19 February 2009

The Perfect Gen Y Branch

Your job is to design the perfect credit union branch for 18-25 year olds, and the sky's the limit. How do you equip it? How do you make this place as appealing as possible for this group?

My temptation is to think of recent successes in retail design. Take the Apple Store's hands-on, help yourself, kick the tires, roaming cashiers/geniuses approach. Consider the U.S. Army's recent arcade/virtual immersion approach to recruiting. Mix in some neat features like Starbucks' "Now Playing" initiative. Free Wi-Fi? Makes sense, right? Extend the branch to the outdoors, recognizing that this group appreciates open air bistros just as much as they love all-night Rock Band marathons in dungeonous bedrooms.

Think about Lowe's/Home Depot's regularly scheduled "do it yourself" demonstrations. Have car dealers bring by their newest youth-targeted vehicles and accessories for test drives. Let them build their own cars virtually on large monitors, huge touch-screens, or computer stations. Let them see how adjustments to each build will affect their monthly payments, total cost to own, etc. And don't limit these demonstrations to financial products and services...have community groups come in to talk about upcoming service projects. Have musical groups perform. Make the place a cultural center. It's a crazy idea, but it might work.

Deposits? Withdrawals? Why do these transactions require human interaction? Use interactive kiosks that allow members to help themselves. Think "self check-out". Branch personnel are there for transaction assistance, in-branch demonstrations, and loan services. In essence, employees are there to help members help themselves. Hands off until requested by the members to do otherwise.

Then, realize that these people don't want to be at your branch anyway...and that many of these investments will be all for not. Make sure that everything you do in branch, you can do online, and cross your fingers that somehow, some way, you pick the perfect combination for your field of membership.

This post isn't to claim that I know what the perfect Gen Y branch is...because I don't. This post was to get a discussion started about this topic. Honestly, I want to be wrong because the above ideas are over-the-top, and potentially impossible to justify financially. What would make up your perfect Gen Y branch? (I feel a snarky Ron Shevlin comment coming soon) What would make your office stand out from a crowded marketplace eager to attract this large group of consumers?

Thanks in advance.

15 February 2009

Hate the Game, Not the Players...

The year is 2005. You are the CEO of a $50 billion bank. You crunch the numbers and realize that there is no possible way that: a) there are enough qualified home buyers to justify the number of new housing starts; b) housing prices are rising so much faster than wages that there is no way for people to continue to be able to afford them; and c) investments in subprime and alt-a loan packed mortgage backed securities are soon going to backfire horribly. You look at the data over and over again and come up with the same conclusions.

Things are good, though. Your stock price is up. Your investors are being rewarded. Your bonuses have been out of this world. And your bank has been making record profits for three consecutive years.

What do you do? Do you pull out of the mortgage business? Do you invest in less risky, and less rewarding investments? Do you go to Congress and say, "Woah...something really bad is going to happen if we don't put a stop to this!"?

For the first time in this blog's life, I'm going to defend the bankers. I argue that most bankers had little choice but to continue doing what they did. A bank's job is to maximize profits for shareholders. Banks were making record profits off of the gravy train of the real estate bubble. So were their investors. If a large bank's CEO were to decide to pull out from this line of business, their financial performance (though it would still be strong) would have lagged dramatically behind the competition. What would that mean? Lower stock prices, and the loss of his/her job. If a bank CEO made any of the above moves, he/she would be replaced with someone who believed in never-ending record profits. Boards don't like pessimists...nor do investors.

It's easy to vilify bankers...especially these days. But the problem here is even the banks that played it relatively safe have paid a heavy cost. Hate the game, but don't hate the players. There aren't enough fingers in North America to point out all of the people responsible for the mess we're in. Bankers were simply doing their jobs.

This is yet another reason I'm glad we have credit unions.

08 February 2009

Legends of Financial Services

I went to Salem, Virginia, on Friday to watch country music legend George Jones in concert. This was my first time seeing "The Possum" live, and quite honestly, part of me wishes I hadn't. It's not that it was a bad concert. Quite the opposite, actually. For a 77 year old man, Jones can still entertain. His amazing voice, beautiful songs, self-deprecating jokes, and youthful enthusiasm have a magnetism that few other performers can claim.

But I noticed something odd at the side of the Salem Civic Center stage. There were two laptops lit up on a small table adjacent to the stage. One was clearly controlling the backdrop display - an amateurish powerpoint-type collage of pictures and animations that changed from song to song. The other laptop had scrolling text on it - almost like a karaoke monitor. When you looked at the front of the stage, you could tell that that's exactly what was going on. There were two monitors facing away from the crowd that were clearly feeding/reminding/coaching Jones his lines.

This setup consumed me for the entire show. He still forgot his lines 6-7 times. Seemingly, the crowd (whose average age was somewhere in the neighborhood of 85) knew his songs better than he did. And I would wager that Jones was sober as a judge. Compounding matters, he announced after the first few songs that this was his 51st year of performing. Many of the songs he sang Friday, he has performed every show for 51 years!! Most of them, he wrote!

And he still needs his lines fed to him?

It made me think about credit union news of the past several months. Have we forgotten our lines? Have we forgotten our 7 Cooperative Principles? Are our 100 years of age starting to show?

When Johnny Cash died, I promised myself that I would try to see all of my favorite artists while I still could. Since then, I've been privileged enough to go see Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and now George Jones in concert. Those memories are mine forever, but I'll admit that each let me down in their own unique ways. The trouble is once you place someone or something in your mind as having legendary status...it's really tough for it to live up to expectations.

