Posts Tagged ‘CU Philosophy’
What’s your best crazy CU idea?
Crazy ideas are a great way to stretch your thinking for any project or problem. When we’re building a shiny new credit union website, my favorite question to ask is something like this: “What’s your biggest, craziest, blue-sky, out-of-left-field idea for your credit union’s new website?” Sure, sometimes you get some tacky ideas, like a…
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Stuck at OK? Push for Amazing.
So there you are, doing… OK. Marketing is ticking along like a well-oiled machine, same budget as last year, you’re a little under budget, and you’re on track to pretty much meet your modest growth goals for the year, just like you did last year, and the year before that, with the same old familiar…
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Credit Union Science Fiction
Forget next year’s media budget or your five-year strategy. Let’s gaze deeper into that CU crystal ball than we ever have before. What’s the distant future of finance? What are credit unions going to be doing 25, 50, or 100 years from now? Virtual CUs Correct me if this has already happened, but is there…
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Eating the Elephant: Economic Upheavals
There’s a silly old joke that goes something like this: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” In this series, we’re talking about taking a bite out of some of the “elephants in the room” – big, obvious, uncomfortable problems that everyone’s trying to ignore. We’re hoping to inspire credit union people to…
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Eating the Elephant: Health Care Costs
We all know the expression “the elephant in the room”. It’s a big, obvious, uncomfortable problem that everyone’s trying to ignore. In our “Eating the Elephant” series, we’ll take a good hard look at some of the elephants jostling credit unions and their members. We’ll also discuss some ways credit unions could play a role in taking…
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Minimalism: Love people. Use things.
Last summer my wife and I were partially successful at simplifying our lives. We moved from a 3000 sf home in suburbia to a 1700 sf condo in the middle of town, cut out 40 minutes of drive time and replaced it with a 10 minute walk to work along a fitness trail surrounded by a…
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When you see a bubble, pop it.
If nothing else, the 2016 election has made one thing very obvious: many of us live in a “information bubble”, where we only pay attention to information that reinforces what we already believe. These bubbles, together with the speed and reach of social media, created an unprecedented opportunity for fake news — just create a…
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Where’s your Master Plan?
Elon Musk, best known as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has a very interesting document on his company’s blog — the second half of his “Master Plan”. He’s achieved or is close to achieving the goals he laid out in the first half of his Master Plan, and he’s now working on the rest.…
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Explaining the CU Difference. Again.
Every time I begin to think that people understand the difference between credit unions and banks, I keep getting reminded that it isn’t as obvious to the average person. Of course you know why CUs are great — you’re soaking in CU goodness. But you simply can’t assume that consumers have any idea what a credit…
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Millennials: No Car, No House, No CU Income?
My youngest son sort-of-hates cars. Sure, Grandma’s-hand-me-down-Buick helps him get around town when he comes back to visit family. But that’s also a big reason why he plans to always live in a city with a decent mass transit system. He doesn’t want to own any car, or make monthly payments for it, much less pay for the gas, insurance, and upkeep.…
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