Vancity’s plans to accelerate impact.

I wrote a blog post for the CU Water Cooler today about the public release of Vancity’s internal Three Year Plan.

Vancity

Why publish our internal plans? It’s all about transparency and getting the word out about what we’re doing, in the hopes that publishing our plans will be useful to our sister credit unions and co-operatives, as well as values-based banks and organizations focused on marrying their economic performance with environmental and/or social performance.

Check it out, and please comment on the article if you have something to add.

The CU Water Cooler Symposium agenda is out.

CU Water Cooler Symposium

The 2014 Credit Union Water Cooler Symposium

Anyone who follows my blog is very, very likely to know how much I love the Credit Union Water Cooler Symposium. It is a somewhat inexplicable combo-conference focusing on the Credit Union-ness of topics such as Marketing, HR, technology, design, and other opportunities and challenges we all face. I love it because it defies convention, and is loaded with brilliant people and an endlessly surprising agenda. I love it because, like my work, it isn’t pigeon-holed into any one focus.

It’s one of those things where the sum is far greater than the parts.

The 2014 Symposium agenda came out this weekend, and I’m so honoured to be a speaker again this year. My talk is called Sawdust, Empty Bottles and Moustaches: A Retelling of the Co-operative Story and I’m working on it now, telling the genesis story of the co-operative movement and linking it to today’s surge of the collaborative economy, and drawing on my very early experience on the Board of Modo. We’ll see how it all comes together, but I’m having a great time putting it together and thinking through the narrative.

So, think seriously about joining us in Austin, Texas this September 11th and 12th for what will promise to be an amazing time. The Super Earlybird discount ends on March 31st, and you can get in for only $329 (and if you’re a credit union employee, you’re eligible for an additional $100 discount).