What's the deal with BarCampBanks?
Posted by Brent Dixon on March 19th, 2008
A few weeks ago we received a couple of comments on Doug’s ‘Haps’ post asking about BarCampBanks. The first was from Sue:
Since the barcamp in Seattle was done some time ago, what tangible accomplishments can be attributed to it?
These conferences take money away from our members and need to provide tangible benefits.
The second was from Juan (read the thread for the full comment, it was sassy…which we dig):
What specifics can you bring to the table about the value of the barcamp conferences and achievements of past conferences relating to credit unions?
“Why BarCampBank?” Great question. I’ll start before that…
What is a BarCampBank?
BarCampBankSeattle, the only one I’ve experienced, was an Open Space-style conference (or “unconference,” whichever bakes your cake). Basically, it goes like this:
- People gather in a place at minimal cost. To quote Morriss (from the same comment thread), most BarCampBanks “are either free or $25 to cover some basic expenses like t-shirts and coffee.” That’s the first reason I dig them. I’m cheap.
- Lay out blank sheets of paper on the floor and empty time/room slots on the wall. Our setup looked like this:
- Anyone who wants to fills out a conversation topic, posts it, and…
- Conversation ensues.
Boom. That’s it.
To see our schedule from last year and the collaborative notes from each conversation, click here.
(...and to learn more about Open Space, visit OpenSpaceWorld.)
Was it worth it?
I have to say, for me, absolutely. The conversations definitely shifted my perspective as a designer, marketer, and a consultant to the financial services industry. There’s no doubt that I changed my approach to designs, client relationships, and brainstorming as a result of BCB.
But more importantly, perhaps, were the relationships that grew out of those couple of days and the ongoing conversation and inspiration that has happened since. Flesh and blood contact always always always beats technology. BCB planted the seed that has lead to friendships and regular conversation with pals like William Azaroff, Tim McAlpine, Gene Blishen, and Robbie Wright.
The only thing I’d love to see different in future BCBs is more participation from people who actually work for credit unions and banks (banker count at the Seattle meetup: 0). The consultant/vendor to FI employee ratio was way off, and a greater FI perspective would have been great.
Was it worth it for the credit union folks who attended? Is it better or worse value than other industry conferences? I honestly can’t tell you, and will have to let them speak for themselves….so I’m tagging Gene Blishen, Robbie Wright, Shari Storm, and William Azaroff to weigh in.
What say you?
(All that said, sadly, I won’t be able to make any of the upcoming BCBs because I’m already traveling for clients. Lame. [Just kidding, clients.])
BarCampBankSeattle created the most amazing relationships of any conference or event I have ever attended. I brought back ideas and concepts that have spurned innovation within Vancity.
Nothing I can directly say Project A came out of Discussion 24, but it influenced my thinking, expanded my peer network and energized me in ways that are hard to describe.
A basic philosophy of BarCampBank I had to experience directly to understand is that the right people will show up and the right things will be discussed. If you’re one of those “right” people, my assumption is that you’ll feel compelled to attend a BarCampBank in ways you can’t deny.
I agree with William.
Part of the problem is trying to define the experience. We are so prone to measurement and benchmarking that we expect an experience to be marked in a similar fashion.
More than anything the event created a relationship between a number of people around the U.S. and Canada that now shares concerns, discusses issues and when possible, meet again with like minds to formualte, think, incubate and reason what all of this means for us and the CU and businesses we work for both now and the the future.
I can’t define how a rose smells but I sure know I like it!
I went to BarCampBankSeattle in July 2007 with no idea what to expect.
I remember driving up to the US border rehearsing my answers.
“Where are you going?”
“An unconference in Seattle.”
“Are you speaking or attending?”
“Yes.”
I decided to not tell the whole truth by simply saying, “I am attending a financial conference in Seattle.”
My own personal experience was serendipitous. We were in the middle of the final preparations to launch our first real foray into a social media marketing campaign—Young & Free Alberta for Common Wealth Credit Union. We were launching in less than two months and I had a ton of questions about the status quo of credit union/financial social media experimentation to date.
