The Credit Union Innovators Podcast

Last week Tim McAlpine from Currency Marketing launched a podcast devoted to highlighting and interviewing passionate and inspirational people from the credit union movement. His first guest is Gene Blishen, the tech-and-people-savvy General Manager of Mt. Lehman Credit Union.

One of my favorite parts is Gene discussing the future of credit union survival:

The question I would first and foremost ask any board or credit union manager is “Are you relevant to your members?” and, “Do you have passion to exist?”

Word on the street is there’s talk of an interview with the CU Skeptic. Sweet conflict!

Listen to it on the web here or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here.

Banktastic, a social network for financial institutions

In late October of last year, the Garland Group launched this social knowledge hub for financial institutions. Now don’t get in a tizzy just because of the word “Bank.” Here are a few discussions happening in Banktastic:

• What is your favorite credit union marketing campaign of all time?
• Emerging Markets and What They Could Mean for CUs
• Using Mobile Phones to Make Remote Check Deposits (which is honestly worth a blog post of its own)

The community is currently in “semi-private beta” What does that mean? “We have no idea,” says Brad Garland. But you will need an invite to join. I have a few, and I know several others do too. Post in the comments if you’d like to join, and I bet you’ll get hooked up.

Update: The Banktastic Invite Fairy hooked me up with quite a few more invites. If you want one, email me at brent [at] trabian [dot] com.

Young & Free Alberta

If you haven’t taken time to look at the best credit union social media campaign in existence (only rivaled by ChangeEverything), please go check out CommonWealth CU’s Young & Free campaign (orchestrated by the crazy Canucks at Currency Marketing).

After running a contest to find the most charismatic and expressive person under 25 in Alberta, Canada to take a year-long gig as the CUs spokesprson, they hit a goldmine with winner Larissa (see yesterday’s post).

She blogs, she makes videos, she digs up free stuff, and she positions CommonWealth as a youth-centric credit union. And the entire campaign ties to their Young & Free Checking Account.

It’s brilliant.

Tech CU’s iPhone button

Says Gabriel Garcia in a comment on Netbanker (link added):

”...I created and iPhone icon for the Tech CU Blog. One of our members had coincidentally inquired about the same thing the day before. We tested it on his iPhone and enjoys it!”

What a cool way to engage tech-savvy members (of which I have a feeling Tech CU has many) while raising awareness of their blog.

Next stop? iBanking:

(Video of German bank Postbank’s iPhone account interface. Sorry, the video is in German…but the demo speaks for itself.)

The brass|SHOW

I’ve always dug the content Gen-Y experts brass|MEDIA put out in their made-for-gen-yers magazine, brass. It’s relevant, on-point, and an entertaining read.

In early Feb, they’ll launch the brass|SHOW. brass CEO Bryan Sims described it nicely in an email:

We developed a 3-5 minute video podcast about young adults, money and real world stuff, that credit unions can license and place on their site to begin delivering updated content rather than many of the static sites that are out there.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. And I’m especially looking forward to seeing how it is received by young members.

Check out an example of how the brass|SHOW could play out on a credit union site here

Did I miss something? Post other instances of CU New Media Awesomeness you’ve found in the comments.

This is a straight-up re-post from Currency Tim’s blog, but I don’t care because this video needs to be posted as many places in Credit Uniondom as possible.

Please watch 19-year old Larissa, spokesperson for Commonwealth CU’s Young & Free campaign, explain the difference between credit unions and banks.

To quote Charlie from an earlier tweet:

“Larissa’s vid is just what I have in mind when I picture a national CU vs Bank differentiation campaign.”

Question for Tim:

Would you ever consider re-editing, and re-releasing a less-Y&F-branded version for CUs to put on their own homepages, “about us” pages, and blogs?

Question for CUs:

Is this something you’d like to put in front of your members?

Gene rocks the Macs at Mt. Lehman. In today’s CUES Tech Port, Lisa writes:

While plenty of individuals go for Macs, we were interested to learn … that $40 million (U.S.) Mount Lehman Credit Union, Mount Lehman, British Columbia, is an all-Mac credit union.

