Monthly Archives: July 2011

Co-opetition among co-operatives.

CU Water CoolerAs an editor of the CU Water Cooler, I will be writing occasional discussion posts there for a general credit union audience. My first one is on Nurturing Co-opetition.

I first leaned of this term from Scott Baldwin several years back when he was a peer at North Shore Credit Union (he’s now at our central, Central1). I instantly liked this term, because I knew that co-operatives competed in a different way than corporations. It’s also a term I heard a lot in Bologna.

We all have co-opetition in our lives. Kids do it in gym class, we do it when we play a board game with friends, and at Vancity we do it when we have a friendly competition between branches to hit a sales target. It’s a friendly competition when we’re not out to crush the competition, we actually want to see all competitors do well, we just want to do slightly better than them. That’s the way I feel about other CUs.

I chair the Direct Banking Strategy Committee at Central1, which is a way for BC CUs to co-operate in planning the future of MemberDirect, the online/mobile banking platform provided by Central1, and used by literally all credit unions in BC. I chose this as a great example of co-operative principle number six – co-operation among co-operatives – and the first of what I picture as a three-parter at the CU Water Cooler. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

NOTE: Here is the CU Chat Up radio show I just did with Carla Day and Jimmy Marks.

Listen to internet radio with Carla Day on Blog Talk Radio

Going to the World Credit Union Conference.

World Credit Union ConferenceI’m so incredibly pleased and honoured to be attending and speaking at the World Credit Union Conference in Glasgow, Scotland later this month.

I’m a part of a breakout session called Social Media: Friend or Foe with Cas Scott, Direct Marketing Manager at Community CPS Australia and moderated by Garry Prout, Executive Manager Retail at Defence Force Credit Union Limited. The session description is

Sure we’ve all heard about Facebook’s 500 million users, but did you know that 200 million of them access Facebook from their mobile device? We know that the uprisings in North Africa spread at a rapid pace because of social media. But most astonishing of all (especially for English majors) is “friend” has become a verb! Microsoft is looking for a new “save” icon to replace the diskette because half the world’s population has never seen a diskette. Social media is changing the way we do business. Come to this session to learn what all of this means for your credit union.

I’ll be presenting Vancity’s five year journey with social media, a journey I’ve been writing about recently. A big thank you to the great George Hofheimer of Filene for hooking me up with WOCCU.

My brilliant CEO, Tamara Vrooman, will be part of a general session called Executive Dialogue: The Role of Giving Back in Moving Forward. That session description is

CEOs from three of the largest and most member-centric mutual financial institutions globally, will share their perspectives on where the financial industry is headed, the role of credit unions in these developments and the role that sustainability plays in their business models. Each of these organizations have thrived over the years in part because of an intense focus on returning value to their members and communities. Join Marks, CEO of The Cooperative Group, the UK’s largest mutual business; Vrooman, CEO of Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union; and Post, CEO of CUNA Mutual Group, the largest credit union owned business in the U.S., during this interactive discussion.

It will be a session not to be missed.

Please let me know if you’ll be there.