ICT and the future of Bike Camp

While perhaps the parallels are not quite as obvious as with the University as an Organization example from the introduction to module 8, there are things about our business that we have changed with the introduction of new technologies, however the service that we provide, and our bread and butter, has remained the same. The business started 30 years ago teaching swim and bike lessons using pools and bikes, great instructors and lots of toys and play. Today, parents not only like summer camp for the many traditional reasons that parents have always sent their kids to camp; what is different about summer camps today though is that kids are unplugged for days, and even weeks. This reminded me of this very interesting article I read recently on this topic from the American Camp Association and serves as an important reminder of how we can make sure kids get a much needed break from tech too.

From the business side or things, our bricks and mortar service hasn’t changed, but our operations have. If we hadn’t adapted how we managed the business with the introduction of new technologies, we simply would not have been able to sustain the level of rapid growth that we’ve had. In the 6 years I’ve been there, we’ve gone from taking all registrations for our programs via phone and email only, tracking enrolment in Excel, and managing customer details on paper at all of our camps. Today, we have a complex database system that has been created by an in-house development team and includes an online registration portal, direct access for site leaders to access their class lists and prepare lessons at any time, and the ability to pull highly detailed reports that help us evaluate participant enrolment.

So while the lessons that we teach, and how we teach those lessons, has not changed, but our methods for getting registrations, managing camper information and maximizing efficiency have changed drastically. If anything, we had reached a point where if we didn’t do something about it, we were likely going to lose registrations. Parents are busy; if they can’t register for the program they want in a quick and easy way, they likely won’t register at all. Adapting to this socio technological expectation had become vital to our survival in the industry; we could no longer go without an online registration portal.

When I think about other ways in which ICT tools have impacted the way we do business, there are a few outside of the database. We’ve also transitioned from grassroots, on-the-ground marketing efforts in local communities to about 80% of our marketing efforts directed towards web and social media marketing efforts. We also use more advanced tools and technologies to communicate and collaborate with staff. Job applications, contracts, employee information and shift availability is all managed through a program called JotForm, instead of email and phone correspondence.

We’ve also introduced more collaboration tools to communicate with staff; we previously used Facebook and WhatsApp groups for mass communications, and are trying Slack for the first time this year. The Huws reading this week was enlightening with regards to our expectations from our employees; they are students, they pay is just above minimum wage and the shift times are very reasonable compared to many student jobs. At the same time, we definitely practice a “just in time” approach to shifts and scheduling, with hours only confirmed on the Sunday night prior to the week of work, leaving some staff either losing hours at the last minute, or “on call” in case we get more registrations, which I can see now really doesn’t seem all that fair, even though many of our staff seem just fine with it. This reading gave me some interesting insights into how we manage our seasonal staff.

ICT will continue to change the way we do business. We’ve already started to discuss how we can use group text messaging technology to send parents important reminders about our program, the possibility of adding a chat widget to our website with a direct line of communication to our customer care centre, and even having tablets at all of our camps so that we can be paper-free. If you had asked me if this was feasible 5 years ago, I couldn’t have imagined it. But, here we are today, having seen a rapid evolution of how ICT has impacted our business in recent years and I can’t help but agree that it’s the way forward.