Hey, I’m a GonzoBanker.

GonzoBanker of the Month: William Azaroff, VancityWhen I started working at Vancity in September of 2005 I was brand new to the financial services industry. My previous job was working at a telecom, and in my time there I never really learned much about that industry. From the beginning at Vancity I wanted to learn about credit unions and FIs so I could be more useful to the company and craft a more relevant business plan for what the web could do for the company.

So I began looking for good websites and online publications to teach me a thing or two about banking. One of those was the enewsletter, GonzoBanker, which gave me great insights into the industry, full of humour and street smarts. Their writers get to the heart of the issue, and certain posts have become classics – like Steve Williams’ brilliant Y Bank With Us? and Tripp Johnson’s Web 2.0: It’s Not Just for Customers Anymore (which mentions my blog). I have always appreciated that they don’t take themselves too seriously, but have good, informed opinions about the industry.

So I was incredibly honoured when they named me GonzoBanker of the Month for March. As someone who is new to this industry, recognition like this is both inspiring and humbling.

Thanks a ton to the entire GonzoBanker team, and especially Diana Ferguson!

My friend Gene.

I’m a big fan of GonzoBanker.

When I first started working at Vancity, I was brand new to financial services and started looking at industry websites to help orient and ground me in my new job.

I quickly came across GonzoBanker, and it is now one of the only leftovers from those early days of bookmarking. Their irreverent coverage of how IT issues can aid and hinder financial institutions is both useful and entertaining.

So today, I was thrilled to see that they named my friend Gene Blishen as their GonzoBanker of the Month.

Gene is my hero. He is a philosopher, humanitarian, technologist, futurist, banker and a decent, decent man. I look forward to reading his blog whenever he updates it, and his name always comes up when the people I respect the most name the people they respect the most.

It is an honour to be his direct BC credit union peer, be able to access his sage advice and plan BarCampBankBC with him.

So congrats Gene. Well deserved!

See you in Minneapolis.

CUES ExperienceI’m off to Minneapolis tomorrow for CUES Experience.

I’m excited to see so many of my CU alum there, including Morriss Partee, Tim McAlpine, Robbie Wright, Denise Wymore, Brent Dixon, and am most excited to finally meet Ron Shevlin, Steve Williams and Christopher Stevenson in person after months of being eConnected. I hope I didn’t miss anyone – did I?

I’m presenting a Credit Union case study from Vancity, covering who we are, how we show up and how we leverage social media. Should be a good presentation.

It’s also been a fantastic way to procrastinate finishing my chapter for the new Age of Conversation. Truth be told, I’m starting to panic, it’s due in 3 days.

If you’ll be in Minneapolis, please say hi.

Now I gotta figure out how to transport fresh fruit across the US-Canada border, because my son Ivan is expecting tiny apples from a place called Minneapolis (say it aloud).