I’ve been on a break from OSCU for the past two months (and if I’m being honest, I began my break long before that). The time away has convinced me that it’s probably best for me to step away permanently and let the boys at Trabian take the reins.

Not to get all gooshy, but I don’t know what I’d do without the conversations and friendships that have happened as a result of this blog. I’m lucky, and grateful.

I’m looking forward to talking more ideas and get into shenanigans with many of you in the future.

And I’ll still be scampering around the web at my blog, design studio, and on twitter.

Hope to talk to you soon.

That might not be the right reason to join the Filene Research Institute’s i3 group, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Since its launch in 2005, i3 has graduated 8 participants who went on to become credit union CEOs and 3 who went on to CEO fame elsewhere (at a state league and and two CUSOs). I’d be amazed if a few more didn’t make the same jump shortly. Wanna join?

Ambition aside, i3 tries to live the open source spirit. Everything the project puts out is available for any credit union to copy, er, use. It’s a lot of fun for us at Filene (road trip to Montreal anyone?), but because credit unions are collaborators at their core, and we just want a venue to turn talk into tasks and tasks into change.

Obviously we’d like you to apply, but I also want to make this a discussion board. I’ve invited past and present i3 ers to post their thoughts about the program here (that’s the shameless part). But we also want to hear from those of you who have been on the outside looking in: What’s working about the i3 program, and what could improve?

Sometimes I have back-to-back bursts of inspiration (read: motor mouth) where I have a lot to say on Twitter. And because you shouldn’t have to suffer through being pummeled with a Twitzkrieg™, we should all be glad that HootSuite exists.

I read about it last week on Alexandra Samuel’s post ‘Three weeks to Twitter credibility, part 1 .’ HootSuite does two things I love:

1. Manages multiple Twitter accounts, and
2. Allows you to schedule out tweets to auto-post later on.

So, if need be, now I can automate my minutiae to drop at a specific time in the future.

What apps make everyone’s-favorite-flavor-of-ADD work better for you?

(ps: Get it?)

To quote Gene:

“I know this is jumping on the trend wagon but had to blog about Susan Boyle…”

By now, I’m sure most of you have come across last week’s pop-culture spark Susan Boyle. If you haven’t, she’s a fairly eccentric lady who rocked socks on the American Idolesque Britain’s Got Talent. You can watch the wildly popular Youtube clip (currently at: 36,786,444 views) here.

Why is this story so compelling? Because she takes preconceived notions – what is expected going into this – and punches them right in the face. She surprises. Watch everyone’s eyes light up as her first few notes fall on the crowd. Twenty seconds later, she’s brought the whole auditorium to its feet.

When it comes to money, and the idea of how a financial institution behaves, this industry is littered with preconceived notions. “I’ll be stuck in debt forever.” “My only option is to default.” “I can never afford to own a home.” The groundwork for financial exasperation is thick.

Your movement began with this idea: the existing behavior of financial institutions is broken and destructive. It’s up to us to change everything.

Groups like Bucky Sebastian’s GTE Federal Credit Union are carrying the torch that burns, “we’re a brand new idea.”

There is no hope in never being surprised or surprising. If anyone can punch those tired ideas in the face, it’s you.

In the spirit of open source and cooperation, I thought it would be good to share a few tools and resources with readers that I have used or found recently on the web. All are free and easy to use with tremendous ROI.

Brand Monitoring and Research

“It’s about conversations, and the best communicators start as the best listeners.”
- Brian Solis, Social Media Manifesto

If you are going to embark on a social media campaign in the near future or even if you are not, you need to know what people are publicly saying about your credit union on the internet. Whether it’s news stories, blog postings (good and bad), tweets from Twitter, etc. – you need to listen…and take action if needed.

Why? Aside from being aware of press coverage, if a customer calls your call center and has a bad experience, they can blog about it for the whole world to see. And Google loves blogs. If someone Googles your credit union and related keywords, that information can very likely go to the top of the search results. Not good.

So how do you respond in cases like that? How do you even know when you need to respond? “With honesty. And if they put thought and effort into their post, it deserves a response,” says Vancity’s William Azaroff in a great blog post on the subject.

Google Alerts

Now you can Google (& Google Blog Search) your credit union name every day, but that takes time and a good memory. What you need are internet spies – meet Google Alerts. Google Alerts takes keywords that you give it and emails you any mentions of those as frequently as you want it to, searching the web, news, blogs, and even videos somehow. Many of you more savvy readers probably know about this tool already, but I was surprised recently at a recent social media presentation I was giving when only half the credit union marketers in the room raised their hands when I asked if they’ve heard of Google Alerts. And those of you that use the tool know that it’s worth repeating.

