Posts by Kent Dicken
I could never lie as a kid
I could never lie as a kid. At least not successfully. I was so bad at it, all you had to do was take one look at my face and you’d know. Every time I tried to cover something up, all I managed to do was get deeper in trouble. So I gave it up.…
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How ideas happen: eureka! or slow hunch?
People love to tell stories, so it’s no wonder that most describe how ideas happen as an epiphany, a brainstorm or “Eureka!” moment, a brilliant flash of insight that seems like a “bolt from above.” Even the famous scientist Charles Darwin attributes his theory of natural selection to one such moment, and even described the…
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Do a few things really, really well
It was a perfect St. Pete Beach day. Blue skies, white fluffy clouds that matched the sand, small crowds since it was also a Monday, and enough of a breeze that you didn’t feel the sunburn building. A great day and a great way to wrap up a vacation. Our nephew, a local resident, finished…
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Are you defending your pain?
Life is full of annoyances. Everyone of us has something that has been nagging at our brains, something we know is wrong and just needs to be fixed. That drive you kind of crazy, day after day. At home, it might be a squeaky door, a burned out light bulb where you need to haul…
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How deluded management almost diluted a brand
Anyone that has gone on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail (yes, it does exist), has probably visited more than one of the participating distilleries. My wife and her sister have used the trail as an excuse for a weekend getaway more than once, and one of their favorite stops was at Maker’s Mark. Why? Because Maker’s…
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Working in a vacuum sucks
It’s the first full week of work after the holidays and the beginning of a brand new year. Of course, that probably means expectations will be higher as well. So the last thing you can afford to do is to be stuck in your office, recycling the same old boring themes you’ve tried to re-invent each of the last few years. You need a chance to meet new people, experience new ideas. You need a shot-in-the-arm, pick-me-up-and-shake-me, highly-caffeinated-shot-of-adrenaline. You need to go to a credit union marketing conference…
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Lemming let down
Never tell my mother I said this, but…I was a lucky kid. You see my father was the director of a state agency in South Dakota through the eighties and early nineties. When the State of South Dakota decided to upgrade their technological infrastructure, they allowed employees to purchase PCs on their bulk order. Because…
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When is the last time you heard CFOs whine about being misunderstood?
It may be disheartening to hear, but 80% of CEOs don’t trust Marketers. They believe that Marketers “are too disconnected from the…financial realities of companies.” They think that Marketers spend too much time “in their creative and social media bubble”, and when Marketers start trying to justify marketing expenses, they get sucked into the processes…
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Your personalized banking isn’t very personal
Plenty of credit unions tout a personalized banking approach, but not many really pull it off. Most will offer a checklist of products from which to choose, but they are all standard variations on a theme. There really isn’t any customization, just a few choices of models. It’s a manufacturer’s mass production, mass market model.…
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Your brand is a collection of stories told by others about you
There are two basic branding lessons that every credit union needs to learn: It doesn’t matter what you say your brand is. It matters what everyone else says it is. You can talk about how wonderful, caring and helpful you are to your members, but no one will believe it until they hear about it…
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