In February, Gene Blishen, Mount Lehman Credit Union's General Manager, asked Nala and myself to come out for a morning and meet with their 11-person team. The purpose of the meeting was to talk about how the credit union staff could:
- Foster deeper connections with their members
- Continue to stand out from the large credit union competitors in their marketplace
- Develop something that the staff could engage in and be a part of
- Get involved with social media if it made sense
- Teach their members how to use all of the great technology services that the credit union has developed over the past decade
By the end of the three-hour session, The Mount Lehman Show concept had come to life. We always try to approach meetings like these with an open mind knowing that the last thing the world needs is another website. Especially a website that lacks life, current content and a long-term commitment. Gene blogged about the launch a couple of days ago and it's this passage that really sums up why we knew this idea would work.
"... We were open to anything and came to the conclusion that if our credit union was going to have social media as part of its culture it had to be done by everyone. Everyone. If all the staff were the face and personality of the credit union then the only authentic method to show that to the Internet world was those exact faces and personalities. We also wanted this to be a community site. We have been part of this neighbourhood for 67 years and wanted everyone to be part of this. This site is who we are and who the community is that we live in."
There are now a couple hundred credit union blogs and too many of them are published by one over-worked person who doesn't have the time to do it well. This is not going to happen at Mount Lehman Credit Union. Gene continues:
"We bought the cameras and software and everyone dove in. There wasn’t and still isn’t a lot of structure as everyone contributes in some fashion. Everyone has as part of their job description now the responsibility of spending two hours per week on communicating through the credit union’s social media channel. The key understanding is simple, use your common sense. This is the result – The Mount Lehman Show."
The site is built on the free Ning social network platform, and as you can tell, it's being built with a ton of heart! I guestimate that 90% of credit unions are blocking the social web on their staff's computers. Contrast this with requiring that every staff member spend two hours per week on communicating through the credit union’s social media channel. Pure awesome!
Tim