My geeky heart rejoices at this near-future vision

Widgets, wearables, watches, and things

We’re only in the very early stages of a flood of interesting and cool capabilities enabled by “IoT” devices. Credit unions can be a vital part of the IoT revolution and develop even closer connections to members by making smart choices and sticking to their core principles.

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Go where the big boys can't follow

Five Big Ideas for transforming your CU

It’s a tough time to be on the smallish side as a credit union. It’s getting harder to compete with larger FIs of all stripes, and it’s tougher to stay in the black while offering the same things everyone else does. Maybe THAT’s the problem. You don’t need to offer everything to everybody, especially what…

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Drop your pants and dance.

Drop your pants and dance

After the MAC conference in Las Vegas, my wife and I decided to stay an extra day and see the sights. Among many other weird and wonderful things and people, one of the sights we saw on Fremont Street was this magnificent rendition of cupid. Some people just sit there with a sign and beg, but this…

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There are times you need a mallet.

Your approach to problems: Caddyshack? Or Whack-a-Mole?

Some days you have one problem that just won’t go away. No matter how hard you try, how determined your approach, the problem always slips away at the last moment, which can leave you as crazy as Bill Murray’s character in Caddyshack. Other days, problems seem to come up one after the other, another popping up immediately…

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Vegas is an entire city built around the power of branding.

What happened in Vegas

Last week, I attended the 2015 MAC Conference in Las Vegas. As always, it was an incredible experience, as you would expect from gathering the best and brightest of the CU marketing field under one roof. The highlight, of course, was collecting two MAC Awards for logos we designed for Park View Federal Credit Union in Harrisonburg,…

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Everyone brings different talents to the table

Always pleasantly surprised

One of the great things about working with so many different clients all over the country is the variety. I am always pleasantly surprised by the talents of new clients, mostly because I never know what to expect. Some are very outgoing people, others not so much. She is very logical and analytical, he is…

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Dogged persistence, pure luck, and multiple attempts

Stop making things so gosh-darn hard

Why were these tasks so onerous? Last night (and early this morning) I helped my wife activate a new cell phone. A couple of weeks ago, I finally signed up for BlueIndy, an electric car sharing service. Last year, we refinanced our mortgage to take advantage of a lower rate. I tried to order a pizza…

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Sometimes shorter is better.

International Harvester Employees Credit Union faced a problem many credit unions have; their founding SEG no longer existed under the same name. SOLUTION: iDiz was hired to research staff and member feelings on the existing name and collect suggestions for new names via an online survey. Even with favorable survey results and name suggestions, many…

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there are still a lot of things small CUs can do to survive and thrive.

Five ways to make a small CU roar

According to this article by Glenn Christensen on CU Insight, small credit unions are notably less efficient with their marketing dollars. The numbers are gloomy, but not all that surprising. After all, the cards are stacked against the pipsqueaks in many ways, not just limited budgets — marketing time, attention, money and (dare we say it?) talent are all…

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Everyone has an opinion

Ask for an opinion and most of the time you’ll get one. As a creative person, you are probably used to getting opinions all of the time — from your boss, coworkers, possibly even clients. Sometimes you’ll get useful, constructive insight that gives you the chance to improve, that helps you turn what you are…

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