At this meeting, I met a number of active social media practitioners including Trey, Brent, Shari and William. People actually involved with real social media projects and I had access to pick their overly large brains.
I co-chaired a session with Trey, “User generated: How far would you go?” and during this session, I challenged the conventions and the discussion that flowed were the most open, educational and revolutionary that I have ever been involved in.
I took this opportunity to shoot holes in my own theories of the merging of social media, marketing and commerce. I took away ideas that radically changed our approach to launching this program. Driving home late that night, I had absolute confidence in what we were about to launch had a legitimate chance to succeed. Believe me, before this event, I was extremely nervous about our ideas.
Jason Knight also shared many of his learning to date with Wesabe, Jim Bruene shared his industry insights, Jesse Robbins lamented about how difficult it has been to start a new CU and I met a bunch of other great people including Denise Wymore.
I totally agree with Brent that there were a lack of credit union insiders represented. But those that were there, including Robbie Wright and Gene Blishen, did ground the discussions with a dose of reality.
I received a Master’s degree in credit union social media in one day for $35 and priceless friendships. That’s my ROI.
Will the 2008 BarCampBanks stack up? Sure they will – the right people will show up and the right things will get talked about. Like Brent, I won’t be able to attend any of the upcoming events, but I will definitely chime in on Twitter!
I’m still kicking myself for not going to BarCampBank Seattle. I didn’t know about it until Robbie Wright sent me an invite just a couple days before the event. I was consulting with a CU in Spokane at the time, and didn’t want to rearrange my plane tickets because it had already been too long since I tucked my son into bed. Had I been hooked into the twittersphere before then, I would have definitely made my plans to include attending.
While there’s no replicating the in-person experience, I felt like I got a small flavor of the event by reading the session write-ups as they were posted to the wiki, as well as the photos to Flickr. I had only cursorily heard of Wesabe, but reading those notes certainly put it front and center on my radar screen. I also had never heard of a BarCamp/PodCamp, and was so intrigued by this event format I decided to attend FacebookCampToronto, which led me to discovering PodCamp Boston. Both of those events opened my eyes further to the social media/networking revolution currently occurring.
BarCampBankSF (March 29&30) – sign-ups are going gang-busters at 35. There are a lot of great CU’ers I’m looking forward to meeting there including Laura Baker, Gabriel Garcia, Tony Mannor, and folks from Wesabe, Zopa, Mint, and Boulevardr. Also, Frederic Baud, who was in on the original creation of BarCampBank in Paris, will be flying in from across the pond to be there.
BarCampBankNE (Apr 5) has a dozen first-rate attendees, including folks from Geezeo, Marquis, and Andera, as well as some innovative CU’ers like Ginny Brady, Andy LaFlamme, Mark Vautour. And of course Mr. Shevlin.
BarCampMoneyNYC (Apr 12) is looking exciting too. The event is being held on the 40th floor in midtown Manhattan, and has 34 attendees already signed up.
If I hear one more vendor referring to their social media clique members using terms like “cool kids” or “big brains”, I am going to puke. Just take a look around at some of the posts on this site and the sites of active contributors to see what I am talking about.
Instead of talking about results, folks here seem to like to feed each others egos about how “cool”, “innovative”, “creative” and “smart” they obviously are. Of course, only these “big brains” get it and do not need validation of some payback and getting together to pontificate is more than enough.
Please, please, please quit breaking your arms patting each other on the backs and focus on the results that can and has been achieved by credit unions using social media. It’s really not about any of you; it’s about making credit unions more competitive and able to differentiate themselves in a very competitive market.
This post is not really about the barcamps, which may be very cool and worthwhile, and is more about accountability and getting real stuff done.
Rant done.
I’ve been some heat from the point of view that Sue brought up: what is the payoff? Did anything actually happen from BCBS that is measurable with a direct ROI? Did you get any new business? The answer to that question is no. But as William and Brent have both said, the event changed the way in which they looked at the industry and brought some new ideas and theories into the daily work.
