my upcoming conferences

IABC Communicating Social Responsibility Conferences

Online Innovations in Financial Services Marketing

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I'm William Azaroff. I direct Online Strategy & Community Engagement at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union.

My opinions and views are just that, and don't reflect the views of my employer (or, perhaps, anyone else).

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:.EverythingCU
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:.Trey Reeme
:.Verity's Our Voices
:.Visible Banking
:.Web Strategy

BarCampBankSeattle day one.

So I gotta admit, although I was totally excited about BarCampBankSeattle, I was skeptical about the concept that those who show up are the right people, and whatever is discussed are the right things to discuss. It sounded a little too airy-fairy for me (and I can handle a lot of airy-fairy). And yet it totally works.

The day has a structure we decided in the morning and we strayed from that structure in exactly the right way. If a session loses focus, people leave. If a session needs to go on for longer, people keep discussing.

It truly is an amazing group, and it's great to be a part of it. This is also a great structure for smaller groups who really want to cross-pollenate. Kudos to Jesse Robbins and Ben Black for putting it together!

You can see the photos tagged barcampbankseattle on flickr.com. Some good shots here.

I'll get some good posts here and on netbanker.com as soon as I'm able to gather my thoughts and put something coherent together.

Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, credit union, innovation, social personal finance, technology, web 2.0