In doing so, it will markedly reduce the number of potentially harmful bacteria in its poultry with a process that uses electron beams. This process does not require the storage or transportation of radioactive materials. “We have come to the conclusion in our research and evaluation of consumer acceptance that now is the time to take this step,” said Tyson spokesman Archie Schaffer III.

The Tyson announcement came the same week as a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that 76 million Americans suffer each year from food poisoning and about 5,000 die from it. Some of these cases of food poisoning are linked to chicken contaminated with harmful organisms such as salmonella and campylobacter. Generally, such contamination occurs in poultry, which has been improperly cooked, handled or stored.

Scientists have long known that irradiation can improve the quality and safety of foods. In fact, irradiation has been approved by the United States for controlling insects in wheat and flour in 1963, controlling contamination in dried spices and dehydrated vegetable seasonings in 1983, destroying trichina in pork in 1985, and for disinfesting fruits and vegetables of insects in 1986. The process does not and cannot make food radioactive.

Yet, until recently, very few Americans have even heard of it. It was only in 1992, that irradiation was approved in the United States for controlling foodborne pathogens in poultry. But poultry producers have been concerned that consumers might resist the process out of unfounded concerns about negative health effects.

Apparently, Tyson Foods has decided that the time has come to tell American consumers the truth: food irradiation has been systematically and comprehensively evaluated, and has been found to be safe and effective. The government requires that irradiated foods be labeled. But this may turn out to be a positive selling point if the label reads: “This poultry has been irradiated to ensure freshness and quality — and to control salmonella and other foodborne bacteria.”

Of course, irradiation does not eliminate the need to fully cook poultry — and keep it refrigerated, but it is a major step toward reducing the frequency of foodborne illness in this country. Tyson should be congratulated for taking the leadership role in launching this public health initiative.

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Detailed theories were developed considering why people exercise in the first place.6,7,8 This knowledge is important if we are to successfully intervene. Some theories have emphasized a person’s control and/or mastery over their exercise situation. Some have described “balance sheet” scenarios where participants’ weigh the pros and cons of exercise and carefully consider their options. Others have detailed the impact that physical and psychological feelings have on actions. While still others have suggested that self-esteem and perceptions of accomplishment are critically important.

The stages of change or “transtheoretical” model16 is gaining prominence. It hypothesizes that individuals are in one of six different “stages of readiness” to exercise at any given point in time. For example, persons in the “contemplation” stage, although seeing the validity of exercise, are not quite ready to commit to acting on it. They are the ones who call for information without being ready to start.

The “action” stage includes individuals who have begun to exercise but have in no way made it part of their routine. Some innovative projects have attempted to help persons advance through the stages.

These works have provided a basis for what we really care about: how we can alter dropout for the better. Since no theory has been proven to be effective to the exclusion of others, it is important that our exercise adherence methods cover many possible reasons for clients undertaking and maintaining exercise

A notable series of five studies by Canadian universities attempted to evaluate the impact of an exercise leader (who was trained in “team building” techniques) on cohesion and exercise dropout.6,7,10,9,11 Although the exercise leader-to-new-exerciser ratio was small (about one to 12), the leader spent a full four hours with the group each week, andpsychological testing indicates that task-related cohesion was improved, and adherence benefited. Due to the design of the studies, the results are inconclusive as to whether the leader was the important element for change, or whether other exercisers within the groups influenced the participants. These studies’ methods also had the practical disadvantage of requiring large amounts of exercise professionals’ time for a relatively small amount of exercisers. Similar time demands would be difficult to accommodate within existing fitness center staffing structures.

To find outif such a large amount of exercise leader time is required to promote feelings of cohesion, camaraderieand ongoing exercise success, another study was conducted.1For this study,the exercise leader played a more passive role. Groups of about 12 new exercisers (who were assessed as being at-risk for early drop out)tookpart in an exercise program thatprovided proper warm-up and cool-down, before and after the exercise program. Matching control groups (no warm-up orcool-down) also participated in the 15-week investigation. Anexercise professional led a five-minute warm-up (e.g., running inplace, stretching) within a racquetball- court-size room, then told the group to complete their own planned workouts and return at the end of the hour for a three- to four-minute cool-down. No mention was made for the group to stay together. The leader left the building and, hence, was not available for member interaction.

