Last week I was in Madison judging CUES’ 2009 Golden Mirror Awards. During the judging, several major trends jumped out. Among them, this:

Across all categories, a lot of small to mid-sized credit unions (less than $700 million in assets) are doing creative work that is head-and-shoulders above that of the big boys.

Why do you think that is?

(PS: Later this week, I’m writing a more in-depth piece for the NEXUS blog about the trends we noticed. Stay tuned.)

As you may have read here, here, here, here, and here, CUES Experience was a blast.

What struck me the most about Mark Stutrud, Summit Brewing Company’s founder and CEO, was that he knows exactly who Summit is and where it’s going. He makes no apologies, and doesn’t try and water Summit down (figuratively, but also literally….there’s no “Summit Lite”), or grow without reason to be like his larger competitors.

One of my favorite quotes by him was, “If we aren’t making some people mad a few times a year, we aren’t doing our job.”

My main takeaway, and the theme of my workshop after the tour, was to differentiate by knowing exactly who you are and pursing that as deeply as you can. Get specific. It takes businesses years and a lot of hard work to find a nitch. Credit unions come with one – its automatic! And as a result we have a built-in affinity and culture from the very beginning. So own that.

Our final question was this: What is something you can do at your credit union that is so relevant to your specific SEG and/or community, that it absolutely wouldn’t make sense somewhere else?

Also, I highly recommend Ron’s post on his Summit takeaways – “Financial Services Marketers Could Use A Beer .”

Here are the slides (a few of which make little sense without their talking points):

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Also, Summit beer is fantastic. If you can get it in your area, do it.

ps: I didn’t take any pictures, because I’m a moron. But I’ll update this post with a link to some shots from the tour as soon as a certain someone hooks it up.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to interview Cornerstone Advisors’ strategy and tech guru Steve Williams for the very first CUES Experience Podcast.

What can you expect to see happening in the FI tech-space over the next year? Listen to find out:

The rest of the CUES Experience Podcasts will happen live from the conference from May 13th – 16th. They’ll be hosted by Currency Marketing’s Tim McAlpine, so you know they’ll be great (for a sample, check out Currency’s podcast).

And on a final note, if you’re coming, don’t forget about my tour of Summit Brewing Company. It will be many good times.

Thanks to Christopher Stevenson from CUES for the opportunity and Steve Williams for his time and brilliance.

I’ve needed a break from blogging, so I haven’t been around much recently. Too much credit union stuff on the brain, and here’s a tip for a blogger who’s near burnout: don’t write anything if you don’t have anything to say. It will keep you sane.

Three items have broken my silence.

CUES Nexus

First, the CUES Nexus Connection blog has been brought back, refocused, and is now indispensable. Lisa, Mary, and Christopher are to be commended for the work there and on Skybox, which is showing much more personality on much more regular posts.

Tim McAlpine

That anyone would put the time into a YouTube-driven campaign for getting on the Symposium speaker roster rocks. That the video has seen 135 views without a direct link from here (until now) is pretty cool, too.

The Gruber Institute of Financial Wellness

dumpyourbank.com

Thank you, Alabama Credit Union. You have joined Coast Capital Savings on my very short “marketing I don’t mind” list. (That doesn’t really exist, so I’m creating it now).

I so want a mug!

I wasn’t planning on making a post about CUES Nexus until tomorrow as my inbox is unmanageable and I’m just plain exhausted. But thanks to flight delays I’ve had sufficient time to decompress, and I want to get some things out. (Note: I wrote most of this while stranded at DFW today – bad Dallas weather must’ve moved on to the midwest.)

CUES Nexus was my first conference presenting more than one session. Gotta say I had a blast. From what I heard, many credit unions represented at the conference are seriously considering moving into social media.

That’s why Joseph Jaffe’s keynote was so timely. He got started with, and I quote,

“You (credit unions) are a social network.”

As you can imagine, I had to fight giving him a one-man standing ovation at those words. I won’t give away all of his keynote, as we may cover the details in our podcast or an upcoming post.

You may recognize Joseph Jaffe from mentions in our podcasts and presentations before, so it was great to finally meet the man behind Life After the Thirty Second Spot (an office staple of ours for almost two years now), Crayon, and Across the Sound.

Away from the conference, Brent and I joined a dozen others for a Dallas geek dinner coordinated by Paul McEnany. Oh yeah, while you’re adding Jaffe Juice and Across the Sound to your feeds, Hee-Haw Marketing is a must.

You can see why I’m exhausted: it was a credit union geek’s dream week!