Those new ideas and theories have fundamentally changed the way that they work and the way they look at problems, hopefully making them more effective at their job.
What’s the ROI of a blog? I started my personal CU blog a while back now and I couldn’t even come close. Sure I can take my time I’ve spent on it and average out an hourly rate, add in the monthly hosting costs and come up with a number. But the knowledge I have gained from running a blog and the interactions with others is what is truly priceless.
William, Tim, Gene -
Thanks so much for your comments. You all painted a series of great pictures.
Morriss -
Most definitely wish you could have been there in Seattle, but I think you’re going to have a ball at these upcoming events.
“enoughalready” -
Very relevant comment.
You’re right that terms like “cool kids” come off as a point of exclusivity, and can be alienating, which is never ever ever my intention. All I mean by that term is that I think said kids are cool.
You raise an important point, one that has come up in a lot of our offline conversations but hasn’t made it to a blog post: The danger of the echo-chamber (which sounds like the title of a Harry Potter book).
When these conversations shift from adding new ideas, best practices, innovation, and, like you said, results – to a series of smiley horn toots and validations – that creates a destructive environment for everyone.
That said – we got involved in social media to build relationships, and that’s what happened. If I’m a little bit cavalier and excitable about calling out great work by people who are much smarter than me that I’ve been lucky to get to know, it’s only because…good lord…its exciting stuff.
We need more voices like you, “enoughalready.” You seem passionate about the movement and passionate about getting things done. I wish you wouldn’t post anonymously, and rather than feel removed from the community you’d come join in – As yourself.
If you’d like to carry on this conversation in a less public forum, drop me an email at brent [at] trabian [dot] com or call me up at 214 736 4505.
Also, Robbie -
Thanks for being straight-up and saying “Direct dollars from BCB? No.” It ended up being matter of ROI on ideas and perspective. I recently ran across a social entrepreneurship company named “Return on Inspiration.” I think that’s an interesting little bit of phraseology.
Wow, enoughalready threw it down.
Not everything a company does can or should be calculated in ROI. You can, but sometimes you shouldn’t.
I have been saying that CUs are no different than any other kind of business. So let’s look at that. At my coffee shop we give out free doggy bones to people who come by with dogs. It costs money, but it makes the customer happy, it makes them feel like we care and makes us different from our competition. So the 20 cent dog biscuit bought me good will and mindshare. Neither of those pop up on my P/L. But both create word of mouth and buzz in the “Doggie Cliques”. I can’t figure out the ROI but it was the right move for us.
We go to Chilis 2 or 3 times a month. When we go there, the server brings my 2 year old daughter a coloring book and three crayons. I am sure that this costs them money in materials and the hassle of cleaning up the crayon marks and crayon paper that inevitably ends up on the floor. But every time we go there, another three crayons and a coloring book. It makes our meal more comfortable and allows us to stay longer (so they can sell us a dessert). I doubt that they can get an accurate ROI on that expense. But with 6 other restaurants in a stones throw from Chilis – it is a consideration we make in our decision on where to go. Even though Chilis probably doesn’t know that is why we are there.
My company runs a blog. It takes up my time to run, write and manage. Most of the people that go to it are folks from other agencies and a few credit unions who find us by way of Google (or word of mouth). Not once have I received a phone call saying “I read your blog and want to give you all of our marketing.” I did once get a phone call from a credit union that I called out for a malfunctioning website – but they were happy that I let them know their blog was broken. So has my blog made me business – yes I think so. Can I prove it? No, not really. But I can say that the dialogs have improved my ability to serve my clients. And that makes me more competitive.
I can watch what topics get the most hits and know that those are things that are important to credit unions. I listen to the comments and get an idea as to what credit unions might need. Because of the information derived from our blog we are launching 3 new and unique credit union marketing products for credit unions this year at MAC (www.2008mac.com). We also have the unexpected pleasure of having our posts referenced on OTHER blogs that drive even more traffic our way.