“We have a few PCs out of necessity, not want,” wrote Gene Blishen, manager of the CU and chief blogger for Tinfoiling. “Every IT person working for us started as a PC guy and has ended up a Mac/Unix type.”

Blishen says when he joined the CU in 1992 that it was in need of some new computers. He already liked Macs and the Appletalk network allowed the credit union to do file sharing quite easily, without a server. Blishen says he worried a bit about staying on Macs until Apple incorporated Unix into its operating system, which made it really solid and usable. Now, with Vista and all of its reported problems on the horizon, Blishen is especially glad the CU uses Macs.

“We have a check printing program here and we bought a Vista machine to support it,” Blishen reports. But the staff had so many problems with Vista that “after a day and a half, we gave up and installed an earlier operating system on the machine.”

Gene isn’t stopping there. On his Twitter page last week, he announced:

Just ready to sign off on Mobile Banking Project with CUCBC. SMS only and iPhone prototype. How do you spell ‘excited’?

BTW, tomorrow is International Credit Union Day. Gene is spreading the word and would love to see other CUs doing the same.

Update 10/18: Mt. Lehman CU has started blogging at www.mlcublog.com.

The CU Skeptic has launched a blog.

He writes:

We aren’t going to be holding hands and singing kum-ba-ya over here. The “common thread” that resolves many disagreements in the cu world does not exist here.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy many of the cu blogs, and the people behind them are top notch. However, these blogs are have their roots so deep in the cu world, that they can’t be (outwardly) skeptical of the industry as a whole. They have to buy in. Their jobs/businesses are at stake.

Skeptic, I like your sass. I love your first post. But after thinking it over, I don’t care for your anonymity.

Please don’t abuse the blank check your anonymity affords you. The snarkiest commenters are usually anonymous; you’ve got a lot of power to make people lose sleep at night. Kathy Sierra is a sad case study of what anonymity can do in the blogosphere.

So welcome to the blogosphere. Hope that you change your mind and let folks know who you are. If you don’t, please stay responsible.

BTW, I absolutely agree:

At their current state, credit unions as a whole are no different than banks to the end user. Each have their share of sellouts and standouts, but in my eyes that’s the bottom line.

But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept that as the way it has to be.

Brent and I gave our “Building your relationship with Gen Y Members” presentation in Wisconsin a few weeks back.

One of the slices of feedback we got:

I was a little disappointed in the Gen Y presentation. They kept talking about social media, but saying not to do it.

That makes me feel good. Too many marketers are looking for a silver bullet, and social media isn’t it. I’ve never said, “Don’t do it.” But I have said, “Don’t do it without a strategy.” And I’ve said, “It’s not a fit for every business.”

During my co-presentation with Shari at Symposium, I showed the following slide:

My next point was:

I then called Tim McAlpine up to chat about Young & Free Alberta, which had just launched.

It’s immediately up there with Change Everything on my best FI social media campaign list. BTW, this outtake video from their CEO cracks me up:

Also gaining ground is what Diva Deb’s doing with the hoopty loan. As Charlie commented,

Talk about promoting thrift and building community. Nice work, CPCU.

So, back to the comment our WI presentation drew. I’d say that the keys to using social media successfully in your business are:

• You’ve got to have something compelling to talk about in the first place.
• It’s got to fit your culture. Thick skin is required.
• You’ve got to treat it as part of a larger marketing strategy.

Sure you can launch a blog or build a MySpace page or get that Jumbalooster account for your CU. But unless you know what you’re trying to accomplish, as Brent likes to say, all you’ll hear will be crickets chirping – or worse yet, criticism for not having it worked out in the first place.

Concerning financial institution websites, Ron says:

On some sites, the blog content might be the central focus of a product’s page, and on others, blog content might be sidebar material. On some sites, blog content will replace the lifestage content that appears on many sites, letting customers themselves dictate the content, tone, and direction of what appears.

