Monthly Archives: April 2009

BarCampBankBC2 is coming in September.


I was thinking about whether or not we’d want to do another BarCampBankBC this year.

What’s a BarCampBank?

The aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovations and the creation of new business models in the world of banking and finance.

Budgets are tight, and the industry is in a very different place from when we were organizing the event last year. So I reached out to Tim McAlpine and Gene Blishen, my partners in crime from last year, to discuss.

We wondered if a smaller, scaled-back event, with a more local flavour might be a nice idea. No sponsors, no fancy meals, just a place to brainstorm about banking innovation and some amazing people to do the brainstorming.

I am very excited to announce that BarCampBankBC2 is on! It’ll take place on Saturday, September 26th from 9am to 5pm at Vancity’s Head Office. I especially want people at local banks and credit unions to attend and join the conversation.


View Larger Map

We’re charging $10 (CDN) to cover a pizza lunch and to ensure people will actually show up if they say they will. You can register for the event now.

If you’re coming, please add your name to the wiki.

10 years ago today.

I’m in a reflective mood today. Ten years ago today I finished shooting what would be my last film.

The Engagement Party is a full-length comedy about a young couple trying to maneuver through a disastrous engagement party their families have thrown for them. I wrote, co-produced, co-edited and directed the film. I raised the money, I worked hard to try and sell it to a distributor. I spent several years of my life working on it from the beginning of the creative process of screenwriting to the nuts and bolts business side of negotiating a deal.

It’s funny the course life takes. Looking back, I can see how making The Engagement Party led me on the journey I am now on.

I became disenchanted with filmmaking after producing that film. It was heartbreaking pouring so much of myself into a project that fizzled out. It fizzled out because of the competitive nature of the business, because of the lack of household name talent, because of the digital format, and, in the end, because it wasn’t all that good (believe me, it wasn’t). Film is such a precarious business, and I became frustrated with having to prove myself repeatedly.

The Engagement Party was a very early digital feature and experimenting on new digital formats and taking on a pioneer role opened up opportunities for me that led me deeper into new media, emerging technologies and the web, and onto my current career path. I would not be where I am if it wasn’t for that film.

I was a mediocre filmmaker, but I’m a great producer. I’m good at bringing people together, getting them on the same page, inspiring them and getting them focused and all rowing in the same direction. My talents as a producer continue to serve me exceedingly well. And I love taking the entrepreneurial attitude and approach, which is a prerequisite for being a filmmaker, and applying it inside an organization I care about. Being an intrapreneur.

I wonder what I would have thought if you had told me then that ten years later I would be working at a financial institution. I probably would have been disappointed. And yet I love my job. I look forward to coming into work every day, and relish in the challenges, successes and occasional failures. I am a very lucky person to have what I have, and to have had all the experiences that brought me to this point.

Including making a digital feature film in Seattle in April of 1999 called The Engagement Party.

PS: I just realized that I have the words Director and Engagement in my title, so it’s not all that different really.

Looking inward.

Traditionally my job at Vancity has had three basic functions:

  1. online banking stuff
  2. online marketing stuff
  3. social media

There’s more to it than that, but most of what I have historically done falls into those three camps.

About a year ago my role was expanded and I added our Intranet to my role. This meant that I got to work with Heather Harmse, one of the rock stars in the company, who manages our internal web world. Heather had been developing a vision for how an employee portal could benefit our staff-members (we put the member in staff member) to help them better serve our members, collaborate and get the right information at the right time. For me, it was a chance to learn something new. I had never had direct experience running an Intranet.

I have learned a lot from Heather, and one thing I heave learned is that an Intranet isn’t all that different from the three areas in the online world I list above. We have three basic functions:

  1. employee self serve functionality
  2. promoting corporate information to staff
  3. enterprise social computing (what is that?)

Not so different. Self serve functionality automates business processes so our staff can serve our members better, in the same way online banking automates banking processes. Marketing is just a matter of getting relevant information to people in a digestible way, and this is no different within a company, ensuring our staff knows what’s going on with the company and can get more engaged. And all the amazing learning we’ve had with social media has direct applicability inside the company.

The Employee Portal project is just starting to take off, in partnership with our colleagues in IT. After several months of talking to people throughout the company, it looks like there is a lot of alignment behind the initiative and we can pull out of dry dock. This will be one of my big initiatives for 2009 (and beyond).

I am excited to take what I’ve learned the past few years and apply the lessons on the inside so our staff can benefit from a highly usable, connected, efficient, differentiated platform to help them do their jobs.