Jason Dias Throws Down the Guantlet

Some articles make you say "hmmmm." Some make you say "duh." Others make your eyes get big, your jaw drop, and your hands fidget. The following Op-Ed piece by Jason Dias did exactly that to me. Read it. Internalize it. React to it. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Full story.

Why Gen Y Show with Deandre' Upshaw

I was a guest on the Why Gen Y Show at youngfreehq.com this week talking about how credit unions can help young adults by paying attention to life events and unique ways to address them.

New York Life's Promises Fulfilled

If I were to make a list of the things I'd least like to do, shopping for life insurance would rank somewhere between watching a weeklong marathon of Jersey Shore and piercing my own tongue with a rusty drywall screw. Nonetheless, here I am just over two days from the birth of my second child, and that's what I find myself compelled...err obligated to do (the life insurance part).

Without going into the particulars associated with this chore, I wanted to show you a feature that I noticed on New York Life's website. On the bottom-right of their homepage, they have a graphic that shows "Promises Fulfilled." It shows the amount that the insurer paid to policy-holder beneficiaries during the current day and year. While it's kind of a morbid thought (either lots of people died or just a few really rich people), it's certainly a direct way to illustrate that New York Life is making good on the services it claims to offer.

Although I likely won't buy life insurance from them (would have, but they make "bankers hours" seem oppressive), I love this feature and think credit unions could implement a similar graphic to quickly communicate impact. A few years ago I suggested that credit unions disclose their impact on members with transaction receipts, which would certainly work on an individual member level. But what if you were to display a daily count of, I don't know, dividends paid, dollars saved, dollars lent, bank fees our members didn't have to pay, and/or taxpayer bailout dollars received? Part American Debt Relief Challenge and part McDonald's' "90 Million Hamburgers Served"...there's an idea here, I swear.