The world needs heroes. Your Credit Union needs heroes. We all need someone to solve problems and make the world a better place. The question is, what kind of hero?
According to author Cassidy S. Dale*, heroes can be either Knights or Gardeners. It depends upon their worldview; the lens with which they see problems and conflicts.
Read more on Why Knights fight the alligators while Gardeners drain the swamp…
At GAC this past week, Bill Cheney, CUNA’s President and CEO, started off by laying out a vision to unite and build the credit union movement.
The reasoning was good: Congress needs to hear more positive reasons to keep CUs tax exempt, people want their primary FI to stand for something, and CUNA wants to demonstrate the core values of credit unions, plus attract and keep younger members, employees, and leadership.
Read more on It looks like “Unite for Good” is only up to U….
Each week with our blog we have a poll question. Sometimes serious, oftentimes ridiculous, the polls are meant to get a feel of how you, our devoted readers, are thinking. We enjoy them and we hope you do, too.
Once again, it’s true confession time: I don’t know a whole lot about money. Of course I can balance my check book (Actually, I don’t even do that anymore since the internet does it for me) and manage all the very basic stuff like paying the bills and saving monthly for special purchases. I have a 401k but I really have no idea what to actually do with it as far as the investing goes.
Read more on Ladie$! Knowledge i$ power and it’$ time to get $ome…
Meet Sam
Fresh from a semester in Barcelona Spain, Kent and Janet’s son Sam is sitting in with iDiz for a couple of months until heading back to Indiana University in the fall to finish degrees in English and Spanish. As a multilingual 21 year old college student, Sam is a fine specimen of a demographic lots of credit union marketers are eager to reach. Since we’ll have him in captivity for a little while, we’ve asked Sam to blog about what he and his generation want and need from financial services and the world in general.
If there’s anything you’d like to ask Sam, or if you have ideas for blog topics you’d like to see Sam take on, just post a comment or email sam@idizinc.com .
Read more on Five things credit unions need to know about my generation…
If your brand deals with good causes and community involvement then you might want to watch for (or jump on) this one. It won’t cost you much other than some time and effort, and it can help boost local nonprofits and burnish your social cred at the same time. Plus it looks easy to get started and to use.
Read more on One app, uniting volunteers, businesses, and nonprofits…
A continuation of takeaways from the CU Water Cooler Conference:
William Azaroff of Vancity Credit Union, speaking on “Five years of social media engagement”
The creator of the Change Everything web site is changing it. Again. In fact, his whole talk was about the need for change in how Vancity connects with their members since Vancity is not really out to change EVERYthing. It was very refreshing to hear a leader in social media tell you his mistakes. Vancity tried relaunching Change Everything as “The Hub” because they wanted to inspire change and connect other people who want to reach out. However, even with a map of places their members impacted the community, the site did not work because it was too confusing. A new site and brand will be announced this month. One big success has been their MySite intranet (think of a cross between Facebook and LinkedIn, all internal for one company — hey, they’re a big CU.) Takeaway points:
• When dealing with social media, let people be themselves, not an anonymous corporate spokesperson.
• Social media is an ongoing effort, never done.
• No longer thought of as social media, but as communication.
• Those in charge should be a concierge, not a security guard.
• Think of Vancity as a network, and engagement is illuminating the network.
• Know what your brand is and what you stand for, your mission, your vision, your values — which also allows you to work strategically with partners.
While I was in North Carolina for the East Coast Marketing Conference, I stopped by the front desk of the hotel and asked the young guy working the counter if there was a restaurant/microbrewery/eating establishment that everyone talked about and visited on a regular basis. He proceeded to tell me all about one of his favorites, the Flying Saucer, a local watering hole with “200 beers on tap.” So I went. It was a Wednesday night and the place was packed.
Over the past few days I’ve had multiple questions from staff, colleagues, and even friends and family about the interchange vote on Wednesday: So, is that it? Why didn’t majority rule? What happens now? Should I still be asking members for help? So I thought I would take a few minutes to explain (from a credit union marketer’s perspective) what happened and where we go from here.
Read more on The Interchange Vote: What happened and where we go from here…
I’ve shared a list of things TO DO to save money. Now here’s is a list of things NOT TO DO if you’re interested in saving money. According to this article, these things are all just a waste of your member’s hard-earned money:
Ever have a conversation with someone only to find out later that they came to a completely different conclusion than you did at the end?
I always thought I heard what people were saying in a conversation, that I understood what they wanted to communicate, even if I wasn’t the most gifted at communicating what I wanted to get across. But it appears that when I start with something in my head, and the other person has a different opinion…well, then I may not actually be doing much listening.
One of the great things about credit unions is the sense of community they foster. We’ve worked with several on projects that involved them giving back to their communities. Some spearhead volunteer projects or hold an open house where they have activities for the kids, giveaways, music, and free food. Others sponsor local sports teams or charity races.
Every year, Forbes magazine rates the 100 largest banks. This year, by chance, the two banks ranked 2nd and 3rd on the list are both in Kansas City, MO. Even freakier, they are run by cousins. Seems that back in the 1800s their great-grandfather owned several banks, among them UMB Financial and Commerce Bank (though they had different names back in the
mid 1800s).
Ever find yourself wondering if renting is cheaper than buying? Cable is cheaper than having satellite? 
I don’t lose any sleep over it, but I do think about it. Like leasing a car… it used to be a very popular alternative to buying. But then when people turned their car in they got hit with all those mileage fees and the whole experience became a nightmare.
Shopping may not only be our biggest achievement, it may be a reason for us to feel optimistic about the future. Now perhaps that just sounds like some weak rationale to hit the mall, but I’ll leave it to a trained zoologist and former editor at The Economist to combine lessons from all of human history, including our beginnings, to explain why.
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