I apologize for the lack of love OSCU has been receiving lately. As my Twitter-friends know, I’ve been on the road and elbow deep in on-sight client work pretty much constantly for the past month.

But I miss you. I do.

Here are three things we woulda/coulda/shoulda been covering over the past couple of weeks:

1. FinovateStartup

I wish to high heaven I could have attended FinovateStartup this year. But fortunately, I was able to stay in the live-action loop thanks to fantastic coverage by the following folks:

• Brad & Mark from The Garland Group / Banktastic. Their coverage includes reviews of each and every demo and video interviews of presenters.
• Ron Shevlin’s “Notes from FinovateStartup 2008,” in which he tells it like it is.
• Jeff Stephens from Creative Brand’s insightful series of posts.
• Christophe Langlois from Visible Banking’s collection of posts and video interviews. Aside – you should add this blog to your feeds.
• Live-action commentary from the Twitter militia.
• And, of course, the belle-of-the-ball, Jim Bruene from Netbanker’s write-ups.

Congrats to Jim on another hugely successful event.

2. Joe Lieberman introduced CURIA to the Senate

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a legally or regulatorily-inclined person. I color with crayons and markers for a living. But after doing some research I realized how significant CURIA could be for CU’s ability to impact people. To quote the Cornerstone CU blog, CURIA, which stands for the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act, proposes to:

• Modernize credit union capital standards to permit more efficient capital management while allowing more earnings to be returned to members in lower costs and expanded services;
• Expand the ability of credit unions to make loans to finance their members’ local small businesses; and
• Permit more credit unions to offer needed services in lower-income communities that are not adequately served by other depository institutions.

Learn more about CURIA here.

3. Account portability

When I was at the GAC, I had an awesome conversation with Robbie Wright about data portability – the idea that your data from any given online service (from your Facebook profile to your online photos to your gmail acount) belongs to you and not the service. Groups like DataPortability.org are working to make this a reality, and web services like Wesabe and Mint have applied the same concept to transactional data.

So I was excited when Colin Henderson linked to Better Banking Blog’s write-up on ‘BPAY’s top-secret MAMBO project’:

...the top-secret BPAY proposal could deliver the bank account portability that Treasurer Wayne Swan so desperately wants Australian consumers to enjoy.

Instead of a bank account number and BSB, individuals would register for their own BPAY code which could be used to facilitate payments. Consumers could then port their number from bank to bank without the need to re-establish direct debits or credits, and use it to enable online payments.

Because of your collaborative nature, I think this is more relevant to CUs than banks. The closest thing I’ve seen to this in the states, outside of general back-end consolidation work (which is great), is Filene’s ‘Once a Member Always a Member’ i³ Project. But even that is limited in scope compared to the potential of account portability.

How member-empowering, representative of your cooperative structure, and incredible for retention would this be for credit unions?

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to interview Cornerstone Advisors’ strategy and tech guru Steve Williams for the very first CUES Experience Podcast.

What can you expect to see happening in the FI tech-space over the next year? Listen to find out:

powered by ODEO

The rest of the CUES Experience Podcasts will happen live from the conference from May 13th – 16th. They’ll be hosted by Currency Marketing’s Tim McAlpine, so you know they’ll be great (for a sample, check out Currency’s podcast).

And on a final note, if you’re coming, don’t forget about my tour of Summit Brewing Company. It will be many good times.

Thanks to Christopher Stevenson from CUES for the opportunity and Steve Williams for his time and brilliance.

I have a plan to make every February 13 a national half-holiday (holi-half-day?). Beginning at 1 p.m. on February 13, the nation is required to take the day off in order to get its collective romantic sh*t together. This half-holiday could also work for February 14, but before noon. I’m flexible on the days. Write your senators.

That said, there was an announcement on February 13 this year changing one of the pillars of the Social Media industry (movement?, community?). I missed that news because marital bliss takes priority. So if this is a late analysis, so be it.

eBay is changing the way feedback is handled. Essentially, sellers will no longer be able to leave feedback for buyers.

What impact does this have for credit unions? Honestly, it probably has little immediate impact. Most CU’s aren’t involved in social media and can sit on the sidelines and watch. But eBay’s feedback system was a transparent way for buyers and sellers to police themselves. The wisdom and knowledge of the community ruled.