Some ideas for keywords:

• Your credit union name (in quotes so it doesn’t pick up every mention of every credit union in the world)
• Local competitors names
• Your credit union name + “sucks,” “awesome,” “customer service,” “complaints,” etc.

TweetBeep

What if someone talks about you on Twitter? You don’t have time to spend all your time typing your credit union name in Twitter Search. No worries – meet TweetBeep, which proclaims itself “like Google Alerts” for Twitter. It’s pretty neat – you can get email updates every hour and have a lot of control over what you want it to search for.

In addition to the keyword ideas above, you might also want to get a alert on TweetBeep for “credit union” + your city or surrounding area. Many people like to tweet, “Anyone know of a good credit union or bank in so and so?” What a great opportunity for you to tweet back “Check us out – we are a non-profit financial cooperative that is safe, sound & secure. Let me know if you need more info” or something similar in your own voice.

Yelp

How is your credit union being reviewed by others at yelp.com? I recommend checking the site out periodically or setting up an RSS feed to see what and how reviewers are rating your credit union. Use the feedback to amplify or retool your services.

Additional Tools

Local Business Center at Google Maps

Ever do a Google Maps search for a business and see that little pin pop up with more information? Did you know you can edit and add to that? Do it here for your credit union and any branches. Upload relevant photos and videos, web address, specify search categories, business hours, and much more. That way if someone searches Google Maps with “bank or credit union + your city,” you are ensuring accurate and relevant information is displayed.

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (SEO)

Here is another Google tool because, well, Google knows a little something about the internet, people use Google a lot, and almost everything they release is free. Do you want people to find your credit union and your web content in search results? Help members and non-members find you by optimizing your website and content for search engines – search engine optimization. There is a wealth of information on the subject on the web, but recently Google put together a nice little introductory .pdf with the essentials for you to download here. Once you understand the basics of SEO, you are on the road to better visibility.

Others? Tips? Tricks?

I hope you find these useful. If you have any other good free tools or have tips or tricks on the ones here, please add your thoughts. Together we are better

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Christopher Morris is the Web Manager for the CUNA Councils, a national organization for credit union professionals. Previously, Christopher was Manager of Communications & Information for the National Credit Union Foundation. As part of his marketing and public relations duties at the Foundation, Christopher built cuaid.coop, the first national online disaster relief fundraising system for credit unions. Christopher is also a blogger at the YES CU Blog: Serving 18-to-30s and a member of Filene Research Institute’s 30 under 30 group.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

The problems with the corporate credit union system bring up some interesting questions: As a natural-person credit union, are you treating your members with the same level of transparency and candor as you expected from the NCUA and the Corporates? What’s different (if anything)? What about timing of communications? Or involving members?

Just something to ponder as the situation progresses.

(Read more from Jeffry at The Financial Brand.)

While hanging around the GAC this year, I caught up with my friend Jamie Chase, Owner & Instigator of Goodness (yes, that’s her title) at CU Strategic Planning. During our talk, she brought me up to speed on her latest passion project, the American Debt Relief Challenge, built around this idea:

It’s not fancy. Just a simple truth. Not-for-profit credit unions have lower credit card rates than big, for-profit banks. When you transfer your debt to a credit union, more of your monthly payment is applied to reducing the debt and less to cover a high interest rate. It’s the easy and honest way to save a lot of money.

Here are some highlights from our conversation -

me: So what’s the backstory on this project?

JC: Over that coffee my friend Scott Butterfield described a balance transfer program which saved the average family $200 a month. Holy wow! That’s a car payment or station wagon full of groceries for most families. Credit unions across the U.S. are running balance transfer programs. What if we measured the national savings?

So we reached out to as many smart people as we knew at the time to help create the American Debt Relief Challenge.

me: How does it work?

JC: Credit unions have lower rates than for-profit banks. (The average mega-bank default rate is 26.8%. No credit union I know of has a default rate of 26.8%! ) The average consumer makes one late payment a year and average people with decent credit are punished by these default rates.

When the average consumer transfers their cc debt to your credit union, more of their payment is applied to reducing the debt and less to cover a high interest rate. The average total savings over the life of the card is $13,000. National media covers the millions saved, local papers cover local CU stories. The truth in the news shows consumers they can get help from credit unions.

Along the way, credit unions attract new members, help more consumers and grow net revenue.

Credit unions can join the ADR Challenge without changing anything. We’ve kept the reporting easy. Participating CUs just have their card processor send us their weekly or monthly balance transfer report.

me: I’ve noticed that most of the do-gooding by credit unions is woefully undercommunicated. How are you and they going to get the word out about this?

