Last week we began earnestly testing the new SMS product though our MemberDirect Integrated (MDI) channel. MDI is the Internet banking product developed by BC Central Credit Union which is used by a majority of BC credit unions. The product has usage by other credit unions across Canada. The SMS product is being championed by 3 credit unions, Mt. Lehman included and will be rolled out to the system (one by one) within the next few months. We are fortunate to be in this first group.

So now we need to name the product. It seems, at this point, there won’t be a system wide name like MemberCard. That is unfortunate but really a byproduct of our current credit union co-operative system. We will co-operate as long as there is no dilution to our own “brands”. For a credit union our size does it really matter?

Anyway back to our naming-the-product. I invited input from all 10 staff members and we came up with some pretty good names. We all understood the product (don’t forget we have had a SMS alert system for transactions called MemberNote for close to 3 years now) so the discussions really involved exactly what the product did and that is was a new and separate product that was different from MemberNote. We didn’t want to confuse the two as they served two distinct purposes. Discussions like these, at this level, are a neat attribute of this credit union. Everyone gets involved, everyone has input. But we got stuck. And the difference was generational. The younger staff aligned under one name, the older under another. Both had remarkable points as to why one was better than the other. What to do?

Over the last months there is a group, well it really isn’t a group it is an undefined bunch of people associated with credit unions that actively twitter. Why not throw this one out to the pack of experts and see what comes up? There were some great suggestions but one stood out (thank you Ron ! ) Textus. This was proposed to the group and was quickly accepted. We now have a new name for a new product.

When I look at this process it is so simple. I imagine we “should” have hired the experts, done the focus groups, etc. etc. etc. Would they have understood the product enough to come up with any better names? It just seems so fitting that the name came through Twitter. An tech name for a tech product from a tech bunch of people.

Tim has brought up an interesting point about two ways to grow:

1. Become more relevant to your original field of membership

2. Expand the credit union’s field of membership

One of the most important criteria in this decision is what resources your have and how can you deploy them. And this is a major stumbling block when we talk about provincial or national campaigns. If you are large you have ample resources to expand your field of membership. Global awareness campaigns would fit this. But smaller CUs don’t have the luxury of a large budgets or ample HR. Maybe point #1 is the only consideration you can accomplish. That type of focus, that constant attempt to be relevant doesn’t always fit with a larger co-operative campaign. In fact it might make your message seem confusing.

For all the broad brushed attempts at expanding membership, being relevant is the hardest. Products and services are key, the delivery of these is vital. How do you take that cold, technical, database driven function and wrap it around something human, understandable, and friendly to make it relevant? I don’t think there is any single answer. Experience can define what works for your CU. Books and bloggers help.

One way to ‘monitor’ relevance is to very carefully watch the reasons people are opening and members are closing their accounts. I review these functions daily with the biggest question being Why? Why did they open or why did they close their accounts? Most reasons should be out of your control i.e. married and moving out of the area but if they aren’t these become the ‘soft’ areas that you need to get back and work on. And sometimes it becomes something that you can’t help. It hurts but you still exist in a competitive market place and giving away the farm isn’t always in the cards.

Taking care of business is the ever expanding goal of being relevant to your members. I don’t know if you ever arrive or are completely satisfied by the results. What is important is that you don’t give up trying.

William has a great post celebrating his 5 years of blogging. He says:
“What I never could have predicted was how personally transformative the experience would be. The online community of FI bloggers I have joined is amazing. Insightful, supportive, funny and helpful. I have grown to admire, respect and lean on these fine folks and consider them to be an important part of the social fabric of my life (most of them are in the “my peers” section on the sidebar of my blog’s homepage).”

This community is a very different realm and one, as William points out, that is experienced. There are some very interesting comments being made about social media, micro-blogging and the gamut applications that add up to this “experience”. It isn’t something that is easily understood but is defined by the “experience”. Just when we feel comfortable about a topic or how we are using an application it will change and challenge us. The “experience” is never static. And the boundaries of your personal and professional groups on-line seem to always be expanding and contracting with people. There is no solid definition of how or why it works. It just does.