It didn’t always work that way. Feedback was a weapon as much as tool. Sellers lorded it over the buyers: “leave me bad feedback, will ya...well...we’ll just see about that...” Which brought to light the notion of etiquette. As buyers and sellers redistributed the bric-a-brac of the world, feedback became its own currency. And eBay has stepped in to referee. Even democracy needs oversight. Is this a surprise?

Combine this with Google’s knol project and it appears there are steps being made to reign in the sometimes mob rule that can be Social Media. Both speak to the need for authority in a land affected by anonymity.

The Financial Times has declared self-rule on the Internet dead. Indeed, this is probably the biggest impact the decision will have: critics can pounce as Web 2.0 corrects its bugs and moves along to Web 2.1, Web 2.1.5, Web. 2.2 and beyond. But dead? Hardly. The “experiment” lives on in the form of customer reviews, voting (a la Newsvine), Power Ratings...for better or worse, it’s a Jedi.

Speaking of correcting bugs...back to my original point: Valentines 2.0. Anyone with me?

FinovateStartup is right around the corner, and if it’s anything like last October’s conference tickets will be sold out soon. Finovate and FinovateStartup are financial innovation and technology conferences put on by tech+finance guru Jim Bruene of Netbanker.

Startup companies demoing their products (Jim’s blog says “No PowerPoint slides allowed!”) include: Andera, Boulevard R., Buxfer, Motley Fool CAPS, ClairMail, Credit Karma, First ROI, Jwaala, Lending Club, Mint, Prosper, SmartHippo, Unified Money, and the rockstars from Wesabe (see how big a fan I am of Wesabe here).

It’s a stockpile of some of the coolest things to happen to money since they invented “buying stuff.”

Watch videos from last year’s Finovate here, and sign up to attend here.

The Aite Group LLC reported that 33 percent of credit unions with over $100 million in assets are planning to convert to mutual savings banks. Likely these converted credit unions will ultimately become for-profit, stockholder-owned financial institutions.

One-third of this class of credit union represents $193.8 billion in assets, assuming the 33 percent of converting credit unions is spread across the 1200 representative credit unions in this class evenly. In turn that represents over a quarter (27 percent to be exact) of all credit union assets. One-quarter of the money in credit unions is on its way out the door.

In 2006, fee income exceeded return on average assets (page 4 of the 2006 report, if you’re interested) credit union-wide for the first time ever as CUs looked for ways to replace money drained away by compressed interest margins. Banks are using the same tactic.

At the same time, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus is considering starting a credit union in the U.S. There are movements of varying size and momentum, but movements nonetheless, to provide alternatives to banks through such things as peer-to-peer lending, democratically-run, socially responsible banks, and account aggregation and financial planning using social networks.

Isn’t the message credit unions preach differentiating themselves from banks now even more relevant – even hip?

So, then…why leave?

One of the saving graces of the leftover-filled dead week between Christmas and New Year’s Day are the year-end wrap-ups. No wrap-up story ever won a Pulitzer, but they’re interesting to read. So, to the pot-luck of lists and reprisals, I’m going to add my own.

This being a blog, and therefore collaborative, I’m eager to hear everyone else’s contributions to and opinions on the OpenSourceCU.com Top Credit Union Stories of 2007 (Now With Resolutions!). During this week of warmed-over dressing, think of this list as a sizzling sirloin steak, hot from the fire, ready for you to tuck into (for you vegetarians, think of it as whatever it is you tuck into that’s really satisfying…salad maybe? potatoes? tofu?)

My seven top credit union stories of 2007…bon appetit!

No. 7: The iPhone

It has its flaws. It’s wildly expensive. It’s great-grandfather was the Newton. But this zeitgeist-expanding gadget moves the bar for mobile computing and, ultimately, mobile banking services. It also allows for easy use of social media and opens the number of communication channels. Think about the annoyed member posting to a blog while in line to wait on a member service representative to fix a mistake another MSR made. If someone using a iPhone actually stands in lines waiting for MSR’s.

Resolution: It’s an antiquated attitude that technology and social media are just toys. I would love credit union staffers to open their minds to new technology and look at it from a perspective of early adopters and ask some simple questions: How is this used? How does this impact me? How could this impact my credit union?

Sub-Resolution: Personally, I need to avoid being a curmudgeon myself and open my own mind and ask similar questions. Keeping up with technology is hard, but invaluable.

No. 6: Gigi Hyland’s calling for a more consumer-centric approach to products.

