09/12/2009

Thing 12 of 30: replace our ten-year-old, super-nasty website

By Tim McAlpine

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 12: replace our ten-year-old, super-nasty website

In hindsight, this should have been my number-one thing! If I were a credit union leader, I would make it priority one to develop a modern website that included:

1. A beautiful, 980-pixel-wide layout with completely integrated online banking like Vancity's website
2. Integrated blogs from a number of credit union employees like Vantage Credit Union's website
3. Crisp writing and a clear personality like Coast Capital Savings' website
4. Product ratings and reviews like San Francisco Fire Credit Union's website
5. Online account opening and an integrated personal financial management tool like South Carolina Federal Credit Union's website
6. A public-facing discussion forum like Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union's website
7. Mobile texting capabilities like Mount Lehman Credit Union's website

You may balk and say that I have described a very expensive website. Maybe so, but at my credit union, before I opened another branch or upgraded the administration center, I would have a positively kick-ass website!

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09/10/2009

Thing 10 of 30: tear down the silos by merging marketing and information technology

By Tim McAlpine

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 10: tear down the silos by merging marketing and IT

Being on the marketing side of things, I hear the credit union marketing folks griping about the IT folks. I wrote a long post about this recently on the CUES Skybox Blog.

I imagine if I travelled more in the IT circles, I would hear the horror stories about the marketing prima donnas. I believe much of this adversarial situation stems not only from the complete separation on the org chart, but also from the physical division of these teams within the administration center. Sometimes in completely different buildings!

In my fictitious credit union, I would take a cue from the Silicon Valley and San Francisco tech start-ups and mash everyone together in a big room. Tear down the eye-height beige cube farm. Sit marketers next to technologists, designers next to developers, writers next to sys admins.

Everyone would be encouraged to participate in brainstorming sessions and ideas and responsibilities would be shared amongst the whole team.

The photos above are from a great blog called Office Snapshots. They depict the no-nonsense open office layouts that I am talking about. Nothing fancy. A few rectangular Ikea tables pushed together would really promote team work and understanding.

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05/01/2009

Should the 100-year-old credit union movement start acting like a boot-strapped start-up?

By Tim McAlpine

About 18 months ago I wrote a blog post entitled, "The dinosaurs didn't have broadband, what's your credit union's excuse?" I wrote it after witnessing an incredible array of innovative new financial web applications coming onto the scene. At the time, I wondered what was stopping credit unions from really innovating.

I was once again reminded of this question when my Twitter feed was filled with the hashtag #finovate on Tuesday. You see, FinovateStartup09 was held this past week in San Francisco and 57 of the latest-and-greatest financial web apps where demoed. Only one of them—Jwaala's Money Tracker—has any roots in the credit union industry. From what I understand, Jwaala was spun out of Amplify in Austin, Texas.

For all of the talk of innovation in the financial services industry, the really good stuff is not coming from credit unions (or banks for that matter), it's coming from tech start-ups with good ideas and the knowledge, skill and determination to get the job done.

As they say, ideas are a dime a dozen, the real trick is implementation. What do you think?

I'm also interested to hear if you feel that innovation is a careless waste of time and money. Should credit unions just put their energy into serving their members well? Or is innovation necessary to continue to serve members well? Please add your thoughts in the comments.

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01/30/2009

Are you asking your members for input and ideas?

By Tim McAlpine

My credit union doesn't ask for my input. In fact, it doesn't ask me for anything other than my username and password. I would imagine this is typical for many credit union members, especially as we move away from personal interactions and towards doing all of our business online.

It's really too bad since one of the attributes credit unions lean on most is a claim of better personal service. This loss of personal interaction puts a lot of distance between you and your credit union members.

If you are looking for a way to reconnect with your members and to find out what they are thinking and needing, you should study this website.

This is some information from Starbucks' top-prize-winning entry in the 2008 Groundswell Awards in the Embracing category.

MyStarbucksIdea.com is the first social media website from Starbucks. Our mission is to help us connect with our customers by co-creating the future of the company with them.

MSI (as it is known to the community) has four components:

Share: Where community members post their Starbucks Idea. Anyone can post an idea.

Vote: The site let's you easily see what other people have suggested and vote on the ideas you agree with. The community decides what's important and what is not.

Discuss: Inline comment streams allow community members to discuss ideas with other customers and about 40 Starbucks Idea Partners from various departments answer questions and provide insights to the discussions.

See: The "Ideas in Action" tab is the proof. Here is where we announce what actions have been taken and have further discussion around top ideas.

These four components provide a ongoing loop of discussion, interaction and, ultimately, action.

