Credit Union offers free WiFi

When I first saw this article about Eastman Credit Union offering free WiFi, I assumed it was free wireless Internet in their branches. But no.

Eastman Credit Union joined forces Thursday with the Kingsport Housing & Redevelopment Authority’s Greater Kingsport Alliance for Development to announce the expansion of Wireless Fidelity – or Wi-Fi – in the city.

So residents of Kingsport Tennessee will now get free WiFi in their city because of a local credit union. That’s different. What a way to enable community and help the economy of their town.

It’s great for PR:

In a news conference at ECU, officials involved with the project used wire cutters to sever the link between a laptop computer and its wired connection.

And it’s good for the city:

…local police, fire and rescue personnel will also benefit with more effective communications and methods to monitor locations within the coverage areas… The network will also create educational opportunities and enhance current educational programs in the city… students will be able to conduct research and communicate with teachers and professors through the network… And tourism will also benefit… Kingsport hosts an average of 330 conventions and tournaments each year, and free Internet service will help the city’s effort at attracting new and repeat tourism visits.

Brilliant! Imagine if they now offered something like ChangeEverything.ca on top of that as a value added service for the community to discuss the issues they face and the problems they want to tackle. Now that would be giving a voice to the citizens.

tinfoiling on the virtual human experience.

In a post I made a few days back, I tried to articulate some of the issues I’ve been thinking about our web site design to enhance the member/user experience.

Gene at tinfoiling left a comment in which he said:

The online experience seems to revolve around the person, their personal networks and being able to keep things the way they want to. Our products need to capture these elements.

I was intrigued, but his short comment on my site obviously didn’t capture the depth of what he was getting at, so I asked him to expand on his own site. Much to my delight he has.

Here’s Gene’s response on tinfoiling.

His theory, and I hope I do it justice is that web design as we’ve been dealing with it is a bit of a boondoggle, avoiding the key element of what the customer wants. And it goes back to our product design as well. A huge idea really, and I gotta admit, I’m still fully wrapping my head around it.

Colin, as usual, had a great comment:

Product – my take: forget about it. It comes last. Banks have been product centric for ever, and that doesn’t work when you get into experiential design.

A great conversation. I had no idea the doors I was opening when I started…