What’s coming up: Brent and I recorded our breakout session and we’ll be releasing parts in our next podcast. Also, we’ve received requests for our slides. Here’s the thing – I built it in Keynote and am just doing a quick export to Flash. Another disclaimer, most of these slides won’t make sense unless you were there (the steroid guy or the big IF, for example).

Give it a download and then a look-see.

Finally, Brent just sent me a link to what seems to be Coast Capital Savings’ discarded/uncut commercials. Very clever ad, and kudos to them for throwing it up on YouTube. I love their sense of humor. Enjoy!

From the Filene Research Institute blog:

Join Wade Lagrone from Zopa for a CUES webinar on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending on Tuesday, March 6th at 10:00-11:30 am CST. Lagrone will take an in-depth look at how this new phenomenon could play out in a way that extends the credit union mission and provides ample opportunties to partner. Call 800.252.2664, ext. 3400 to register.

Be there or be square.

On March 6, Matt and I will be speaking at CUES Executive Technology Forum in Tucson. The topic is Web 2.0 and CUs: Using Social Web to Reach Members in New Ways.

If you’re going to ETF, come hang out!

In May, Brent and I will be speaking at CUES Nexus here in Dallas – we’ll be chatting about “Dos and Don’ts for CUs Using the Social Web.” Joe Jaffe is doing the closing keynote at Nexus, in case you didn’t know.

To illustrate how highly Jaffe is regarded around here, here’s an analogy -

Life After the 30-Second Spot : Brent :: Agile Web Development with Rails : Matt

In a session hosted by Steve Williams, mobile banking was hot.

I’m bringing this up because Steve, Colin, and Jim are in unison saying the time has come.

Julie and Stefanie Norvaisas have got some buzz going in credit union land. They’re product designers who’ve been working on an ethnographic research project that’s coming out in a few months through Filene. The study deals with what really matters in the minds of credit union members.

During their breakout session at CEO Network, we got to see some fascinating video interviews with credit union members. They explained they’re finding that most members don’t get the basics of managing their finances, let alone understanding any difference between a credit union and a bank. The videos showed member after member (highly educated members in some cases) making irrational decisions about their finances and trying to explain why.

Some of the best takeaways from this session were about how innovation is risky, polarizing business. I agree. If what you’re doing doesn’t get any haters, you’re probably not innovating. Innovative is not a “me-too” mini-jumbo CD. Innovative is Zopa. Innovative is ING Direct. Innovative is Change is Good.

They also addressed one of my pet peeves – how too many C-level CU executives are too far separated from the members they’re serving, and that may be a big reason that a lot of innovative ideas don’t make it to market. For example, I doubt payday lenders are getting a lot of business from the CEO set. That doesn’t mean that Joe Member isn’t standing in line at the counter begging for a short-term loan at 300% interest to get him through to the next paycheck.

One tip is for CEOs to make it a habit to do ethnographic research themselves. Use your front door, walk around your lobbies, and spend some time talking to your members about their finances and not the weather, people! (Most CEOs in the room said they did this regularly.)

It’s encouraging that we’re hearing chatter about moving from innovation to implementation on credit union ideas. We’ll be talking about this in our next podcast (Disclaimer: Shameless plug), by the way.

Ok I have a confession to make. Yesterday I was questioning whether or not it was a good decision for us to come to the CUES CEO Network.

It wasn’t that the CUES people weren’t friendly (they are), and it wasn’t because it was costing us a lot to be here (ok, that was part of it—the Four Seasons Aviara Resort isn’t a cheap place to stay). I was frustrated because it seemed that the meaningful conversations were either happening on the golf course or in sessions in which “press” was asked not to attend.

I understand the need for the CEOs and senior level executives to be able to speak freely among peers about sensitive issues, so I don’t begrudge being asked not to attend some of the sessions, but I suddenly felt as though perhaps this trip wasn’t the most effective use of our time.

Today changed my opinion.

My day started with a session conducted by Steve Williams of Cornerstone Advisors on “Emerging Trends in Credit Union Technology & Delivery.” Steve’s discussion of emerging trends focused on the ways in which credit unions can add value to their members and included an introduction to peer-to-peer lending, the online habits of Gen Y, and the changing landscape of payment processing (such as using your cell phone as a contactless credit “card”.)

I was encouraged to hear that most of the CEOs felt their credit unions were doing a crappy job reaching Gen Y and that peer-to-peer lending was more than just a passing fad. One of the attendees even had an account through Prosper and was making over 11% on his $200 investment. So perhaps these guys are paying attention to more than we give them credit for.

