Some with great success and others sadly not.

Today more than ever the internet is one of the the most resourceful tools to engage other people, but after checking their emails, logging into facebook and catching up on the lastest news on Digg why would anyone come to your website?How to make your website one of only 3 or 4 stops is the key.

Personalised engagement is the answer, make the consumer feel like they are the star of the team, interact on a one to one basis, allow them to take control and you will have the next big thing in sports social media. Creative thinking is all you need, so what are you waiting for go on get in there.

CheersStewart Whicker

Dodgeball Charity Event - April 09

Wow what a day, I think many players are still sore even 4 days after the event.

April 5th will go down as one of the highlights of 2009.

We raised $2800 for the National Breast Cancer Foundation and had such a ball doing it (excuse the pun).

Thank you to all the players and especially to the Wetherill Park Rotarians that made the day possible.

And a huge thank you to our major Sponsors - Club Marconi and Lazer Runner Smithfield. For photos and a video of the day check out the our Dodgeball page on Navsports navsports.com.au/project/cheerit/club.php?id=20126 We even had an Olympic Gold medalist Suzy Balogh come out and give us a talk on what its like winning a gold medal and also as an Ambassodor for the NBCF a talk on a very worthy foundation.

What a day.

April already

How time flies.Again things are moving along really well, Marcelo is finishing of the new user profile designs and fixing a few small bugs here and there.

Dean is off to Singapore on the 8th April for an investor meeting.

Deans contacts in India like what navsports represents and have shown an interest in the product.

Jason Peck in America is putting together the sports intro interviews that will be featured on the Navsports USA website.

I am working on getting more sports intro interviews going to provide more quality content on the site.Members are streaming in nicely and the feed back has been awesome.

Well thats a small update on all things Navsports.

Keep tuned for moreStewart