In the middle of Jones' set, he started joking about drinking. He said that he had recently discovered his new favorite drink...water. "I wish someone had told me about this sooner," he laughed. Then, he did something that really made me sad. He started pitching his George Jones branded water - White Lightning. Are you freakin' kidding me?!

Is that what credit unions have become? An aging legend who can't remember his lines, and looks to make a sleazy buck at every opportunity? Sometimes I wonder...

If your credit union doesn't want to do things the right way, I hope you'll consider ending the tour. Convert to a bank charter, and allow those credit unions who still care about our founding principles to take the stage.

03 February 2009

Tinfoiled

One of the people I most admire in the credit union movement, Gene Blishen, wrote a post yesterday that, like most posts on Tinfoiling, leaves me enveloped in introspection and philosophical turmoil. He was responding to a Tweet I posted indicating that I was considering pulling the plug on my blog. I've never been so touched by a blog post - not just because of the sentiment, but because of the source.

So, instead of writing a three page essay comment on his blog, I figured I'd write a response right here to communicate what's going through my mind.

A few things are happening in my life that make me question how my time is spent. First, I have a two year old son who does nothing but entertain, enlighten, and amaze me every moment he's awake. Unfortunately, time is a zero sum game. Every second I spend blogging is a second I do not get to spend with my son.

Second, I am a month away from turning 30. When I was 17, I set some very lofty professional goals for myself to be met at certain ages. By 30, I was supposed to accomplish A, B, C, and D. To date, I have partially accomplished A and B. While I don't view these necessarily as failures (rather, crazy notions 13 years in the making), it does make me question if I have misspent time.

Third, while 2008 was one of the most fulfilling, productive, and rewarding years of my career, it also resulted in the lowest pay raise I have received since graduating from college in 2001. Clearly, there are external factors involved with this decision, but it certainly makes one question a few things...especially when coupled with current credit union news.

Let me explain.

Most of my career goals, like is the case with most ambitious kids, centered around income and power. When I got involved in credit unions, that changed. Sure, income and whether or not I am in a position to be heard are still important...but the movement made me rethink what was truly important in a career. With credit unions, I had an opportunity to truly make a difference in people's lives. I was part of something special - a cooperative of cooperatives that did things differently than their bank brethren. We did things the right way. We made decisions based on what was right for our members, not what was right for our own pockets. For that reason, I have always been OK with earning less than maybe my market value outside credit unions might be. In exchange for fame and fortune, I argued, at least I could look myself in the mirror each morning knowing that I was making a positive impact on hard-working men and women that make up our membership. Tasked with telling the world how credit unions are an infinitely better option for consumers than banks, this was a story I have been more than happy (proud, even) to tell.

Fast forward to recent credit union news.

After spending the last five years preaching the credit union difference, I now find out that CUNA, NAFCU, and NCUA want parity. After months upon months of telling us that credit unions have been well-insulated from the credit crisis' fallout, our trade associations are effectively saying the sky is falling. After standing by idly for years as some credit unions (still a small minority) made the exact same lending mistakes as the big banks, the NCUA finally wants to take action - and they do it with precious little communication to their member credit unions.

So, my struggles are these: Do I continue to spend an amazing amount of time posting, commenting, researching, guest posting, etc. about a movement whose founding principles I truly believe in at the risk that the movement's actions make me look like a hypocrite? Am I being economical with my time? Is the opportunity cost of blogging justified? Do I still believe in credit unions...or just the dwindling number that are sticking to their for service, not-for-profit, conservative roots?

The conversation on credit union blogs has become decreasingly passionate/active over the past 4-5 months. Probably due to economic variables. Maybe due to some of the same concerns I have above. Not sure. But no one can argue that this has not been the case. Most of the best posts I've seen in the CU blogosphere over the past several months have received an embarrassingly low number of comments. That's not why we do this...or at least that's not why I do this. I want a conversation. I want a debate. I want to learn and to discuss and to grow. I want to see passion for the movement again.

I love my little piece of the internet whether I'm getting thousands of visits per month, or the paltry 539 I received last month. I just need to figure out if I'm getting out of it as much as I'm putting into it. In that sense, I totally understand Ron Shevlin's decision to pull the plug on his amazingly well-executed blog. He (just like me) sets an incredibly high bar for himself. It was obvious how much energy, passion, and time he put into his blog. And it was obvious that he made a huge impact in doing so.

But this is draining. While I can't speak for Ron, I feel confident that mental exhaustion was a big part of his decision. It's tough to come up with compelling things to write on a regular basis. And it's even tougher when you do so in spare time that simply doesn't exist. And it's absolutely devastating when your supposed "conversation", unsubsidized and developed with time you don't have, becomes essentially a one-way street.

I have a loyal group of readers and commenters that I love dearly - both professionally and personally. I just need to refocus on things that, right now anyway, are more rewarding: time with family, my employer, and my career goals, for example.

I have always thought that blogging about a cooperative of cooperatives should be more...cooperative. Thanks to Gene's post, and some really kind Tweets from Jimmy Marks, Denise Wymore, Ginny Brady, and Christopher Stevenson, I am rethinking axing this blog. Instead, maybe there's a way to get some of the best CU bloggers together to create a multi-voice, credit union editorial blog. Sure, my Google Reader account aggregates content in a way that this blog already, sort of, exists...but why are we duplicating so much energy? Last month, I approached Mark McSpadden about a potential CU Warrior/CU Skeptic video podcast series to debate credit union issues. Why wouldn't additional collaborations work?

Just a thought.

Thank you for all of your support, and for reading this way too long rambling about things that are much more revealing than I intended. I just thought it was important to hear my side of the story.