Trey and I next attended the general session, a panel discussion facilitated by Bob Hoel of Filene and including Steve Williams, Franck Schuurmans, Mark Meyer, and Peter Duffy of Sandler O’Neill.

I’m not usually a fan of panel discussions, but when one of the panelists proposes that credit unions should go ahead and accept taxation so they can take advantage of a more friendly regulatory environment, you can bet there will be some sparks. The one thing that everybody seemed to agree on, however, is that credit unions must find a way to communicate their value through more than empty rhetoric about member-ownership and “everything we do, we do for you” feelgoodery.

I know this post doesn’t provide much insight into the content of the conference, but hopefully it conveys the spirit of innovation the conference was meant to inspire. CUES should be commended for the caliber of people they engage to present at their conferences, and I apologize for doubting that the trip would be worth our time.

Still, I should probably work on my golf swing.

When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit last year, credit unions responded. In fact the National Credit Union Foundation raised and distributed more than $3 million in the wake of Katrina alone.

So I was surprised to hear during today’s session on online philanthropy that virtually none of that $3 million was raised via the Internet.

The NCUF, through sponsoring a new website called cuaid.coop, is working to change that.

I’m very encouraged that this conversation is taking place before the next disaster occurs. I do believe the online philanthropy space is growing more competitive with products like ChipIn, but credit unions can and should leverage the power of the network (you know, the inherent not-for-profit, cooperative aspect that ties all credit unions together).

I’ll get this next part out of the way as it’s unsolicited advice. (Are you really surprised that I’m offering unsolicited advice?)

After spending limited time on the CU Aid website, the design needs some tweakage right off the bat – but these changes would be easy: remove the flow chart along with the photo montage and take a more personal tone with the content.

That’s all I have to say about design and usability. I’m actually more excited about what they’re doing right, as the NCUF is doubtlessly striving for improvement here.

I believe this is the kind of online engagement to which many credit union members will respond: it unites members (and credit unions as a whole) around a cause. From what I’ve seen it’s not uncommon for credit unions to experience great success in offline fundraising efforts. Couple that with the success of other nonprofits raising donations online and it’s a pretty clear indication of the potential here.

Moreover, it struck me that an approach like this helps protect members from the fraudsters who prey on the good-natured by launching fake donation sites in the wake of an event like Katrina or the 2004 Asian Tsunami.

If you’ve got two cents on this, what advantages or disadvantages do you see?

I know, I know. You’re tired of the “movement vs. industry” debate, but please play along one more time.

A few months back I claimed the debate wasn’t a particularly important one. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Brent’s What Movement? post swayed me, however. The more I think about it, the more I realize that without a movement, there’s no meaningful difference between a credit union and a bank.

This morning, Bill Taylor spoke on the characteristics of “Maverick” companies and how they stand for more than the status quo “service and convenience” – how companies who make a difference in the marketplace do business with a clear, distinctive, disruptive purpose.

Hearing him speak got me all fired up. He got me thinking about who’s really making a difference out there in credit union land. There are individual credit unions innovating, no doubt, but they’re anomalies among the 8,000. As a whole, the “movement” isn’t moving.

He got me thinking why credit unions were called a movement in the first place.

Credit unions were a movement because they were the original peer-to-peer lenders (not in a predatory sense, either). Joe Factoryworker couldn’t get a loan at the bank, so he and other Joes and Janes pooled their resources. By the way, that peer-to-peer idea is still very powerful (look at Zopa, BitTorrent, etc.).

Credit unions were a movement because the credit union idea spread like a movement spreads. I’m sorry, but healthy movements don’t shrink or stagnate. Maybe that’s a large part of why I’m writing this post.

That being said, I see pockets of movement – but as a whole, we’ve got an industry on our hands. I wholeheartedly want credit unions to regain movement. And if it comes, it’s going to come from innovation, disruption, and uniqueness spreading outward from those pockets much like the movement that created credit unions in the first place.

Bill mentioned movement right off the bat. He started his keynote with, “I’m well aware that this is not just an industry; it’s a movement.” It was the only point of his address of which I’d disagree. In all fairness, even that was half-right. Until further notice, it’s an industry in need of a movement.

We had announced that we’d be coming out to this conference, but we haven’t articulated the big reason why. We’re trying to find those pockets of movement and amplify them. We’re here to take ideas that don’t make it to print – that aren’t being recorded elsewhere save in the notebooks of some real disruptive/innovative CEOs and executive team members – and to help those ideas spread. Hence the “Open Source” in Open Source CU. Free of charge. Take ‘em or leave ‘em.