Our blog, is a bit of a loss leader I guess. Like the free pens and swag most credit unions give out. However, our blog is cheaper to run and produce than a printed newsletter and more timely. It allows for our company to directly communicate with our potential clients, CU employees, friends and competitors. We even have non CU people who have stopped by and left comments.
It is ok that you do not want to jump into this without a clear idea of ROI. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the safe way to operate and I harp on my clients about tracking their marketing all the time. What the folks who do this believe is that it is inheirently beneficial to open the door to communicate with your members using whatever means available.
Given that it costs as little as $5 to get a blog up and running and then the cost of having someone write and monitor it (which you could do in-house). The ROI, which, like my doggie biscuits, is impossible to determine accurately, would be much higher than giving out free pens or a single billboard advertisement or direct mail campaign. It is just a matter of doing it correctly that increases your odds of a conversion.
But even if every person who reads your blog came in and became a member, likely the blog wouldnt get any of the credit. So if you do start your own blog, It should be looked at as something that you are willing to do for your members. It is for their benefit, not yours. It is a value added service that you provide in hopes that it will create a better relationship with your members.
If you make a buck – great! If not, check your web stats, review your content, figure out what your members want from your blog. Then you will know what your members want from your credit union.
Ramble over :)
@enoughalready: Great points. I think you’re right on almost all counts. Except the last—this post IS about BarCampBank. As I read it,it’s about the experience Brent had, not about accountability.
Barcampbank NE will be my first foray into the world of the un-conference. I’m really looking forward to it.
Do I think its worth attending. Heck yes I do! You can’t get any better for $20. It is an opportunity to network, bounce ideas around, and create friendships throughout the industry.
As Tony said, can the ROI be accurately measured for something like a blog or a barcamp? No. But the experiences, connections, ideas, and conversations can lead to business through word of mouth, and sometimes more importantly, a change in the way we think about the industry.
This exchange is why blogs are so much fun. In my experience, there aren’t many places where you can have a challenging and stimulating conversation with people who share your interests, instanteously. I’m hoping that BarCampBankNE will be fun in that same way. In addition, blogging and becoming a member of the blogging community has made me a better CU board member. Enoughalready, that’s what I need to “Get Done” and I’m hoping BarCampBankNE will make it’s own contribution. I think I’ll take the advice that Morriss gave Tony on Twitter and blog about how it has (or has not) on a future Boardcast post.
one more thought on this topic: The other reason I think this is NOT about accountability, is that I suspect that many of the people who attend do so out of their own personal desire. Maybe they expense the $20, maybe they don’t.
I believe the 1st BCB in Seattle was on Saturday, I know the BCBNE will be on a Saturday, and I think BCBSF will on a Saturday, no? So this isn’t the typical “gee, boss, can I get the day off to go to a conference, I assure you I will LEARN a lot that I can apply to my job, and earn 4 education units that apply to my annual training goal” kind of thing.
Personal satisfaction is all the “results” that are required here.
enoughallready does have a point and I would invite him/her to contact me in order that we could have a conversation about how the credit union I work for has differentiated itself in a fierce competitive market. Those achievements will speak for themselves.
They key, and this is a prime area of concern, is how do we even begin to think differently in order to be different? It doesn’t come from going to the same old, 2 day, $1,000, I’m-an-expert-so-you-should-be-doing-this type conference. It can come from this $20 come-as-you-are BarCampBank event. Don’t bother looking for the Kool Aid there because there isn’t any.
Well, at least one other CU CEO thinks that BarCampBank is a worthwhile event. In looking at the wiki for BCBSF, I noticed that the CEO of a $320M CU in Wisconsin is planning on making the trip.
CEO from Wisconsin here— I am so thrilled to be attending BarCampBankSF. I am one of those people who thinks the financial industry needs to blow itself up and start all over again
- we have been doing the same things, the same way for decades and expect different results -isn’t that the definition of insanity!!Stimulating conversations with great minds—can’t beat that!
Looking forward to meeting all of you!!
BarCampBankSeattle was a memorable and enlightening experience.
The downside is that most organizations and employers I have been involved with simply aren’t receptive to open-source learning. That has been a keen disappointment.