Said Ms. Hyland in January: “The main themes of my remarks were to urge credit unions to continue to be consumer-centric in product and service delivery and to provide insight into the regulatory perspective on current issues, such as BSA and membership growth.”

Okay, this isn’t earth-shattering, and there are discussions like this all the time, but it’s validation from the top that CU’s need to approach their products and pricing the same way other companies do – with a focus on what the market demands.

Resolution: Credit Unions need to leverage that tax-exempt status to continue (or in some CU’s cases start to) offer cost-competitive pricing, provide dividends and serve immigrants and under-served communities. I’d also like to see credit unions trim their product offerings to better serve their membership and community. If you cannot profitably provide dozens of products and services, then take a good, hard look at your product mix and eliminate those that are underperforming or aren’t profitable. Don’t keep up with the Jones’s. Keep up with your field of membership.

On the surface, this is an oxymoronic request, but really, it’s about finding a niche and drilling down and serving it. Some CU’s can profitably operate wide. Most cannot and need to focus on their core membership, find what that it needs and really serving it in ways banks and other CU’s can’t.

No. 5: Hackers steal 45.7 million credit card numbers from TXJ Companies

The breach of security is the largest in history and reflects the importance of CU ID theft prevention policies. Given that credit unions have a 3.8 percent market share in revolving credit, the breach affected over 1.7 million credit union members. And that’s just credit cards. Debit cards, with fewer consumer protections, were likely part of that mix and even a small percentage would be thousands if not millions of debit card numbers.

Resolution: Credit Unions should treat debit card fraud the same way they treat credit card fraud. See top story No. 4 for support of this resolution. Members need to know all their transactions are secure, credit or debit. From my experience in credit union operations, I know this is expensive, but a credit union should act in the best interest of its members.

No. 4: CURIA momentum

At latest count, 141 members of the House of Representatives are signed on as co-sponsors of H.R. 1537. By raising the percentage of assets from 12-ish to 20 percent, this will allow CU’s to better serve under-served areas and small businesses, which in turn creates wealth in a community.

Resolution: Credit Unions need to mobilize staff and, in turn, membership to ensure members of Congress support H.R. 1537 and understand the difference and mission of credit unions. An adage of advertising says that when the marketing director of a company is tired of hearing his/her advertising message, it’s at that point that its impacting the consumer. Talk about it until you’re sick of it.

No. 3: Wings/Continental credit union flap

Nasty, nasty stuff.

Resolution: Stop doing this.

No. 2: Zopa

Peer-to-peer lending could be a threat to credit unions, given credit unions’ philosophical mission. Instead, Zopa is partnering with credit unions, each improving each other’s credibility and reach. I’m excited about this partnership.

Resolution: Like the No. 7 resolution, credit union staff needs to be more plugged into technology and how it affects their products, services as well as how members use it. It’s a competitive advantage to embrace it and folly to ignore it.

No. 1: The housing bust

Although credit unions didn’t seriously contribute to the questionable practices that puts the country on the precipice of recession, every credit union every member will be affected. As much as credit unions need to compete, they also must council and advice as part of their financial services product mix.

Resolution: With a tax-exempt status, strong capitalization (in general) and sound, conservative policies and procedures, credit unions are primed to be part of the solution, right?

There you have it, my year-end list complete with a side of resolutions, served hot and fresh. Enjoy!

Two and a half years ago, I wrote about Piggly Wiggly’s biometric payment pads.

Novel idea, but not a particularly great one.

Today CU Times wrote about Shell gas stations in Chicago piloting biometric payments. Now before we get all “wave of the future” about this, let’s consider a few reasons why this isn’t that cool.

As this Tech Digest post points out,

• You’ll have to link your fingerprint to a credit card or bank account first.
• How much time does it really save? Swiping a card just can’t take that much longer than a fingerprint scan. In fact, I’d bet it’ll slow things down.
• The Mission:Impossible-ish scanner would be just one more thing I’d have to touch before squirting some Purell on my hands as soon as I got back in my car. Thus, contactless = more sanitary, right?

I don’t know what tomorrow’s wallet will look like, but I doubt it resembles my index finger.

Five years from now, will I carry plastic cards in a leather wallet?

Some context: I already don’t carry cash. My wallet currently includes a few CCs and a debit card, my insurance card, DL and that’s it.

Also, I’d classify myself an early adopter of newfangled technology.

Will I have a wallet at all?

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.

