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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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04/14/2008

Here's two more communities to join...

... even if you are suffering from Too Many Social Networks Disorder (TMSND).

By Tim McAlpine

I seem to get an invite to join another social network site every few days. Between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, I can barely keep up. However, if you are a credit union marketer, there are two more communities that you should consider joining.

Banktastic

Banktastic is the brainchild of The Garland Group, a Texas-based IT and security risk-assessment firm.

Pros:

A close-knit growing community of progressive members who care about Web 2.0, financial services and all things bank and credit union.
Bantastic is open to everyone.
Bantastic is simple. There are three basic areas that you can participate in:
- Questions and answers
- News
- Product and company reviews
The Garland Group CEO, Brad Garland, and software developer, Mark McSpadden are very active participants throughout the credit union blog-o-sphere.
Community manager, Lisa Randolph, is very active on the site and is a huge contributor to the content. She also produces much of the Banktastic videos. Having a dedicated manager is brilliant and really ensures that the site will be active in the future.
There is lots of great video content cranked out weekly. There are two shows, The Burst and The CU Scoop. Both shows can be found on The Banktastics blog.
Although it is not credit union specific, there are a number of credit union folks participating and Banktastic will give you exposure to the broader banking world.

Cons

It just came out of semi-private beta on April 1, so there aren't that many members yet, but this will change over time.
The word 'Bank' is in the name. Sorry Brad, I had to give you a bit of a dig on that one. You know me and my credit union singularity!

EverythingCU

EverythingCU is an active community of credit union marketers dedicated to discussing marketing and branding issues facing credit unions of all sizes.

Pros:

It is well-established with over 5,900 members.
Open only to credit union employees, so you can discuss things openly with your peers without feeling like vendors (like me) are spying on your world.
Chief Innovation Officer, Morriss Partee, is a card-carrying credit union cheerleader and he and his team have done an amazing job at creating a wonderful resource for the credit union world.
Everything CU offers great webinars and the discussion board is very active.
Since I am unable to sign-up, I can't tell you much more about Everything CU, other than I have heard it is very worthwhile.

Cons

For you, nothing. For me, I am stuck outside looking at the home page. Hey, if I am going to give Brad a hard time, I should also give Morriss a dig to keep things fair.

Even though your TMSND might be at an all-time high, check out Banktastic and EverythingCU today and sign-up. Both communities are free, offer valuable information and will do you a lot more good than adding another useless drinking game app to your Facebook profile (did I just say that?).

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

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

Here's two more communities to join...

... even if you are suffering from Too Many Social Networks Disorder (TMSND).

Banktastic

EverythingCU

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