Why will FIs do this? Because they’ll learn that engaging customers and prospects in conversations is the best way to sell their products. The trust they’ll build by doing this will outweigh the competitor down the street offering a CD with one-quarter of a percent better rate. That won’t be enough to get consumers to move and switch.

I agree.

The big players get this. Name a big bank – heck, name a billion-dollar CU – who’s not thinking social media right now.

I believe marketing will twist management’s arm to get this done across the board. That said, there will be resistance.

Just like there was resistance to having a website in the first place.

On an Unrelated Note:

Please come say hi to us in Mad-town or Spokane this week at the League events there. Brent and I will have Open Source CU schwag on us and we’re just itching to give it away.

Also, congrats to Team Little Guy for crossing the finish line and raising a small fortune. I had a blast in North Carolina with Jeff and crew last week – even got to meet Dan and Matt!

Here are three cool stories for your Monday morning (er, afternoon – I started on this first thing today and now it’s lunchtime):

CUblogs.org

Robbie has set up cublogs.org, where you or your CU can set up a free blog powered by WordPressMu.

Robbie points out, “And if you are one of the 3000 or so CU’s without a homepage, drop me a line. I would love the opportunity to help out any CU setup a free website!”

He’s had a great discussion going on about Mutual Savings CU who is using WordPress as their content management system.

By the way, it really is depressing that nearly 3,000 CUs have zero web presence. NCUA data from year end 2006 shows 5,524 of 8,362 CUs having websites. That doesn’t mean home banking. Web. Sites.

Filene plans a Radical Sabbatical

Our friends at the Filene Research Institute are creating positions for crazy good sabbaticals. Radical, if you will. So, if your employer can spare you anywhere from three months to two years, you best get to applying.

Mark Meyer explains the opportunities perfectly on their new podcast. Mark’s buttery voice is rivaled only in this industry by Rob’s.

CUNA nears launch of MoneyMix

The folks at CUNA are getting a much-needed update to their youth-oriented product. Don’t know if this means Googolplex is out, but IMHO it should be. Yikes.

The thing I like most about the MoneyMix product (slated to launch 8/31) isn’t the blogging functionality – it’s the savings tracker. I can’t tell too much from the screens, but it’s a good idea if it gets pulled off correctly. For starters, a Facebook app would be ideal, as the social aspect of goal-sharing shouldn’t be overlooked. Consider Wesabe, which, by the way, makes your online banking interface look like a baby-hating seal clubber.

Teach the kids, as Javelin says.

Dude, Where’s my money is just as stimulating as the movie to which it pays homage.

“Tired of getting those LAME credit card offers? Wonder what’s the big deal about a credit score? Wanna buy your first rideor pimp out the one you have?” [sic]

Stunning.

After the illumination that was BarCampBankSeattle (I’ll be gathering thoughts to post during flights all day), I don’t have the energy to tell you why this “blog” from Illinois State University CU represents everything you shouldn’t do with social media.

A comment thread on another blog has made me realize that most credit unions don’t get social media. By now they’ve all at least heard of “blogs,” but few understand that social media can make business sense. I’ll get to the comment thread in question later in this post, but first I want to start with a story about one credit union exec who does see the value in social media. His CU was even a sponsor of Northern Voice 2007!

Gene Blishen writes the Tinfoiling blog. He’s the general manager of Mount Lehman Credit Union, which he describes as “a small credit union just outside of Vancouver B.C. We live among the giants (Vancity, Coast Capital, Envision, Prospera). We are small but nimble and have a purposeful strategy – Serve the member.” (BTW, I love their brand.)

On a recent post, he writes (emphasis and formatting added):

Someone once told me that small credit unions are a conscience for larger credit unions. We have this symbiotic relationship. As organizations grow larger it is apparent that their social conscience diminishes, not out of choice but because their size creates difficulties if not impossibilities on trying to maintain a focused and understood social conscience. That coupled with the new realization that marketing/PR is not appreciated when it is shoved in your face without any regard to who you are or what you think.

It’s like most advertising is in ‘black and white’, absolute, with the agenda to BUY. We have changed. Blogs and the internet have begun a very different dialogue between the buyer and the seller – there should be an eBay rating for all companies.

