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04/28/2009

BarCampBankBC2. Here we go again!

By Tim McAlpine

William Azaroff, Gene Blishen and I are organizing another BarCampBank in Vancouver.

BarCampBankBC2
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Vancity Head Office
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William was able to secure the location for zero cost and it is a great space! The boardroom overlooks False Creek and Downtown Vancouver and is perfectly suited to having good discussions about financial services innovation.

We are doing a single day and keeping it real simple. If last year was a bargain at $35, this year it is an absolute steal at just $10 to cover the pizza lunch.

Last year's event drew about 75 people from all over North America. I'm sure this year will be just as successful.

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04/28/2009

Look for the Gen Y label

By Nala Henkel

This happened Sunday night.

Can't remember what my girls and I were watching on TV, but Dara (14 years old) suddenly asks "What are baby boomers?" and I explain it. Dara asks why they call people that and I explain demographics and the different groups. I tell them how their grandpa was in the G.I. Generation, their grandma is in the Silent Generation and their uncle is a Baby Boomer. I am Generation X.

I tell both Taylor (16 years old) and Dara that they are part of Generation Y. Taylor says "I'd rather be a part of Generation Z. It sounds cooler." (She learned a little bit about demos in school.)

We chatted a bit more, and Taylor's overall take was this: Each person is different, and even though she can see how large age groups can have life experiences that shape their thoughts and opinions as a whole, she's cynical about companies that make assumptions based on generalizations (she didn't say it exactly that way, but that was the gist of it.)

That's why I believe terms like Gen Y should be kept as internal labels—instead of product or website names—because they are labels. And no one really likes to be labelled.

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04/27/2009

Guest post on the CUES Skybox: Twitter, Oprah and credit unions

By Tim McAlpine

I am a guest blogger today on the CUES Skybox. My post:

"Hey, Oprah, Twitter may be all the Rage but Credit Unions are Cool Too!"

Thanks must go to Christopher Stevenson from CUES for the invite!

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04/21/2009

Human, humorous and helpful!

By Tim McAlpine

I am a member of Banktastic. It's a great financial-services-industry-resource-social-network-community thingy. The last couple of times I have logged in my dashboard says I have these two friend alerts from the same person. I have tried to accept them, but I get an error. Today, I decided to report the error and this is the message that I received back within about 15 minutes:

"From: Mark McSpadden
Subject: Alerts that I can't clear

Tim,

Here at Banktastic, we believe friendship is something that has become too flippant in this age of social networks. Friends are added without a second thought and honestly we find this trend disturbing.

Therefore, within Banktastic, we make you fight for your friendships. A friendship is worth more than a few clicks. To reinforce this, we've randomized some friendships to not be accepted until after the 100th click. We hope this will help our members realize the importance and seriousness of social network friendships.

OK, not really. It's a bug we've seen a few times in some of our early member profiles and friendships. I'll clear it out this evening and let you know when you can expect an alert-free Banktastic experience.

Thanks for letting us know about it! (And for being my creative outlet for the day!)

Mark McSpadden
xxx-xxx-xxxx"

I loved this response. In this canned-message-mechanical-contact-center era, it's nice to receive a human, helpful and mighty humorous response. Is it appropriate for Banktastic? You bet. Is it appropriate for your credit union? Maybe not, but I sure hope that your frontline staff are allowed to deviate from the script. This experience once again proved to me that a brand is so much more than just a logo and a set of standards!

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04/17/2009

Josh Sutherland is the 2009 Young & Free Spokesperson!

By Tim McAlpine

Josh Sutherland joins Larissa Walkiw, DeAndre' Upshaw and Myles Peterman in the exclusive Young & Free Spokester Club!

I flew into Charleston, South Carolina on Monday evening and on Tuesday afternoon, I accompanied the blue-shirted gang from South Carolina Federal Credit Union to surprise Josh with a job offer to become the 2009 Young & Free SC Spokesperson!

