Big Ideas for Credit Unions
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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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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The $50 question
It’s easy to think of things to give away (free online banking, free bill pay, free overdraft protection, free checks, lower rates), but it’s a lot harder to add a large amount of value. (It’s even harder to actually ask for money.) So I’d like to propose a simple thought experiment: What could you add…
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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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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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Things I learned on my vacation
My son spent the last semester at the University in Barcelona, so my wife decided we needed to visit Spain while we had a bilingual translator. I have to say I learned quite a bit in the two weeks we spent there. Creating something amazing can take awhile. Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral designed by Gaudi…
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The best advice I got
Over the years, I have gotten lots of advice on my career, my business, and even my relationships with other people. While a lot of it hasn’t been worth remembering, and some of it was actually more damaging than helpful, there have been a few gems that have stuck with me: 1. It’s nothing business,…
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Disruptive thoughts I have to let out
From time to time, I get these strange, disruptive thoughts. Unconventional. Aberrant. But they’re banging around in my head, and I have to let them out… What if overdraft fees were actually reasonable? Overdraft income is down because of opt-in regulations, yet the average overdraft fee is still $29. As marketers, we hate dealing with…
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What if an alien biologist landed on your desk?
The other day, I saw a very interesting phrase as I was skimming a series of random business articles: “Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield.” My first reaction was “Well, duh.” That’s a pretty obvious worldview. A fraction of a second later, I remembered — “oh, yeah… most people don’t see business (or life)…
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Creativity hacks
Did you ever think someone would tell you to daydream, get sleepy, go on vacation, or have a drink before doing your job? Well, Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, has several suggestions on how to get creative: Have a drink. Researchers at U of Illinois compared sober and intoxicated students solving word…
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