This difference produces marketing/PR that is in colour with every hue available. You have to now prove what you state and you don’t get a second chance. You could call it coloured no chance marketing. Because if you are wrong, or if an employee takes a stance that is at odds with what you are trying to idealize and that party that you offended understands blogging then watch out. From their small network someone has started pulling the thread and everything your business has done begins to unravel.

Does it mean much? Absolutely.

It is the lethal injection to the word of mouth buzz that is critical. It is permanent. What is posted on the internet is like something written on stone tablets. Pretty tough to erase and there for the world to see for a long time.

Brilliant. I wish the anonymous cowards commenters on this creditunions.com thread would see Gene’s post.

Note: I avoided getting involved in that conversation until someone tried to rip Verity for (a) blogging and (b) hiring Trabian. If you want to see what my writing looks like when I’m irate (and it takes a lot), comments # 17, 18, and 19 give a glimpse.

For the record, this isn’t at all against Callahan & Associates, it’s against the anonymous commenters. I love how Callahan is embracing social media with Scott’s work on his two blogs and I applaud yesterday’s launch of the CUSP blog. They understand social media.

But most financial institutions still don’t. Thank goodness for the ones who do, for the folks in that thread on the pro-social media side – the ones who are leading the charge.

P.S. I’m considering a move to Canada. Ok, just kidding – our landlord absolutely gets social media – but I do need to go visit Vancity, Social Signal, Currency Marketing, Gene C., Gene B., Darren, and Colin all on an extended road trip up north.

The Board of Directors for UFirst Federal Credit Union began blogging this month with The Boardcast.

They’re using the site to communicate with members about new building sites (see their Flickr page), board meeting topics and more. One post even lists the names of the Directors and how to get in touch with them through email and comments on the blog.

Most recently they posted concerning a security issue they faced with their credit and debit cards.

You may have been notified that your UFirst credit or debit card might have been compromised. As a precaution the cards that are listed as being “at risk” have been canceled and new cards are being issued. Visa has been communicating with CEO Bourgeois on a regular basis and has been keeping her informed on the status of this security breach on the part of TJX Corp. and its subsidiaries.

This post tells me exactly what I need to hear. “Here’s what happened, this is what we’re doing about it and here’s how you can help protect yourself and your credit.”

Where else do credit union members have access to their directors daily? Where else can the credit union member ask questions of their directors as soon as they arise? I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure they’re the first financial institution whose board is using social media this way.

Bravo to the directors at UFirst for seeing an opportunity to communicate with members and going for it. Keep this one in your feed reader as I have a feeling it’s only going to get better.

Two days after Shari blogged about how Verity means the state or quality of being true or real, they got a big chance to prove it. Their website got hacked.

From yesterday’s Spoofing Alert post:

It appears that our log-in button has been re-routed to an unauthorized website. We are in the process right now of trying break the link or pull down our site.

Please do not log in to home banking at this time.

If you did try to log on earlier today and were asked for your credit card numbers AND YOU GAVE THEM, please call this number immediately to notify us at 1-800-444-4589 option 2. Please leave us a message and we will return your call as soon as possible.

We will keep you updated on this blog site.

They’ve since pulled the main website down completely – and their blog is, from what I can tell, the primary point of online contact for their members. From an exchange in the comments:

Anonymous: I answered some screening questions the last time I logged in e.g mothers maiden name, etc. Were these authentic or spoofed?

Shari: It appears that the spoofing happened about 10 am this morning …. Unfortunately, those questions you answered were not from us. Without saying too much (because the perpetrators can read this site as well as we can) we have done a few things to shore up the problem but are not ready just yet to announce that everything is fixed.

Anonymous: It was actually already happening this morning at 6:30… long before 10.

Shari: Thank you for letting us know that. I had logged on at 5 am yesterday morning and everything was fine. The next confirmed log-in that we received was 10:00 am. So we now know it happened sometime between 5:00 am and 6:30 am.