I then quickly edited and uploaded the above video to YouTube in time for the live announcement on the radio on Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. on the 2 Girls and a Guy morning show on 95SX.

Josh and I spent the rest of Wednesday going over how to use his new gear and website. I finally crashed at 5:00 p.m. Wednesday and woke up in time for my 10:00 a.m. flight home on Thursday. A fast and furious and super fun trip!

This was one of my favorite videos that Josh submitted during his campaign to become the Young & Free SC Spokesperson. A simple explanation of the difference between banks, credit unions and piggy banks!

An interesting fact that I learned during Josh's campaign was that although he had extensive experience in high school and in university on high-end gear and software, he no longer had access to these tools since graduation. He filmed his videos on a point-and-shoot Canon digital photo camera and edited them using Windows Movie Maker. It goes to show that content is king and equipment is secondary!

He's now equipped with an HD Canon camera, a Macbook and Final Cut Express, so watch out world.

Congratulations Josh and best of luck with your new job!

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04/08/2009

Why does engaging Gen Y on the social web make sense?

By Tim McAlpine

Continuing where I left off with my Why Gen Y? post, let's talk about the case for engaging Gen Y on the social web. Again, the bold text is what I say in my talks. The text following is what I would say if I had a lot more time! I've taken a page from a friend of mine's book. Denise Wymore told me last year that she wasn't taken seriously until she added some charts to her presentations. You want charts? I'll give you charts!

Why utilize the social web to attract Gen Y? Because that’s where Gen Y lives! Gen Y's use of social media eclipses all other generations.

Last June, I co-presented at the Forrester Financial Forum in New York with Catherine Graeber, a Vice President from Forrester Research. Catherine spent the first 15 minutes laying the groundwork with some great data-filled slides. You can find the entire presentation here. As you can see from this slide, members of Gen Y are way more involved on the social web than all other generations.

This gap goes a long way to explaining why credit unions are slow to get involved with social media marketing. Only 10% of Baby Boomers are involved in social networking, only 9% are reading blogs and only 4% are commenting on blogs. Since the decision-makers at most credit unions are Baby Boomers and have very little understanding or interest in what's going on within this newfangled social web, it makes total sense that they are apprehensive about getting involved.

Social networking usage is only going to increase. According to Netpop Research, 105 million Americans use social media sites.

There has been a 93% increase in social networking usage since 2006. Consumers are using these sites to comment—sometimes positively and frequently negatively—about brand experiences, products and services!

Facebook and MySpace both have more than 200 million registered users worldwide. There are many other sites with significant users including YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Blogger, Wordpress and Ning to name a few. Socializing has eclipsed e-mail as the number one use of the Internet. In fact, of the top 10 most popular websites ranked by Alexa, seven of them are based on social interaction and user-generated content. There is no signs that this trend is going to slow down.

A study by Pew reveals that 75% of the 18- to 24-year-old age group have a profile within a social network. Adult Internet users participation in social networks has quadrupled in just 4 years.

This slide again proves the disparity between generations. If three quarters of the 18- to 24-year-old crowd have a profile within a social network, it is an undeniable fact that this is not a flash-in-the-pan trend. If your credit union is serious about connecting with members of Gen Y, then it makes sense to meet them on their own turf. In fact, as more and more banks and credit unions build a presence within these environments, your credit union is at a huge disadvantage if you choose to ignore this opportunity. Social media is no longer an experimental medium and needs to be taken very seriously.

There's another three slides explained! As you can see, Gen Y is all over the social web and if you are seriously considering connecting with the next generation of credit union members, you need to figure out how to get your credit union involved.

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04/05/2009

Why Gen Y? A slightly scary introduction for credit unions

By Tim McAlpine

I am speaking a number of times this year on the need for credit unions to attract new Generation Y members. I have put together a new presentation that you can see here. I will be presenting it in Florida and Las Vegas in the next few weeks.