I haven’t picked up an issue of Adweek in quite a while, because what’s happening on Madison Avenue with the Budweiser account doesn’t really concern Weber Marketing Group or our clients. But I picked up an issue today and thumbed it all the way through. Boy oh boy, has that publication changed in the last few years.

Adweek used to be all about global agencies and massive TV ad campaigns. Now it’s almost all about new media, or at least that how it seems. Here are three articles from this week’s current issue:

• Why Barbie can have a social website, but not Coke
• YouTube, politics and Obama Girl
• Advertising in video games

The story about how Coke – the world’s biggest, most valuable brand – couldn’t sustain its social website, “The Coke Show,” was the most interesting. From the article:

The Coke Show joins a growing list of cautionary tales, including Wal-Mart’s ill-fated social network The Hub and Anheuser-Busch’s Bud.tv, showing it is far from easy to tap the same kind of sharing vibe that’s fueled the rise of MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.

Takeaways:

1. Learn from Adweek. They see which way the wind is blowing. Marketing – even advertising – is increasingly becoming a dialogue with consumers. Traditional media still has its place, but the days of one-sided, one-directional marketing are numbered. It will be more and more common for consumers – not advertisers – to control the discussion and pick the venues.
2. Success isn’t guaranteed. If big brands like Coke, Budweiser and Wal-Mart can’t find success after applying all their might and muscle, others are sure to fail also. The rules are still being written and no one has all the answers. Can your credit union’s CEO handle this level of ambiguity and uncertainty? Especially when the ROI is fuzzy (at best).
3. Don’t rush into the Web 2.0 world blindly. Some organizations seem to think “if you build it, they will come,” but it’s not that simple. You need to know your target audience and what they want to talk about BEFORE you launch a blog or a MySpace page. And don’t underestimate the commitment it takes once you’re up and running. You’ll need to devote time, energy and focus to your Web 2.0 initiatives every day (hint: hours of writing).

Jeffry Pilcher is the Creative Director of Weber Marketing.

In a 2007 session at ad:tech NY, Coca-Cola’s Director of Global Interactive Marketing John Stichweh said any company not devoting 10% of its marketing budget to experimentation will fall behind.

There was an SNL skit where Will Ferrell, as Harry Caray, interviewed Jeff Goldbloom, who was playing an astrophysicist. There was a snippet of dialogue that went something like this:

Harry Caray: Hey! What about this?! If you had a choice between being the top scientist in your field or getting Mad Cow Disease, what would it be?

Jeff Goldbloom, Astrophysicist: Well of course I would choose to be the top scientist in my field.

Harry Caray: Oh good! I was worried you’d choose Mad Cow!

Anybody presented the choice between “being innovative” and “being stagnant” would choose innovative. Right? I hope?

So how does your credit union manage experimentation? Do you?

Do any of you have a formalized chunk of your budget allotted for it? Do you play it by ear, perhaps experimenting if a new idea falls under your radar? Do you limit your resources to the “Old Faithfuls” – traditional tactics you know have worked historically, and do not give your board heartburn?

On a larger scale, how can we better manage collaborative experimentation as an industry?

This week, Filene is hosting a colloquium on credit union collaboration. Can’t make it but have a discussion point? Click the link and leave a comment in their blog post with your topic. They’re recording and publishing the discussions from the event later this year (or in early 08), for your consumption and pleasure.

So how does successful experimentation happen within a credit union and within the industry?

One of the running jokes, but undeniable truths, that surfaced at BarCampBankSeattle was that you could tack ”...and that’s why Wesabe is brilliant” to the end of any conversation point, and it would be relevant.

Yesterday, Wesabe launched their new Firefox extension. The extension completely automates the download-from-your-bank/upload-to-wesabe process, no matter who you bank with. From Marc’s post on Wesabe’s blog:

The Firefox Uploader is an extension for Firefox 2.0 or later, which makes it trivially easy to automate downloads from your bank or credit card, whether or not your bank makes that easy for you to do. If your bank doesn’t already provide automated downloads, you can record a download session once, and the Firefox Uploader will then play your recording back automatically for you from then on. And, you still get all of the benefits of the original desktop Uploader — you don’t have to give Wesabe your bank passwords or account numbers, which remain safe on your own computer.

As Wired points out, this makes the financial-management side of your credit union’s banking interface somewhat irrelevant (I was alerted of this article via Wesabe’s Twitter, by the way):

Since the vast, vast majority of banking sites are antiquated pieces of crap, this effectively means you can stop using them. For instance, I have a credit card at a bank that insists I use Internet Explorer despite the fact the it isn’t even offered on the OS I use. After adding the account to Wesabe, there’s no need to worry I can track my money the way I want to, not the way the bank wants me to.

