Each year, millions of people volunteer to coach youth sports, but not all of them have the time or resources to develop fun and effective training programs for their teams. CoachDeck offers a simple yet innovative solution to ensure that coaches never repeat “the same boring practice”—handy reference cards with easy-to-understand practice drills, so that even the most time-crunched coaches can easily come up with unique programs, with very little preparation.

Designed by professional coaches, each deck contains 52 color-coded drills, most of which include a “Make it a Game” feature, plus two double-sided cards on Safety, Terminology, Practice and How to Use CoachDeck. Coaches can carry the cards in their pockets and fan them out for players to randomly select drills. They make a great tool for parents who want to work with their children on athletic skills, too. CoachDeck is currently available for baseball and soccer, with plans to release a basketball version this fall. Decks can be ordered online for USD 19.95 each, with discounts for bulk orders.

While information on sports drills has long been available in books and videos, putting them on playing cards is a new approach—and one that's portable, fun and easy to use. It's an idea that easily could be duplicated or expanded on for just about any type of training, including sales and marketing, team-building for businesses, foreign languages and more.

Website: www.coachdeck.com
Contact: www.coachdeck.com/corporate/contact_us.asp

Spotted by: Jason Patrick

Residents and visitors in the Bay Area who want to expand their culinary expertise and sharpen their palates can brush up on their cheddars and bleus at the Cheese School of San Francisco. The school’s curriculum ranges from Cheese 101 courses—Basic Cheese Primer; Cheese Selection, Storage and Service and Cheese and Wine Pairing—to core studies by region and specialized classes in Fondue, Pub Tasting: Cheese and Beer, Farmstead Cheesemaking, Ga-Ga for Goat, Raw vs. Pasteurized: Fact and Fiction and Extreme Cheese.

Taught by a faculty of esteemed cheese connoisseurs, individual classes are USD 60 per person, with a discount for taking a series, such as Cheese 101. The school also hosts special seasonal events, such as the St. Patrick's Day special on cheese and beer, and drop-in nights, which offer a sampling of cheeses and cheese knowledge for a reduced rate and without the need for reservations. In addition, the Cheese School is available for private and corporate events, and courses can even be brought to other venues. Gift certificates are also available.

Like other status skills, a culinary knowledge of cheese is hardly an essential life skill, but rather a sophisticated and leisurely pursuit. The Cheese School is based in San Francisco and is (obviously) limited to cheese, but there's no reason this concept couldn't take off in other areas where consumers with a lust for knowledge are looking for expertise to wow their friends and associates with. For related examples, check out trendwatching.com’s briefing on status skills.

Website: www.cheeseschoolsf.com
Contact: www.cheeseschoolsf.com/contact

Spotted by Tina Riter

Giving customers the opportunity to learn a few words of Korean or Portuguese while en route to Seoul or São Paulo, Air France introduced in-flight language instruction on selected flights this month. An interactive audiovisual language program developed by Berlitz, the service works on regular in-flight entertainment screens. Passengers can learn and practice the basics of 23 different languages, in four main lesson categories: numbers, dates, words and dialogue.

JAL and Singapore Airlines also offer Berlitz Word Traveller as part of their in-flight entertainment package, and Virgin Atlantic has experimented with Japanese and Spanish lessons. It's a great example of trendwatching.com's status skills trend. As many consumers are demonstrating a value shift in status from passive consumption to mastering skills, smart companies are offering their customers the opportunity to add to their skill set. Similar initiatives include BMW's Performance Driving Schools, the Sony Digital University or the Viking Cooking School. Watch and learn!

Websites: www.airfrance.com - www.jal.com - www.singaporeair.com - www.virginatlantic.com

Spotted by: Sophie Schmitt

While indoor bike rides through pre-recorded video landscapes are nothing new, Connect18 has added a twist: immersion learning. Not only is this a fabulous example of multitasking, but combining exercise and education makes them both more enjoyable. Connect18 Group Tours offers the opportunity for a team of riders on stationary bikes to learn Spanish, for instance, while cycling through rural Mexico. Or to virtually tour the California Wine Country while learning about the region’s whites and reds. Certified instructors help motivate and encourage interaction among the group, and the scenery goes by more quickly or slowly based on the instructor's pace.

While Connect18 has yet to expand its reach beyond San Francisco and surrounding areas, the potential market for this revolutionary fitness and learning concept stretches across the map. And the potential to expand on this idea may be even greater. Not only is the variety of subject matter for courses nearly limitless, but workouts could be adapted to all manner of fitness equipment, including treadmills, rowing machines, stair climbers, elliptical trainers and cross-country ski simulators. An obvious enhancement (and business opportunity) would be individual DVD tours that could be done in front of home television screens.

A focus on learning and skills is something trendwatching.com has identified as a major trend, grounded in a shift in consumer values: “In economies that increasingly depend on creative thinking and acting, well-known status symbols tied to owning and consuming goods and services will find worthy competition from status skills.”

Website: www.connect18.com
Contact: John Ford, john@connect18.com

Spotted by: Helene Goupil

Educational, cultural and fun, the Scholar Ship presents a new model for international education. The Scholar Ship is a semester-long academic program aboard a dedicated passenger ship that will traverse the globe on an itinerary that brings the world to its students. Although not entirely novel – similar initiatives SEA and Semester At Sea started decades ago - this is an appealing new version of the concept, with a particularly strong focus on multi-culturalism.

A carefully developed itinerary aims to provide 600-700 students with a truly global perspective. The inaugural September-December 2007 journey will begin in Piraeus, Greece and take in five continents before ending in Kobe, Japan. (The January-April semester will travel in the opposite direction.) Costs for a semester, including tuition, living costs and voyage, are USD 19,950 for a standard cabin.

Scholar Ship is partnering with Royal Caribbean and the United Nations University and is backed by a consortium of universities in Australia, China, Morocco, Mexico and Ghana. Talks are underway with US and UK universities. Academic credits will be awarded by Macquarie University in Sydney. Engaging multinational employers from the get-go, the organisation's charter members include HSBC, IBM, InterContinental Hotels, KPMG and Microsoft.

“The Scholar Ship’s academic program is designed to nurture the next generation of leaders by equipping them with the international network and multi-cultural outlook that are highly valued by employers today,” says the president of the Scholar Ship, Dr Joseph Olander. From an entrepreneurial point of view, the Scholar Ship presents a clever model that will enable educators to partner with existing cruise ship players.

Website: www.thescholarship.com
Contact: study@thescholarship.com