That said it does mean the pundits, experts and “we can make a buck off this” types are always broadcasting some definitive measure about this “experience”. But as we all know nailing jello to a tree is pretty difficult. There is a Danish saying that talks about one’s love for family. The saying says something like ” it is difficult to divide the wind from the sun”. You can’t measure or distribute the love you have for your wife and kids. It just exists. And in that light this online experience, though measurable because it is digital, transforms the bits and bytes to a human experience. Sure you can get rich and famous with an application (just look at the US debates last night with Facebook showing up). But the key experience is being able to be part of a group, without geographic boundaries, in order to share just a bit of what we think and feel.

It’s great that more individuals are getting involved. No one really understands this until they do. Will someone come up with a name for all of this? I guess Jimi was asking the question years ago – Are you Experienced?

Seems once the Christmas holiday season is over you need another holiday just to get your energy levels back. And every year everyone says the same thing “Gonna change next year… keeping it simple”. Sure.

What does 2008 hold in store?

Personally, I’m heading over to Europe to visit our youngest son, the artist, in Copenhagen. We are planning to head down to Barcelona for a week or so. It will be fun and something I am really looking forward to. Europe is Europe and it does get different when your family lives there.

This year golf will take a higher priority, right Tim?

Work wise it should be busy. This month, with the conversions and new ATM, we will begin formalizing some of interesting opportunities we will have. A few more unique products coupled with our service level is the goal. I think this will be the year iPhone will be introduced in Canada and with that the mobile market should begin shifting a little. Disruptive technologies seems to take interesting paths before being accepted to a greater level. There seems to be more and more iPods everywhere you look so the brand’s acceptance and its mature platform can only help moving Apple into this newer area.

That concept of putting a pocket sized computer with Internet access and an acceptable interface into the hands of more and more individuals makes one think about what will happen. In my short business lifespan there have been 3 giant steps that have moved the way we do things to the next plateau. The Apple II in 1978 (with Visicalc), the Internet with Mosaic and then Netscape in the early 90’s, and now the iPhone. Whether the original hardware/software continues to exist is minor. The total concept behind these products/services is what truly matters. They were able to change the way we thought about doing things. And as we all know there are always so many different ways to do anything. Very interesting times ahead.

Other thoughts:

1. Further growth of bankism in the Credit Union movement.
2. Greater demand for personal service (people tire of waiting for the machine).
3. The ripple effect of higher energy prices and the election of a new U.S. president.
4. More, not less, hype of self-apponted experts.
5. Less accountability leading to greater regulation.
6. Redefinitions of what our families look like.
7. Greater challenges against the politically correct.

The weather here is typical ‘rain forest’ with a bit of white. It sets the mood to do just about nothing. I am back reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle’ by Haruki Murakami. The writer is unbelievable. He has the ability to paint the scene as if you were there and then breaks you into his world by the short comments his characters make. The common become the exceptional be it a cat, a waiter or a glass of water. You can get lost in his world.

Our bathroom tap set needs some washer and parts changed but it is a Delta so it gets complicated. First let me say anything mechanical, anything that requires tools, is a foreign country to me. My son helped me remove the faucet and get the parts. But this morning, even when putting the faucet in a vice, I can’t loosen the faucet part to put the replacement parts in. A pipe wrench wouldn’t even do it. One final strategy needs to be completed before I dial the plumber.

My wife gave me a few nice shirts for Christmas. My sleeve length is long so the selection is usually only 3 choices, blue, white or sometimes yellow. They still use pins in the packaging which is sometimes dangerous. Men and pins, they just don’t go together. You could get a closer relationship with a bobbypin before you could with a straight pin. There used to be five but now there is about 7 pins per shirt. The question is why more pins?

Our son leaves for Madagascar next week so tomorrow we head down to Mountain Equipment Co-op to get him some stuff. I am wondering what items one takes to Madagascar. And of course on our way down we hit the skateboard shop. They have the neatest T-shirts and this is the only time they are affordable.

In the meantime still working on the New Years blog entry.

