Tag Archives: technology

A month ’til BarCampBankBC.

BarCampBankBC registrationI’m starting to get really excited about BarCampBankBC, which is happening the weekend of September 20th here in beautiful Vancouver, BC. It should prove to be an amazing coming-together of some great minds in the world of banking, credit unions, social media, technology, innovation and social responsibility.

With just a month to go, we have 62 people who have signed up on the wiki, but only 30 who have registered and paid. Now 30 is still a pretty decent number, but…

…if you’re thinking of coming to BarCampBankBC, please take a minute to register now!

It’ll make the lives of the three organizers, me, Gene and Tim, a little easier.

Thanks, and see you there!

PS: I’m about to go to Alaska on a cruise with Amy and Ivan (my wife and son), so if I don’t publish comments quickly or at all, please forgive me!

PPS: It’s almost exactly a year since the first North American BarCampBank in Seattle, where so many great relationships and conversations started. A great milestone!

Changing Everything on ChangeEverything.ca

When we first launched ChangeEverything.ca, it was a hectic and amazing time. Not enough time to get everything done. One of the areas I felt we could do better was site usability and overall design. Kate and I always felt like we wanted to go back and make some improvements.

So this year, we blocked out some budget and started working on fixing some of those areas. Among the areas we focused on were:

  • improving the registration flow
  • improving the workflow for adding changes and blog posts
  • grouping social features together so people discover each other and interact easier
  • putting a sharper focus on the people, and not just on the text
  • making the site, well, just prettier

It was a complete pleasure working with Kirsten Hall, an extraordinary usability consultant here in Vancouver, the amazing Tim McAlpine and his team at Currency Marketing on the front end design, and Affinity Bridge a great Drupal development shop in town.

The process, like the original creation of the site, was charmed. Everyone worked together well, there were no real hiccups, and people had a lot of fun.

The upcoming design changes, including as mock-up of the new look and feel, were announced on ChangeEverything.ca today. We’re looking for Beta testers, so check it out and help out if you want.

Otherwise, I’ll let you know when everything launches in September!

Make a plan for BarCampBankBC.

BarCampBank BCYesterday, Gene Blishen and I booked the space for BarCampBankBC. I’m very excited that we got such a great space at BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology).

BarCampBankBC will take place in Vancouver all day on Saturday, September 20th and a half day on Sunday the 21st. You can sign up here.

What is BarCampBankBC?

What if we changed banking and finance? The aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovations and the creation of new business models in the world of banking and finance.

It’s going to be an amazing time, and may just:

  • change the way you do your job
  • introduce you to new concepts and innovations
  • connect you to some amazing people
  • inspire you

We’ve already got 16 people coming from some great FIs and vendors, including HSBC, Industrial Credit Union, Westminster Savings Credit Union, Everything CU, Credit Union Central of BC, Creative Brand Communications, Citizens Bank of Canada, Ripple Project, Open Money, Mount Lehman Credit Union, Community Savings Credit Union, Vancity and Currency Marketing. And I just noticed Denise Wymore is planning on coming in for it.

I have no doubt that by the time September 20th and 21st arrive many more FIs and vendors will have signed up.

BCIT’s downtown campus is extremely well located, right in downtown Vancouver. If you’re coming in from out of town, you can walk there from any of Vancouver’s downtown hotels. It’s also very close to a SkyTrain station, so it’s easy to get to from almost anywhere.

All that for about $35 Canadian. So go ahead, add your name to the wiki and come on down.

See you there!

UPDATE (May 29): Thanks to Boris for adding this event to Upcoming.org!