Results found thatgroup cohesion measured similarly to the previously described studies that required four hours per week ofinstructor time, compared to the less than half-an-hour that was used in this study. It was clear that, within five weeks, the new members felt part of a real group (see Table 1).

Without any direction, about 87 percentof the group members’ contact time within the facility was spent with people who shared their warm-up orcool-down time. Exercise adherence was 21 percent better than the control group. These members now felt connected.

Conclusions drawn from this study include the following: 1) the leader is not as important as the group members;2) simply getting novice, at-risk exercisers together is enough to raise cohesion and adherence.No special team-building initiatives seem to be necessary; and 3) similar methods can readily be adapted to benefit many fitness and wellness settings.

The model mirrors what Justice calls the “only successful micropayment system, ever, on a network-the telephone.” Just as local phone companies serve increasingly as a convenient billing agency for consumers who make related purchases (900 numbers, automatic bill-payment, and even hard goods), iPIN aims to rope ISPs into a similar role as a billing service for their Net account holders, offering the service providers an additional revenue stream, and adding to their menu of consumer services that foster brand loyalty. “Take value-added services on the Web, sell them to the consumer and route the transaction back to their ISP bill. It makes perfect sense. Their ISP is what they know,” Justice says.

Six months after writing up his plan, and hoping that “a 10-page plan and a smart mouth might get me some funding,” Justice headed for California to test-drive his idea around the Internet-startup brain trust in Silicon Valley. By fall 1997, he landed an important partner in chief technology officer Alexandre Gonthier, an Internet consultant from France who had been head of technology at Red Dot Interactive. Not long afterward, Justice was networking his way through the venture capital circuit, and made an important connection in Amelio’s former aide at Apple, Jim Oliver, who made the introduction.

The iPIN plan fit neatly into Amelio’s post-Apple philosophy for venture finance. “There are two megatrends going on right now,” Amelio says. “Ubiquitous communications and electronic transactions. Both are inexorably changing our lives. When I saw iPIN, I thought, this plays into transactions, so that got me interested. And as I got to meet the team members, I realized this was a good group of guys very serious about doing what they’re doing.”

Fourteen million dollars later, iPIN is fueled for a go at the market, which has evolved significantly since the CyberCoin days. Among the many ecommerce forecasts issued by New York’s Jupiter Communications (see “Jumpin’ Jupiter,” p154) is a new one that has alternative online payment systems (including smart card systems, micropayment methods, and checking-withdrawal technology) accounting for up to 20 percent of all online consumer transactions by 2003.

While Jupiter analyst Ken Cassar remains skeptical about the growth of services such as iPIN’s, 20 percent of an estimated $41 billion in online transactions still comes to more than $8 billion. That’s more or less in line with Jupiter’s projection that the “paid content” market-news and subscription services, including the adult content market-will swell from $400 million in sales this year to more than $1.4 billion in 2003. That does not include the downloadable music and game markets, either, each a prime target for iPIN.

Together with the long distance calling cards, you can save money, since you may simply check your bill.

If the students’ goals are physical, such as weight loss or an increase in fitness level, you can keep their motivation strong by tracking body composition, flexibility, muscular strength and endurance, and aerobics capacity.

Progress awareness coupled with positive feedback will inspire your students to stay committed.
Research has suggested that flexible goal setting gets better results than fixed goal setting.

For instance, if a student’s goal is to perform 20 minutes of continuous aerobics, he or she has the freedom to modify the workout using less intensity if fatigue is a problem.

Since the inception of the telephone schedule recording, called the Group Exercise Hotline, staff can now devote more time to member service, rather than to answering questions about schedule and instructor changes. Members who prefer to dial-up online can view the class schedule on the Merck Web site. A quarterly schedule is also sent to each member two weeks before classes begin.