Sure, we have a number of programs that we are licensing, but my primary goal with these presentations is to raise awareness of the issues, talk about solutions and inspire credit unions to take action, regardless of whether it is with our assistance.

Clicking through a slide presentation doesn't really give you the full story. And even when presenting, I can only deliver a sentence or two with each slide, so what I thought I would do is discuss some of my thinking around a few of the key slides in longer-form blog posts. The bold text is what I say in my talks. The text following is what I would say if I had a lot more time!

Here is the all-too-real issue: there is a huge 12-year age gap in the world of credit unions.

I've heard this issue being talked about quite a bit over the past two years, but I have not seen much action. Especially this year, as the industry is paralyzed with the state of the economy and the corporate credit union nightmare.

There are a few good industry resources that have popped up including PSCU's Project New Age, Callahan's CYouth, CUNA's YES CU Community. and Filene's CU Tomorrow. Outside of our three live Young & Free programs, there are a few full-on Gen Y initiatives including Tinker FCU's Buck The Norm, Addison Avenue's The Addison Cafe, UTFCU Rocks and Shell FCU's iLife. There are also a few youth-centered blogs that are quite well done.

However, there are more than 9,000 natural-person credit unions in North America. How is it that I can only count up a dozen or so credit unions that are actually reaching out to Generation Y? Credit unions need to start chipping away at this huge gap now—it will not narrow with inaction, it will only widen.

Gen Y is 15 to 29 in 2009. They are socially conscious, they distrust companies and media and they could care less about credit unions!

These are sweeping generalizations and I know that everyone is an individual, but there are a number of common traits that connect members of Gen Y. They are confident and they believe they will change the course of history. They are tech savvy and authenticity and autonomy are extremely important. They are entering middle and high school and finishing college and university. They are planning five years ahead and looking forward to long-term relationships.

Members of Gen Y have a practical world view and are very goal oriented. They respect their parents and education. They are not health obsessive since they have their whole lives ahead of them. They are extremely social. Shopping is an event, not a chore. They have been raised in an instant-message-email-social-networked global community. They are open to spirituality but indifferent to Christianity.

Quality is cool and they spend to have fun. They heavily influence family purchases and they respond to truthful advertising. They are extremely aware of image and celebrity hype.

The cooperative, not-for-profit structure of credit unions should align perfectly with Gen Y's values and concerns, the problem is that members of Gen Y are unaware of what credit unions are all about and what they have to offer. If credit unions can connect and tell their story and compel members of Gen Y to join before the age of 25, these members are far more likely to stay than members who join later in life.

Just look at this graph. Only 4% of U.S. credit union members are between the age of 18 and 24 while the 18 to 24 crowd represents 17% of the total population.

This chart is based on information that I found from CUNA Market Research. It should scare the hell out of you! Generation Y as a whole is 34% of the population and will surpass the Baby Boomers very soon. To put it bluntly, if nothing is done about this downward trend, credit unions will cease to be relevant in the next 20 years.

I have also seen numbers from creditunions.com that peg the current percentage of 18- to 24-year-old members at about 6%. This is slightly rosier, but if this number does not move north soon, we might as well turn out the lights and call it a day!

I have heard the argument all too often, "Why would we target young people, they don't have any money?"

Oh, but they will! Seniors and Boomers will die and in the next 10 years Gen X and Gen Y will inherit over $40 trillion dollars. This will be the largest transfer of wealth in history and money will be transferring from credit unions to banks by the truckload.

This is really just simple math. If the bulk of credit union members are Seniors and Boomers and there are very few Gen Y members, this willed money will automatically be transferred to banks because that is where young people have their accounts.

I'll stop at four slides! Hopefully, I've fired you up and you will begin to think more seriously about Gen Y and the impact that this generational cohort is about to have on the credit union movement. On the bright side, I believe the future does not need to be this bleak. In my next post on the subject, I will offer some ideas on how and where to connect.