Jim Bruene picked up on this first, and he points out there’s a “silver lining.”

As bad as this is, Verity should be applauded for the rapid response, using both its website and blog to get the word out.

Shari, this drama will pass. The last two posts you’ve made have probably been the toughest ones you’ve ever had to write, knowing that all of your online members’ eyes are now being directed to your blog. Keep your chin up; you’re making Verity’s name match the definition.

To everyone else, this should long serve as a case study of a blog’s potential as much more than a corporate marketing tool.

Our very own Trey Reeme is a guest on the latest episode of Current Issues in Credit Unions. And, might I say, he is quite eloquent and likeable.

Topics range from “Google-bombing” to “ways a credit union can improve its bottom line” to the melancholy business of “dealing with the death of a member” (legally, not emotionally).

Get it in iTunes, download it directly here, or visit the CiiCU site to listen.

And yes, I was making faces at him during most of the conference call.

Last week we were discussing the Open Source CU blog and how we got started. Thanks to the memory crutch that is Basecamp, we were able to find the internal post that kicked it all off. Here’s a peek into the beginning of OSCU and our vision for the industry:

Conversation with Doug [Williams] about CUES Session

I met Doug up at Starbucks last night to discuss the CUES session and work on the handouts. We had an AWESOME conversation about our vision for the CU industry and both left excited about the direction.

As I had mentioned before, my goal with our sessions at CUES isn’t to provide recommendations for making websites better or demonstrate how far behind CU’s are in the industry. My goal is to provide a unique, driving vision that will help credit unions create and implement an effective online strategy. I want to get them excited about the possibilities that are available if they “use the Internet effectively.”

Effective Use of the Internet: Revive the Community

At the beginning of the Credit Union Movement in the US, the movement took on the feel of a “Gospel Revival.” The founders did an amazing job of spreading the word about what credit unions were and why they should become members. Now, though, most people see credit unions as nothing more than a “type of bank” or a “bank alternative.” Credit unions talk about ways that they need to differentiate themselves, but the discussion almost always focuses on incremental improvements. The following is from CUES Skybox and was written by Henry Wirz, the President of Safe CU:

Credit unions should focus on how they will differentiate themselves from the other financial institutions. The trend has been for credit unions to move to community fields of membership and to offer a full line of service through most of the same delivery channels as banks. In addition credit unions are beginning to offer business services to small businesses. A “me too” strategy may not work. Credit unions need to offer members something different. I think some innovations that will differentiate credit unions are posting member direct deposits one day early, a form of negative float; guaranteeing members a closing date for their mortgage loan at the time of application; offering members a checking account with automatic reconciliation; helping members set up the bill-payer payee list; offering members analysis of their credit report and credit score.

Strategy and Tactics

I think that credit unions have a MUCH bigger opportunity to differentiate themselves. They should position themselves as a “trusted financial resource” and revive the sense of community that initially surrounded the credit union movement. In order to do this, they must increase communication, provide relevant content (information), and build trust by being knowledgeable and trustworthy. This is the strategy.

The tactics (implementation) is where technology (and hopefully Trabian) comes in.

Communication

The credit union leadership (CEO, board, of directors, etc.) should communicate DIRECTLY to the members, and including an article in the monthly newsletter or the annual report is not enough. This is where blogs would come in. Doug wasn’t very excited about the idea of blogs for credit unions when we first started talking, but after discussing the possibilities and defining the strategy that we want to present, he was fired up about it. This could be HUGE for removing layers of impersonality and opening the conversation with members.

Credit unions also need to enhance their internal communication, not just with other credit unions but within themselves. Many credit unions are spread over several branches, and most do a poor job of communicating. Doug had a good quote: “In a bad business, knowledge is stored within employees. In a good business, knowledge is stored within the business.” Chris has also mentioned several times the need for creating a “knowledge base” to share knowledge within HFCU. Increasing the amount of communication within a credit union and storing the knowledge created by the shared learning of the CU staff will help the CU present a coherent and consistent message to its members. It will help establish the CU as a trusted resource because the staff will provide informed answers to questions. If 2 different employees answer a question in 2 different ways, or if they don’t have an answer at all, then the CU will lose (or certainly not gain) credibility.