This last week as been, well let’s just say very volatile. It was like a roller coaster with events at every hill and turn. But by tomorrow afternoon it will return to something normal.

Not many entries this month but tons of stuff to write about. I have a number of papers to go through, 3 of the most interesting being:
– Filene’s Alternative Capital for U.S. Credit Unions?
– System Operations Committee Enterprise Risk Management Draft
– Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement between BC and Alberta
Dry reading to say the least but some monumental works that will change some of the ways we do things in the future.

Time to take a break and be with family and friends. The PlayStation 3 came back from Sony (oh thank you Sony!), the fireplace is working beautifully, the new dishwasher is a quiet as a mouse, the turkey is in the fridge and someone brought me a bottle of Glen Breton Canada’s Only single malt whiskey aged 10 years. Now that should be interesting! Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

Less than 2 weeks away from Christmas and too much left to do. Why would this year be any different from any other. The only people I have ever run into that are totally prepared for the Christmas holidays are the ones that leave for Europe or some warm place right about now.

We had a great Vancouver Blogger’s meetup last night. Interesting conversations with some of the most interesting people you could ever meet. It start’s at 7 and is usually over by 10 but it seems only 15 minutes long. We talked about how friends we know either get the social media/facebook/blogging/twitter thing or don’t. There just doesn’t seem to be a mid point, it is either or. Funny how that works.

Our oldest son Fleming and his wife came in yesterday from sunny and cold Saskatoon. It is great to have him home for the holidays. This is the first Christmas in 25 years that one of the family members won’t be with us (his brother lives in Copenhagen). It will be different but the excitement of seeing your kid(s) again is pretty powerful. Hopefully Santa will be generous to everyone.

A few weeks ago we got a PS3. Great gaming system. Never having been a gamer it was time to see what all the fuss over gaming was about and to put it bluntly it definitely has arrived. PS3 or Xbox, the hardware and newer software in producing the realism needed to absorb the gamer into this virtual world is there. And the pundits keeps saying that the games don’t use the full potential of the hardware.

Music. Listing to Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by RV Williams while driving to work today. It is on a CD called “Meditations for a Quiet Night“. The last few minutes of this piece are remarkable. This is a piece of music that evokes some strong emotions everytime you listen to it. On a lighter side the library had the Dandy Warhols – Welcome to the Monkey House in it’s rack. The CD cover was interesting, the music is pretty good. Original, melodic, and different.

Tomorrow night is the CUs Christmas Party at the Granville Island Hotel. There won’t be that many people attending but we should have fun. We’ll have a Wii setup (thanks to Forum Solutions for the idea in October) so hopefully there won’t be any serious sporting injuries.

Today started off bad then got worse. Nothing life threatening. It seems that the monthly member statement we send out was missing the last 3 days of entries and balances. Of course the service charges which are debited the last day of the month don’t show on the statement. So we had the challenge of deciding what to do. This is what we agreed upon.

1. A letter needs to go out to every member stating that there has been an error and that we will fix the missing entries by making next month’s statement inclusive of the 3 days missed in November.

2. The letter would be mailed out with the address on the envelope done with a label.

3. The letter would also state that members can come into the branch at any time for a corrected statement.

Will these steps be enough? Have we missed anything? Given that most members have Internet banking what is the real impact of an error like this? We have changed so many ways we have done business that the printed statement becomes a bi-product of a past age for some and for others still a necessity. There will be some members who will not notice the error because they never open the mailed statement.
We live in the best of times as well as living in the worst of times it seems. Maybe we live with too many variables and choices and the ability to decide what we want is so clouded by the variety offered.