JC: The millions saved is an easy media pitch, and we’ve got credibility firepower. Filene Fellow, Robert Manning PhD. author of Credit Card Nation is taking the ADR Challenge to the national media during his regular interviews. Just yesterday he was on NPR talking about the ADR Challenge.

Speaking of, if you’re doing balance transfers already, but want to do it even better, you’ve got to check out Manning’s Responsible Debt Relief Algorithm. We encourage credit unions to use it as new means of underwriting.

We also have widgets for credit unions and leagues. We roped former NASA employee, now CU tech guru, Jason Green into making an interactive savings map and ticker widget that shows the millions credit unions are saving consumers nationally, by state and by credit union. Your widget shows the amount your CU is saving members.

me: You seem really jazzed up right now.

JC: I’m really passionate about this. It’s credit unions helping people to help themselves in a desperate time. It is our chance to do something to make a difference right now, to make life better for our neighbors and members. ADR is the credit union philosophy in action: service, social responsibility, financial education, cooperation. It clearly depicts credit union pure goodness. It strategically grows loyal credit union members and increases credit union revenue during this corporate stabilization debacle. It will save at least one credit union from PCA by increasing net revenue.

Do you think any member we save from the predatory default rates of the mega banks will forget what we’ve done for them? No, they will stay with us and better understand why we are different.

. . .

Amen. Thanks, Jamie!

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Jamie Chase, CUDE, is an owner and instigator of goodness of Credit Union Strategic Planning. She is a former PBS producer and was previously the communications director for the Washington Credit Union League, where she introduced the Biz Kid$ PBS program to the credit union movement. Jamie has done PR for the World Council of Credit Unions and is known for her advocacy of active credit union elections as a membership growth solution.

(via the Ad Lab & Chris Anderson’s blog)

The sustainable banking bloggers at {social compact} point us to this unapologetic spot from the UK’s Cooperative Bank:

{sc} goes on to describe that they stand behind their message with an audited ethical policy.

Here is an excerpt from the policy, updated with more rigid guidelines on Feb 2, 2009:

The Bank will extend its exclusion beyond the extraction and production of fossil fuels to those businesses engaged in the distribution of fuels with a particularly high global-warming impact, particularly unconventional oil sources (such as tar sands) and certain biofuels. The development of these fuels has the potential for significant local environmental impacts and will accelerate increases in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Is there a business case for a purposeful “no?” David Anderson, the bank’s CEO, said that, “The Bank’s Ethical Policy has led to more than £1 billion in unethical business being declined, but it has also contributed to a massive £3.8 billion net growth in our corporate lending.”

This is a gorgeous video by Jonathan Jarvis explaining this mess.

This video was part of his thesis, which he describes like this:

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

This might be a handy link to share with your members who, despite the ubiquitous, if a little sanitized, coverage might still be feeling uninitiated.

We spend a lot of time tooting and…um…the opposite of tooting…the horns of various and sundry credit union marketing efforts – particularly if they involve social media.

This time we’re going to toot Third Degree Advertising, out of Oklahoma City, and Trabian’s horns at the same time. It seems Third Degree went and won itself an Addy with the Buck the Norm online campaign. The site won several, actually, including Best Interactive and the prestigious Best in Show. It was even given a thumbs up by Tim McAlpine at Currency Marketing. Third Degree designed it and Trabian built the CMS and generally created the Internet magic.

Toot.

Read blogs about money management.

You’ll not only learn about financial management, but also how to communicate financial management in digestible ways.

Here are a few of my favorites. What are yours?

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich
• The Simple Dollar
• Get Rich Slowly
• Wise Bread
• Lifehacker posts tagged ‘saving money’
• Lifehacker posts tagged ‘personal finance’

Tip’d is a newly launched “a social media site for finance, investing, and business topics.”

The site works a lot like Digg or Banktastic, in that users can “Tip” articles they like, and those tips act as votes to get articles on the homepage.

You can search for articles based on categories, which are predefined by the site, or based on user-defined tags.

For example, here’s the collection of articles tagged with ‘bailout’ .

Is this a site you’d send your members to?

(I’m sorry for ending that sentence in a preposition.)

Now please go love on something.

Thanks to targeted Google ads, I came across the FDA’s novel use of and embedded widget. It’s not the prettiest – looking very utilitarian as I suppose it should. It is a governmental widget after all. It does make it easy to place into sites onto news sites, blogs and into stories; and it stays continually updated.

Point being: the government’s using a technology formerly reserved for sharing videos of skateboarding dogs, novelty bands from New Zeland and stick figures touting the benefits of credit unions.

I’m off to make a sandwich.

UPDATE: Oh, and they’re Twittering, too.