MyStarbucksIdea.com is the first true two-way conversation point for customers and the company to interact on a wide scale. We've found that customers very much want to have this conversation.

Traffic to the site has been immense right from the beginning. But the participation rates have been what is truly exciting. We've had nearly 75,000 ideas submitted in less than six months, with many ideas receiving thousands of votes and hundreds of comments.

Some ideas have been surprising to us: the top all-time idea is around having "Great Conversations" at Starbucks. More often, however, it has helped us prioritize our current efforts and initiatives.

From big ideas, like healthier morning and food options and bold coffee discussions, to smaller initiatives such as a "reusable cold cup," in just a few short months My Starbucks Idea has become a major force in helping direct the future of the company.

People sure are passionate about their coffee! Being that credit unions are built on co-operative principles, I think something like this could work wonders for a credit union that is really open to member participation.

What do you think?

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09/26/2008

Surprise and delight

By Tim McAlpine

Just watch and you'll see what I am talking about.

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09/05/2008

How about a pop-up credit union?

by Nala Henkel

I saw an article by Kristin Laird recently in Marketing Daily:

"Sears Canada Inc. is heading back-to-school with four pilot pop-up retail outlets at universities across Ontario.

The mobile tent-store will appear at Brock, Western Ontario, McMaster and Queen’s universities to offer student life staples, like housewares, home decor, bed and bath, electronics and cosmetics merchandise.

“A pop-up temporary storefront concept has been gaining popularity in Canada,” Dene Rogers, president and CEO, Sears Canada, said in a statement.

The pop-up locations are about 900 square feet and include a recruitment area for students to inquire about possible job opportunities with Sears."

I like this idea. C'mon, credit unioners... tell me all the reasons why you couldn't pool together and brand an ATM and have it at a college campus for back-to-school week, or back-from-Christmas-break week (thinking ahead.)

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09/04/2008

Young & Free Alberta launches the 2009 spokesperson search. Let's take a moment to thank Larissa!

By Tim McAlpine

It's the end of an incredible nine-month era. Larissa Walkiw, the 2008 Young & Free Alberta Spokesperson, is officially on the hunt for her replacement. Yesterday, we transformed the Young & Free Alberta site back to search mode and we are launching a major campaign in Alberta to find a worthy successor. Here is another fabulous video by Larissa to explain the details. 

To celebrate Larissa's phenomenal run, we have put together a retrospective page that highlights some of her stellar work and amazing experiences. I encourage you to click the link and spend some time reliving the impact that she had over the past nine months.

When we pitched the Young & Free concept to Jeff Mulligan and his team at Common Wealth Credit Union in late 2006, we were excited about the possibilities yet nervous about the potential pitfalls. To say Larissa surpassed our expectations tenfold is the understatement of the year. I have had the best seat in the house for the best performance imaginable.

Larissa has a few more videos planned and will be chiming in here and there on the blog over the next two months, but she is now an unemployed university film student! Good luck my friend. Your future will be incredible.

Here's what I want from you. If Larissa has touched you in any way, please go to this blog post and write a comment. She deserves the biggest send off ever! You can also leave a comment here as well if you like.

Thanks!

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07/15/2008

Credit unions can use large-scale collaboration to cut to the chase and cut through the excuses.

By Tim McAlpine

I've read a couple of good posts lately extolling the advantages of large-scale collaboration in the credit union space.

• Jim Jerving on the NACUSO blog: Credit Unions are Slow to Innovate
• George Hofheimer on the Open Source CU blog: Leave it to Beaver

These posts reminded that I neglected to report on my Member Gateways experience where I was exposed to some amazing large-scale collaboration actually taking place! What's Member Gateways? Here is a description from its website:

Member Gateways is the credit union industry's networked new product incubator Owned by 24 progressive credit unions and one strategic industry partner, Member Gateways provides the opportunity and means for all credit unions to offer the products and services typically afforded only to mega-sized financial services institutions. Through our combined solutions, partnerships, intellectual properties, strategic CUSO investments and financial service partnerships, we expect to transform and revolutionize the credit union industry.

 
I was invited by Vic Pantea and Deb Jones from Member Gateways to present the Young & Free story at the their semi-annual meeting in mid-June in San Antonio. Although it was a relatively small crowd compared to some that I have been speaking to, it was intimidating to present to more than 40 progressive senior credit union leaders. 

 
The best part of this opportunity for me was that I was allowed to attend the entire two-day session and see one presentation after another about cool things that Member Gateways' credit union partners are considering or already have in the cooker. Most of it was private, but I can tell you that it was impressive and extremely encouraging to see real innovation on its way to market. And by credit unions no less!