The holiday season is upon us and being busy just seems to appear. With only a few weeks left I am sure most of us won’t complete what we had planned for the festive season. Drove down to the Drive to get Christmas cards and also picked up a great picture by a local artist, It is an acrylic done from a picture taken in the early 60’s in downtown Vancouver. The gallery owner had a great display of local artists but we agreed that Vancouver is still in its infancy when it comes to supporting local artists. That really is a definition of a world class city, when it has a strong and vibrant artistic community that is supported and appreciated by a majority of its citizens. We give a lot of small talk about being ‘partons of the arts’ but just ask yourself how much local art decorates the walls of your residence?
Art is in the eye of the beholder but there seems to be a tendency to follow what is in vogue rather than enjoy and develop the art that you appreciate. How many Robert Bateman prints have you seen in your lifetime? Not that Bateman prints are not art, it just seems there are probably pieces that anyone would enjoy more if they spent the time to look for something more inclined to their personality. Here is the hitch — it may cost you a little more. You can look at it this way though, you are supporting someone locally who probably is still in the starving artist category (that’s why you can afford their paintings) and when you do get something you really like you will never tire of it. Art that you appreciate always holds that value of never getting boring. Pictures I have had for 30 years still allow me to sit and ‘drink in’ all those reasons why I still continue to enjoy the picture.

Last month we had a incident at YVR (Vancouver International Airport) were a Polish man was tasered by the RCMP and subsequently died. What happened was tragic and I haven’t seen so many people upset and angry over what happened. It is an event that just isn’t being forgotten. It seems this is the ultimate consequence of actions made without common sense.

Last night I had to go out to the airport to pickup some friends who were coming back from the Grey Cup game in Toronto. Of course their flight was delayed. In front of the domestic terminal is a pickup area of at least 300 yards. It is for immediate pickup of passengers so no stopping or parking. I drove down to the far end of the waiting area, left the engine on, and wated. The place was empty. Sure enough the rent-a-cop showed up (Concord Security) and asked me to move about 50 feet to the other side of some orange pylons. I said ok but said it seemed a little strange to ask me to do this when no one, absolutely no one was parked in this 300 yard stretch. He understood but said “That was the policy”. I moved the vehicle. I watched for another 15 minutes and there were 2 vehicles that picked up passengers. Other than that the area was devoid of human life.

This incident got me to thinking — where was the common sense in this request? And where in the world is common sense as a prime factor in decision making these days? I would suggest the removal of common sense in any decision making is attributable to:

– Avoidance of having to deal with any exceptions.
– Need for control of any and all situations.
– Avoidance of accountability for those establishing PPP.
– Erosion of the dignity and value of the human being. We are treated as chattels.
– Establishes the ‘us’ and ‘them’ with ‘them’ always portrayed as less than ‘us”.
– Those that fulfill the PPPs only experiencing a pseudo responsibility i.e. “I only work here” “Talk to my supervisor”.

This simplistic view of the world creates nothing but extreme levels of frustation and we read daily as to its consequences. The pathway to changing this is hard and time consuming. It really is legalism’s existence in our politically correct world. Oh that anyone would decide something with just a little common sense!

I had to drop off a Mac PowerBook at the local Apple repair outlet this last week. They keyed everything in their online form and produced the repair chit for me to sign. Ballpoint pens are not my writing utensil of choice so out came my fountain pen. As I was signing the form with it the younger sales clerk stated “I’ve never seen one of those, is that a fountain pen?”.

Now I am really feeling old. Is this guy into Gel pens or what. He asks if he can use the pen which usually is a problem for me (if you use a fountain pen you know why) but it was a Lamy and they are pretty sturdy. As soon as he wrote with it you could see the lights come on. It was neat to see someone really appreciate the use of some “old” technology.

I have been asked numerous times why I use a fountain pen. The answers are:

* cheap on ink. Do you know how long a bottle of ink lasts?

* you hardly ever loose them. There are exceptions. Why? because you never consider them disposable.

* you are always practicing your calligraphy

* there are numerous ink colours and variations. Use the colour of ink that fits your mood

* there is a ritual when filling your pen with ink that always is important

* the more expensive ones are true works of craftsmanship

* when you have had the same ones for years they really become an extension of who you are when you write

* you can easily discern good writing paper because bad paper is so tough to write on

* they are great conversation pieces

* whenever you run into another fountain pen fanatic its like a long lost and very likeable relative

Perhaps the biggest reason is that of your signature. When you sign anything you make an effort to make it as much of yourself as you can. That makes it a task that you never take for granted.