Members have the opportunity to take any class at their convenience, which is a definite appeal to employees using a corporate-based fitness facility. “We heard the employees’ concern with lack of time, and tailored our program to match their needs,” says Alderfer.

Four different lunch classes are offered in step, slide, circuit and toning at 11:15 and 11:30 a.m., and 12:15 and 1:15 p.m. Their “express” workouts offer short classes of 15 or 30 minutes, and their 41 weekly specialty classes are held at all hours of the day and night.

These classes feature workouts that are not only motivational and progressive, but that offer cross-training, and include all aspects of health and fitness. Strength, cardio, flexibility and relaxation are major components of workouts, which include country line dancing, kickboxing, pre- and post-natal classes, circuit training, step and slide classes, yoga, t’ai chi and karate. The staff also created a 15-minute abdominal workout video, which up to 50 members can use at their convenience on a daily basis.

Customer service takes on a whole new meaning at Merck. With the combination of its express workouts, telephone hotline and online class schedules, this facility is determined to give members the ultimate in fitness convenience.

That observation by Futurist magazine in 1996 is good to keep in mind as you tune up your career skills. You need to think about what you should do to ensure your digital survival.

If all of us regularly need new skills and capabilities, that implies we need to be able to learn about topics and issues rather quickly.That suggests many of us have to become experts at how to search for information on the Web.

Few people are actually good at doing on-line research. It’s no wonder. They don’t read the help screens and are generally impatient. They want instant search expertise, but don’t take the time to learn how to perform an effective search.

To make matters worse, most people have adopted one or two search engines and don’t realize their limitations, or aren’t aware of many other useful resources.

The first rule when searching the Internet is not to rely on one basic engine or directory. None are entirely comprehensive. Given that the Web is believed to contain more than one billion pages of information, it may come as a surprise that most well-known search engines contain only a few hundred million pages.

To get an idea of the limitations on-line, take a look at a report on Search Engine Watch (www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/sizes.html). If you are a regular user of services such as Altavista, InfoSeek or Lycos, you may be shocked to discover that they are anything but comprehensive. That’s why you should regularly try multiple engines when searching.

Be aware that there are many new, specialized or innovative sites around. The problem with many big search engines, such as Yahoo, is that they’ve become hugely cluttered.

You have to wade through advertising, news, directories and countless other bits of information simply to find the search box. That is why one of the most popular search engines is Google (http://www.google.com). A visit to the site shows why — it is simple, straightforward and to the point. Another innovative engine is Fast Search (http://www.alltheweb.com) .

Specific engines allow you to narrow your search to a particular topic. Look at searchengines.com (http://www.searchengines.com). This site provides a good way to find country-specific or topic-specific engines, which can often be used to conduct a far more effective search.

Finally, keep up to date on innovations that regularly occur in search technology. Take a look at the Search Engine Watch site (http://www.searchenginewatch.com). It provides a very good, up-to-date summary of developments.

It also provides a tremendous amount of guidance on how you can become a better on-line searcher. You could spend literally hours at this site reading about new search engines, research tips and other useful information.

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This is a question April Brendli can answer. Brendli is the assistant program manager at PaineWebber Health & Fitness Exchange. She also is the mastermind behind a comprehensive operations manual introduced last January that has already proven its worth. The manual has saved the Exchange more than $2,400 a year, Brendli estimates.

Brendli was driven to develop the manual after realizing how much time was spent on training. “I know how much time people spend in appointments, and how much time people spend trying to collect information. That’s what gave us the idea to create the manual,” she says. By centralizing information into one manual, she estimates a 93-percent increase in time management and a 50-percent reduction in staff training time. “We don’t have office hours here. We’re out on the floor training [members],” Brendli says. “It was important that we streamline the process so we didn’t have to get a substitute or stop working with people while we answer questions or train new staff.”

How can a manual do all this? For starters, its 500 pages fill two binders with every piece of procedural information that anyone at the Exchange could ever want to know. The manual is used both as a reference and training tool.