There are a lot of voices here in the CU blogosphere that are frustrated about the lack of innovation in the credit union space. I have definitely been one of those voices from time to time. Meanwhile, here is a group of very powerful US credit union leaders quietly implementing fresh innovations at their credit unions. They are just getting it done and it was inspiring to learn about these stories.

A silly side story

One highlight that I can share (I think) is about Zopa. Three of the six founding credit union partners in Zopa US are Member Gateways credit unions, so Scott Pitts, Zopa US' Managing Director, was at the meeting to give a progress report on this credit-union-partnered peer-to-peer-lending service.

Zopa is doing really well, but what stuck in my head was an anecdote about one of the most popular members of the Zopa community—the cat guy. Zopa members can choose to offer a very low interest rate to people they feel are most deserving.

After joining one of the six credit unions, members of the Zopa community build out a profile similar to other social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn. The members also write a little bit about what they plan to do with the funds that they want to borrow. And of course, members upload a profile picture to put a face to their name. Well the cat guy, who is paying one of the lowest interest rates on the site, is popular because he regularly updates his profile picture with one of the latest funny LOLCAT images (click here if you don't know what LOLCATS are).

While that silly side story has nothing to do with large-scale collaboration, it is the only story from the meeting that I think I am allowed to tell!

And now back to my point

In order to compete, credit unions needs to innovate. But innovation is often expensive and innovation often takes scale. In recent times, credit unions have turned to merging to get that scale. But mergers can be messy and expensive and quite often stall innovation for an extended period of time while the parties try to bring their operations and cultures together.

Large-scale collaboration is a legitimate alternative solution. It allows credit unions to remain smaller and independent, yet allows these credit unions to share, cooperate and, most importantly, innovate. If you are not involved in collaborating with other like-minded credit unions, it's time to get started.

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06/17/2008

Three doses of new credit union online coolness

By Tim McAlpine

Here's a shout out to three credit unions that are innovating online.

First Entertainment's The Audition microsite

Southern California's First Entertainment Credit Union is about to launch a new microsite on June 23, 2008. From the looks of the teaser intro, this is not your basic amateur web video production. It features beautifully produced video with an intriguing storyline brought to life by terrific actors. I can't wait to follow this site after the official launch.

I am big fan of First Entertainment's marketing initiatives. This is one credit union that really knows its field of membership! Considering that these members are from the entertainment business including movie studios, ad agencies and creative firms involved in radio, film, Internet and television, its no surprise that the marketing output of this credit union is wildly entertaining!

Addison Avenue's new youth-centered Addison Cafe microsite

Next up is a fresh new microsite from Northern California's Addison Avenue Credit Union. As one of the founding Zopa US partners, Addison Avenue is no stranger to innovation. This is how Addison Avenue describes its new online venture, "Designed with young adults in mind. The site has products relevant to the needs of that age group and even has a blog that discusses finances in a relevant, real-life way."

America First adds product ratings and reviews to its website

Michigan's (whoops!) Utah's America First Credit Union is the first financial institution that I have run across that has added product ratings and reviews to its website. This is brilliant! Obviously, America First has taken a page out of the playbook of successful online retailers such as Amazon and Apple. This is a brave direct feedback loop that other credit unions are unlikely to follow right away. I can hear the collective credit union masses gasping as they think to themselves, "What if we get a low rating or a bad review on one of our products?"

I bet the folks at America First are thinking, "If we get a bad review, we'll just have to improve our products and services."

Doug True from FORUM Solutions had an excellent guest post on Open Source CU yesterday calling out risk-adverse credit unions. I agree with Doug, but I am also encouraged by these fresh examples and others that I stumble upon daily.

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04/03/2008

Are these services going in your O or T column?

By Tim McAlpine

Right now, the Web 2.0 world is brimming with financial innovation. I wrote about this constant onslaught of new offerings back in October and the pace of innovation is not letting up. The upcoming FinovateStart-up in San Francisco on April 29 features 40 more players to add to the pile. I like to think I am pretty plugged in, but to be honest, I only recognize 11 of these companies.

So what will your credit union do with these and other new services? The next time you strategize as a team and you update your SWOT analysis, you have two choices for each of these financial start-ups and the countless more around the corner:

1. Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving your objectives.
    
2. Threats: external conditions that are harmful to achieving your objectives.

There is no excuse for your credit union to continue to ignore this constant flow of innovation. Your members aren't. Get involved and look for ways to innovate on your own or ways to collaborate with these start-ups. Your future may depend on it.

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