Wired’s point makes me really excited. Now, except to pay bills (which happens automatically anyway) and transfer funds, I will rarely need to log in to my online banking. Essentially, my banking interface is now Wesabe, which means my banking interface just got tricked out.

So does this mean that Wesabe : Transactions :: RSS : Web Content? Will this change the way banks will approach their online banking interfaces in the future?

Also, check out Jim Bruene’s post on netbanker covering their new e-commerce image-capture functionality, another benefit of the extension.

Finally, for those of you who skip the pesky “words” in blog posts in favor of pretty pictures and video (like me), here’s a YouTube clip explaining the tasty new goods:

...and that’s why Wesabe is brilliant.

Between 10:30 am and noon today Central time, Bryan Sims and I are presenting a session on Gen Y at the CUNA Mutual Group Discovery conference. One of the characteristics we’re discussing is how connected and collaborative this generation is. In particular I want to talk about how much we rely on the experiences and opinions of our friends and peers to make purchasing decisions and how easy it is to share those opinions.

As a live case study, I’m putting this question out there and hoping to have a few responses by the end of the session:

How have you used technology recently to get recommendations or advice from your friends and peers?

+10 points to anyone who references this on their own blog and posts a link in the comments.

Don’t worry if you’re not part of “Gen Y.” We want to hear from anybody and everybody!

If you don’t have an example to share, here’s another question: What’s something fun to do in Nashville tonight?

I had an interesting conversation with Jim Bruene (who’s blog you should definitely be reading) last week about Second Life, a “3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.” Second Life was opened to the public in 2003, so it’s not exactly new. However, its business implications have made for some explosive hype/conversation recently.

And for all of you who are thinking “what a bunch of nerds”...touche. I thought the same thing. But I’ve gathered some stats that show the degree to which Second Life has broken out of the “dork-in-his-mom’s-basement” demographic:

(some numbers will have changed after the posting of this article)

• There are currently 1,192,576 residents, and growing.
• $567,793, that’s real-live US dollars, spent in the last 24 hours.
• Wells Fargo was in SL over a year ago. They’ve since uprooted their “Stagecoach Island” presence to be its own world, independent from Second Life (a lame move, if you ask me).
• There are at least 3,000 entrepreneurs making $20,000 or more a year on SL businesses.
• Reuters has embedded a reporter, Adam Pasick, in SL. They also have an office.
• Mammoth ad agency Leo Burnett (clients include McDonald’s, Kellog’s, and Wrigley’s) has set up a SL idea hub, where its creatives can come collaborate. BBH, another hugely successful agency (clients include AXE, Smirnoff, and Levi’s), is also in SL.
• Crayon is a new marketing firm made up of impressive players located globally. They launched the company with Coca-Cola as a client. Their main office is in SL.
• Harvard Law has a class in SL, called CyberOne – Law in the Court of Public Opinion.
• Harvard Business Review moderated a marketing conference that happened in SL in June.
• SL has its own newspaper, called The Second Life Herald.
• SL has its own travel agency that will show you the hottest hot-spots for a price.
• A few companies with a commercial SL presence include:
  • Nissan
  • American Apparel
  • Reebok
  • Coca-Cola
  • GSD&M
  • Starwood Hotels
• Vioxx gives you free in-SL phone minutes. You can call your mom from inside SL.
• IBM ran a live Wimbleton simulator on SL.
• SL has its own business magazine.
• The American Cancer Society raised over $30,000 in SL.

BusinessWeek writer Bruce Nussbaum made one great point on his blog about using Second Life as a reflection of consumer intentionality:

The more I see in Second Life, the more I realize that one of the most important business opportunities there is mining intentionality. This is a phrase my brilliant colleague Frank Comes came up with to describe what’s going in in that space.

People in SL are expressing what they would LIKE to do in reality. For example, it’s easy to pimp your car in second life and clearly lots of people want to customize their transport there. All the major auto companies are piling into SL to learn about this—and build their big after-market customizing business in the real world.

I’m not saying to run out and start a Second Life credit union, but then again maybe someone should. Either way, this is another interaction tool that everyone should be keeping an eye on.

ps: The picture above is Matt’s Second Life avatar, “Trabian Pro.” It looks way too much like the thing.