There was more in Bill’s address than I could possibly cover here. He spoke about Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank, ING Direct, Commerce Bank and handfuls of other great examples of disruptive groups fighting for causes. Rather than reporting all that, I wanted to write about the string of firecrackers that he lit in my brain that’s taken me a good four hours to write out.

What else would you expect from the cofounder of Fast Company?!

Brent’s living it up at ad:tech right now, rubbing elbows with Ze Frank, Matthew Lesko and Elmo, but my jealousy won’t last long. Matt and I will be in sunny San Diego next week for CUES CEO Network.

Watch for regular posts and a podcast (yes, Matt’s voice will be heard!) about the happenings taking place Sunday through Wednesday.

And if you’ll be there, don’t be shy. Let us know – just send me an email at trey at trabian dot com.

Remember Tarrant County Credit Union’s “Change is Good” program? It’s a wild success! In a well-written CUES Management Magazine article today, Erica Pelzek writes:

After the promotion launch April 28, Tarrant County CU signed up 152 “Change Is Good!” accounts in less than a month and opened 25 new checking accounts specifically for members who want to participate in the “Change Is Good!” program. Tarrant County CU typically opens approximately 20 new checking accounts in a month without the program, according to [CEO Lily] Newfarmer.

“We’re not even at month one yet, and the staff is already nearly at the goal,” Newfarmer says. “There’s proof in the numbers.”

You know what else is amazing about this product launch?

1. Tarrant County Credit Union moved SO swiftly on this product. They got a request for the offering from a member in February and they went from idea to implementation by the first of May. It wasn’t a plug-and-play product, either. It was completely new in the credit union industry, and their vendor did an amazing job developing the back-end technology required for the launch.
2. The product was, like I just mentioned, a member request through their website. That’s collaboration: letting your audience help you improve your product! It didn’t come from a consultant, a presentation, or a white paper; it originated from a member.

Yep – collaboration is catching on. In an opinion piece in the July 5th issue of Credit Union Times, Guy Messick (attorney at Messick & Weber P.C., NACUSO General Counsel, and CU podcaster) writes:

There are many external threats to the industry (e.g., threat of taxation, diminishing margin spreads, excessive regulation) but the real threat is our inability to respond to the external threats. The credit union model is in deep trouble but the response of most of the industry is to ignore the warning signs and continue to drift toward becoming a marginal industry.

Guy goes on to present collaboration as a solution to the problem.

Work with other credit unions and third party service providers to generate income from additional and valuable services to members. If operational expenses are too high, create scale and efficiencies by collaborating with other credit unions in CUSOs. Credit unions have proven that these strategies work but most credit unions will never give them a chance to work or give them a half-hearted effort that is destined to fail. Why?

... The majority of the industry is made up of very risk averse people. Change comes very slowly if at all. “If it worked for fifty years, there is no reason to change things.”

How easy it could’ve been for Lily to say, “Well, our vendor doesn’t offer this and no other credit unions are doing it yet, either.” Thanks again, TCCU, for demonstrating that change is indeed good for the credit union industry.

Update: Here’s part of a great GonzoBanker article posted today, Giving debit its due credit, discussing how to increase debit transactions and the economics behind it:

The [debit loyalty programs] that have gained the most traction are those that are de facto rebate programs. The most discussed is the Bank of America Keep the Change program, where the daily total of debit transactions is rounded up to the next whole dollar and the amount needed for that is transferred to a savings account. B of A matches the amount transferred in the first 90 days and 5% of the amount thereafter, with an annual maximum of $250. The bank gets a lot of additional debit transactions at the $.33 transaction fee at a cost of less than $.05 for the match, and they get a savings account on which they pay .5%. Pretty smart.

No, I didn’t mean “community chartered,” either.

As a supplement to a CUES Skybox post I just made (thanks, Mary, for the opportunity to contribute), here’s an excerpt from a Vitamin post called Start Thinking Community:

Companies in general fear public dissent from real people. They say things like, “So if we ship the wrong thing, or our customer has a bad service experience – then everyone in the community is going to hear about it? That’s bad.” No, that’s good.

The reason they don’t like the idea is that they spend so much money on advertising, telling people how awesome they are – they don’t want to build a platform that will allow real people to compromise that illusion. But why? If you’re doing nothing wrong, people won’t have anything to complain about – and if you are doing something wrong then don’t you want to know about it so you can fix it? In my opinion a community where your customers rule is a must for any business going for perfection. Communities are human business debuggers. Why not know the problems, address them and prove that they’re fixed all in public? The idea is pure genius.

I couldn’t agree more.