It was interesting these last few days talking to people at the credit union about what is happening in their lives. It seems when you take care of people’s money they don’t mind discussing just about anything. There really is a trust established that you often neglect. They have plans they need to tell you, or what they are saving for or just life in particular. When you listen intently you begin to realize how important it is for them to tell you these things and equally how important it is for you to hear them.

You need time to have conversations like these and build relationships with every member. They have some fascinating things to say which you usually never hear when everyone is busy and lacks time. Are these cultures something that we value? If we do value them then with every merger there seems to be the aftermath that the culture has changed and not for the better. Is there an equilibrium established over time with members that constantly fosters this sometimes unknown aspect of credit unions? I believe there is. The problem is the ease in which it can disappear unless it is nurtured. Bottom line and only bottom line thinking is its greatest enemy because conversation and sharing can be viewed as non-productive. And that actually becomes funny – since when have any of us personally viewed conversations in a purely monetary sense.

Someone once said that our eyes are the windows to our souls. If that is the case, then those face to face discussions allow us to realize much more than we sometimes realize.

Not the greatest of weekends. On Sunday our switch provider torpedoed on our card base. In other words the cards were not working in real time. So we expected that the backup off-line mode would kick in but it didn’t. (we hear today they need to fix the timing — sure) So the pre-season Christmas shoppers were up the creek without a paddle to put it bluntly. And then the November storm hit late Sunday night and early Monday morning knocking out the power everywhere. Even if the switch worked the power outage killed most of everything it needed to connect to.
Besides that when the staff went in last night the backup battery systems were deficient so we had to manage that situation in a an tried and true fashion, security guards. Today we worked to get everything balanced and in order but it just showed again no matter how prepared you are for any eventuality your reliance on 3rd party suppliers is probably going to be the weakest link that may break. Our business is so reliant on a number of others that our members never see. And if there are failures we are the ones that have to answer to the constituents who pay the bills. Rarely do we answer to those we pay the bills to.
You can’t do everything yourself and you need to rely on other businesses to get you to where you want to go. It is a constant ‘weeding’ to make sure those businesses are partners and willing to step up to the plate when needed. The biggest attribute of a good business partner is honesty – willing to accept their mistakes with the focus to fix them. The suppliers you don’t want are the ones that blame everyone but themselves. There just seems to be too many of these types.

On another note Facebook is now allowing commercial setups. Let the games begin!

I have spent the last 2 days installing, learning and basically kicking the tires for this new operating system of Apple’s. Besides the new features, and there seem to be more than quite a few, there is a valuable lesson to be learnt when you finally clean up that hard drive.

There is great value in purging all those files that have been in all those folders for all that time. I mean why would I ever need something 7 years old written to a company that is no longer in business? It seems we spend too much time being good “librarians” for all the digital information we accumulate on our hard drives. In his book “Everything is Miscellaneous” by David Weinberger he explains how the digital world changes the laws of physics. We can sort, search, and view most anything digitally if the technology is easy, understandable and fast. So why do we spend so much time creating folders only to stuff them for that one time we think we need to find that file? And usually that one time never comes.

So this weekend I tossed 80% of everything out. Gone, except for passwords, serial numbers, and software applications (music and pictures remain on an external drive). My IMAP mail is still available, my calendar and addressbook contacts all there. But those PDF’s, files and who knows what else, is trash. It feels pretty good to be digitally clean.

Apple’s Mail program has notes and calendar to-dos that will part of your e-mail file. Coverflow allows you to view any file without having to open the file in the application. And Spotlight is very fast at finding anything. Spaces keeps your desktop in order depending on what programs you want the individual desktop to work under. Under the menu Services – Speech – Start talking text just made proof texting what you have written a real joy.

How we work sometimes is the accumulation of habits, both good and bad, over a number of years. This weekend some of those habits are going to have to change. And digital trash is pretty easy to get rid of. Not like those old Gestetner stencils or carbon paper.