As a reference, the manual saves time for staff who have questions about policy. They no longer have to track someone down to find an answer about conducting blood pressure screening or where to find a membership application. Any staff member can utilize the manual as an immediate resource to assist a member or correct a problem. Staff can function as a team and cover each other’s work easily during absences or when short-staffed during a hiring transition.

As a training tool, the operations manual has made life easier for both management and newly hired staff. In the past, Brendli says, “I would have to go from person to person collecting information for the new staff. Then, the new staff would go to each area and spend time with the directors. For example, they would spend time with whoever did testing procedures, whoever did personal training, whoever did group exercise, and so on. Now, I can take the manual and hand it to a new person.”

Another example of improved efficiency is use of the manual when training newly promoted staff. A new person taking charge of an existing program can find information about that program in the manual.

“It took me months to compile all this information,” says Brendli, “but it was worth it. Now it’s in one place. In the past, you had to track down five people who had it in their computers.” A master copy of the manual is kept in a central location at the fitness center and it is easy to maintain and update, Brendli says. “Each week we have a staff meeting. If there’s a new program and a flier for that program, in the binder it goes.”

The Health & Fitness Exchange is one of more than 60 facilities owned and operated by parent company Medfit. “Because we’re the largest, and older than the others, people from other sites call us with questions,” Brendli said. Those phone calls averaged 20 each month during 1996, taking up eight to 16 hours of staff time. The manual has eliminated the need for those calls, Brendli said. The entire operations manual is on a computer disk, and with the click of a button can be distributed via email to all other sites.

It just goes to show, a little organization and planning up front can go a long way!

Known as the Communication Superhighway, the voice-mail system allows management to send messages, add comments from messages sent, and distribute information to multiple people/departments simultaneously. “Because of this innovation, we were able to reduce the frequency of staff meetings from once per week to once per month,” explains Michael Hasenbalg, vice president of marketing. “Because of the increased effectiveness in staff interaction and daily communication, it was no longer necessary to take key personnel away from actual productivity to meet for department updates each week.”

The interactive nature of the program also allows for specific questions to be answered through a voice message, reducing natural tendencies for “conversational tangents” that usually steal time throughout the day.

As a result of the automated communication, new membership sales and member retention rates have experienced double-digit growth, while costs associated with such growth have been reduced. “With this system, a club manager can effectively manage more people, which enables the management structure and decision-making process to be less vertical and more horizontal — thus, producing more with less,” Hasenbalg says.

Because of the method of extracting energy from radioactive sources, nuclear reactors offer multiple levels of stopping the reaction — and thus a defense in depth against an untoward reaction. The core of a reactor can melt, but then the core material will burrow into the ground. Conscientious choice of location and reactor design prevents leakage into water sources for consumption, and such a collection can be managed safely. Several partial meltdowns have occurred and in Western reactors the effects have been limited. Legends surrounding the Three Mile Island accident aside, there were no deaths at TMI, and all of the “injuries” were psychological reactions of a population primed to fear nuclear power, and needlessly evacuated by panicky officials.

The Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine had a combustible core — one of several structural differences that make it unlike any type of Western reactor — which left it vulnerable to the disaster that happened there in 1986.

The recent disaster at a fuel reprocessing center in Japan illustrates that even when confronted by human negligence and possibly even fraudulent practice, physical damage and human injury are easier to contain (and deaths are fewer) with nuclear plant accidents when compared with accidents at other large-scale energy conversion plants.

Those in charge at Tokaimura should be punished, as were the executives jailed in the 1993 incident at the nuclear facility at Forbach, France, a country that depends on nuclear fuel for more than 85 percent of its electricity demands. In human affairs, errors can be minimized but not eliminated, and one must choose the best among what is available.

It is time to uproot the myths surrounding nuclear-generated electricity and embrace it as a source that is cleaner, more abundant and safer than any other. Industrialized nations will run on nuclear energy in the future; why should we suffer from irrationally avoiding it now?

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