The technology used to facilitate internal communication will be internal blogs (think of how much Basecamp has helped us communicate internally and then consider how much more important it will be when we have 20 employees). The CU could then use a wiki (which is basically just a specialized CMS) or something similar to organize the shared knowledge of the staff.

We could also present the idea of forums to increase communication between members and to provide a place where members can initiate topics. Doug even mentioned the idea of allowing members to post their own vehicles for sale to other members. This would provide an additional opportunity for credit unions to offer their auto loan products.

Content

While communication is important, it means nothing if there’s no substance. It’s also meaningless if no record is kept of the communication. This is where the idea of relevant content comes in. CU leadership should provide relevant and interesting information to the members and the staff. Whether initially communicated through a blog, the annual report, or any other source, this content should be stored and presented in a meaningful way so that members and staff can continue to draw from it. I’m not proposing that every word out of a leader’s mouth should be recorded for posterity. What I am proposing, though, is that the content for a webpage about Auto Loans contain better content than “Loans for automobiles.” Also, as mentioned above, any knowledge communicated should be shared within the CU to help create a knowledgeable, consistent staff.

Building Trust

Credit unions will build trust by communicating helpful information to their members and continually demonstrating that everything they do is for the sake of their members’ financial benefit. Credit unions are not-for-profit institutions, but I doubt that many people see them in an altruistic light. By constantly serving as a source of beneficial communication and valuable content over a period of time, credit unions can build trust. Once the CU has built trust between itself and its members, it can offer (promote) its services and products much more effectively because the members will trust that they add real value to their financial situation. A credit union’s promotional strategy will focus less on “advertising” and more on “informing.”

Conclusion

When credit unions begin to build trust by communicating relevant content, they will do more than increase business and membership. They will Revive the Community.

This could be huge for us.

I’ve been watching for Vancity’s entry into social media for a while now – so much so that I feared a letdown. Oh my goodness, I was wrong! Thank you Vancity for launching this project.

Without a doubt, it’s the best example of any financial institution successfully using the social web (blogging, user-generated content, building a true online community). Wells Fargo should be taking notes along with every credit union with a culture open enough to participate in social media with their members.

From Rob Cottingham’s blog:

Targeted to people living in Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and Victoria, ChangeEverything.ca is a place where people can discuss, plan and make changes. Some of the changes are modest in scope (I want to get my bike out of storage, for instance), but some are a lot more ambitious – scrapping Daylight Savings Time or providing affordable housing for families with kids.

Users list their changes and blog about them… but that’s only the beginning. The real fun starts when users join each other’s changes and start collaborating and communicating. Even though it’s early days, you can already see the cross-pollination beginning to happen.

The site ties in with Vancity’s Change Everything ad campaign, but goes way beyond what you’d usually think of as marketing. That’s part of what’s made it such a joy to work on this project, especially since Vancity really gets the social web. I don’t know of another financial institution that’s launched such an open, inclusive online community.

Where do I start? Flickr integration. Members building content to affect change throughout the community. This just scratches the surface. You must visit the site and see for yourself.

It’s exactly how the brand of a “credit union” is supposed to be represented. Efforts like this can change the entire industry/movement/whatever-you-care-to-call-it. And while I’m on that point, this site says “movement” not industry.

Brent just blurted out, “This is awesome. I signed up for an account.” Brent is hard to impress. As am I.

Yesterday, the new filene.org went live. I fully believe that Ed himself would have been a blogger – and he would’ve been pleased with the flattering pictures of him on the site. Check it out, leave a comment, and download some reports if you’re a member.

On the topic of Filene, one of their i3ers just happened to spend yesterday in our office – our good friend Doug True. We realized something pretty cool after we caught up for a couple of hours: this was the first time we’d met outside of email and our blogs.

And finally, one of our new friends Josh Jones of CUNA just hooked us up with a link to his blog, People, Not Profit. Enjoy!