I was at a meeting last night with a group of credit unions. It was our semi-annual Peer Group 6 meeting and we had a number of presentations. Interesting the number of times the word strategy was used. It seemed to encompass a number of things is these speeches. It was like the ultimate glue that was needed to hold any direction or business plan in place. But it got me to thinking, what exactly is strategy? What does it mean?

John Ralston Saul has come up with the best definition I have ever come across. It really explains what it is and more importantly what it isn’t. When I use his definition it becomes apparent, the word strategy is being misused and misunderstood. We need to be pretty sure what it is before we start using it. So when a speaker says “this should be your strategy” they need to really understand our business. I lot of times I don’t think they do understand our business.

“The key word is strategy. Not tactics. Not the practicalities we deal with on most days. Strategy is about marrying ideas and capabilities with intuition and daring. It depends on finding the point of pivot which converts the apparently impossible into something reasonably possible.”

Today is typical. Rain. So your mood as you climb (or fall) out of bed is a bit sombre. I have only 4 things to do today. Call someone about a possible mortgage. (When you are in the credit union business people always call you – they trust your advice.) Then I have to start on getting 55 congregational graphs together for a package the BC Synod (Lutheran) wants to send out. The template is made so it is just inputting data and printing out the report. Then it’s off to have lunch with my favourite Jewish lawyer. I love to have these wonderful debates with him about technology, law and theology. And finally because it is Monday it’s my night to cook. A real eventful day huh?

You are always challenged to keep your private and business life separate but they meld at times. It’s like being told to be schizophrenic in order to manage who you are. You can’t keep everything in separate jars though. Things, responsibilities and patterns of life are not set down in a distinct line that follows the precise A to Z or 1 to 100 pattern. Remember those small books you would get as a kid that had all of those “connect the dot” pages. Your start at one and connect the dots in numeric order. When you reach the last number you’ve drawn a picture (straight lined, not curved). You start your day thinking you have the complete picture planned and only have to connect the dots. By the end of the day though that picture you thought you would draw and the one that is in front of you sometimes don’t resemble each other. Your day just hasn’t gone as planned.

I have realized that no matter how hard you try you are always going to get two pictures. And that is ok. That is what life is about. There will always be those random events and circumstances that make up the day. And when you think about it would you really want it different. It’s pretty interesting having life’s randomness.

I received an email yesterday from a large CUSO, first of all stating “This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information”. Interesting that a Happy Credit Union Day e-mail would have that. So I continued to read.

One sentence on Happy CU Day and a paragraph about CU contributions to the community in terms of ‘we’. Heah this is getting cozy. The final half of the email is titled with the buzz phrase “navigating the future” and a list of our common threats. You have heard them all before – credit crunch, mergers and consolidations (which should read take-overs), interest rates rising (their crystal ball must be pretty good to see that so clearly), leaders retiring (usually called succession planning), bank competition (instead of CU competition), eroding CU philosophy (how does a philosophy erode?), a stronger dollar (in case a lot of your commercial lending is in manufacturing and exporting) and of course the environment (thanks Carthage, Tennessee). You are then invited to take their poll to number your top 3 threats. WOW! Happy CU Day and here are the threats you face. Sort of a mixed message. The next birthday card I should send will be Happy Birthday Frank and bankruptcy may be the only way to get out of your excessive credit card debt.

And what are they going to do with the results of the survey? Prepare their Christmas message in a similar fashion with updated information? Probably.

I was thinking of taking the survey and stating some new ones.

1. The infiltration of bankers in the CU system.

2. The further and growing chasm between those who pay the bills and those who control the system.

3. The lousy 3rd party companies that we can’t get rid of and only bring us higher costs and bad service.

4. The ignorance of who we are and where we are going.

5. Stupid emails like this which are supposed to do what? Get us scared and run to those speaking today’s business mantras?

But the main point that needs to be said about this endeavour is how lame the message is and what a pathetic way to send it. I can’t show it to you (confidentiality) but it looks pathetic. Really pathetic. And we are supposed to swallow this? No thanks. I am taking the greatest delight of pushing my delete button with this one. We should have a contest to guess who this is from but then what would the prize be?