my upcoming conferences

Hi, I'm William. I'm the Director, Online Banking & 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).

my peers
:.BankerVision
:.Banking Kismet
:.Banktastic
:.The Bankwatch
:.Benry
:.The Boardcast
:.Buzz Canuck
:.The Client Side
:.CU Communicator
:.CU Employee
:.CU Hype
:.The CU Loop
:.Currency Marketing
:.Denise Wymore
:.Doug True
:.EverythingCU
:.The Financial Brand
:.Marketing ROI
:.NetBanker
:.Nexus Connection
:.Noise to Signal
:.Open Source CU
:.ShoreBank Voices
:.Social Signal
:.The Story
:.Tinfoiling
:.Trey Reeme
:.Verity's Our Voices

An online community about banking? Really?

Ever wondered where bankers go to discuss financial services issues online. Well neither had I, but then Brad Garland of The Garland Group invited me to join Banktastic.com.

What's Banktastic? Here's how the site positions itself:

A community helping bankers quickly find relevant, industry specific information and share it with others.

It could just as easily have been called CreditUnion-tastic, but that's just not as much fun. People are discussing all kinds of issues like:

Who will win the p2p lending wars in the US - Prosper, Zopa, LendingClub, Virgin?
What is your favorite bank marketing campaign of all time?
Just wondered what some of our experts thought the next big thing will be in banking? I still meet with smaller banks that think that remote deposit capture is new and they have a problems getting a good marketing plan created. Any ideas?

The site is in "semi-private beta" which means you need to be invited to join. I still have one invite left, let me know if you want it.

Thanks to Brad and Mark (I was fortunate enough to meet them at BarCampBankSeattle earlier this year) and the gang at The Garland Group for creating this forum. I look forward to seeing where it goes.

UPDATE: I neglected to give my friend and CU influencer, Morriss Partee his due props here. His EverythingCU is a great repository of information about all things Credit Union. They have 5,621 members (including me) and have tons of topics and discussions daily about all kinds of topics, ranging from

Getting management approval for cutting edge campaigns
Auto Lending Channels
Philosophy and Practice
Web Site Re-design
The best ad you NEVER Ran
Name change?
You know you're a marketer when...

It's an amazing resource, and I owe it to Morriss to give him a plug along with Banktastic.

Labels: banking, banktastic, barcampbankseattle, credit union, social media, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007

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2 comments
And the winner is... Dan Dickinson of BMO. The proud recipient of my last remaining Banktastic invite.

If you're still interested, let me know and I bet I can wrangle more.
comment from wazaroff on November 07, 2007

Thanks again for the kind words William.

We've got a lot of really cool things on the horizon and would love for you and your readers to join us in that experience. If anyone is interested in an invite just let William or I know! You can email me at brad [at] thegarlandgroup dot net.

Brad Garland
Banktastic.com
comment from

Brad Garland on November 08, 2007

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