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I'm William Azaroff. I direct Online Strategy & Community Engagement at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union.
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Come on down to BarCampBank BC.
I'm excited to announce that on September 20, 2008 BarCampBank is coming to Vancouver.Gene Blishen, Tim McAlpine and I are putting a stake in the ground, after talking about doing it for some time.
Now, some of you may be asking, what the hell is a BarCampBank. From the main BarCampBank page:
What if we changed banking and finance?The first one in North America was in Seattle last July, and it was a truly transformative experience. For me, the ideas, relationships and bonds formed in those two days are invaluable, and the memories of it are strong and very good.
The aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovations and the creation of new business models in the world of banking and finance.
Lots of details to be worked out, like an exact location, but it will take place on September 20, 2008. The cost is always break-even (think $25 CAD), so its worth the travel expense for my East Coast readers.
Go to the wiki page to add your name to the list. It will not disappoint!
PS: Thanks to Morriss Partee, whom I credit for keeping BarCampBank alive and kicking in North America. Thanks Morriss, looking forward to seeing you here! Also, I believe it was his idea to create something with the acronym BCBBC. Who couldn't love that!
NOTE: My original post accidentally said that this was on July 20th. It is, in fact on September 20th!
Labels: banking, barcampbankbc, barcampbankseattle, conference, credit union, currency marketing, everythingcu, innovation, social media, technology, tinfoiling, vancouver, web 2.0
posted on Friday, April 18, 2008
BarCampBank continues East, West and South.
Last summer I attended an amazing event called BarCampBankSeattle. It was a coming together of, and collaboration between, some amazing bank and credit union folks from across North America. I wrote a few blog posts about it at the time.Jesse Robbins organized this first-of-its-kind-in-America conference, and now he's written about two more BarCampBank events that are happening. It was also covered by NetBanker and Frederic Baud.
The next two events will be:
BarCampBank San FranciscoAnd now I see that there will be a BarCampBank Dallas. This is spreading like wildfire. Innovation is taking root among some bankers, which is exciting. Hmmm, maybe we need a BarCampBank Vancouver...
Saturday, March 29, 2008
UC Berkeley campus - Soda Hall in the Wozniak Lounge
RSVP @ EventBrite ($25)
BarCampBank New England
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
America's Credit Union Museum, Manchester, NH
Unfortunately, I can't attend any of these events, although I truly wish I could. Lots of great people will be there, and you can see exactly who will be attending at each event's homepage.
I hope some of you attendees will blog about it, so the rest of us can feel included. It is worth noting that Morriss Partee is behind a couple of these and seems to be the thread between SF and NE. Morriss, looks like you're gonna need to go to Dallas too.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, conference, credit union, everythingcu, netbanker
posted on Friday, February 15, 2008
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?
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...
Labels: banking, banktastic, barcampbankseattle, credit union, social media, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Banktastic!
I was going through my RSS feed, and came across Robbie Wright's The Life and Times of a Credit Union Employee. I always enjoy Robbie's perspective, even more so since meeting him at BarCampBankSeattle.He started a discussion about a master RSS aggregator of all the bank and CU related blogs. In the good comment thread that ensued Mark from the The Garland Group, who was also at BarCampBankSeattle, posted about his new project called Banktastic whih does exactly that.
Nice work Mark, a blog roll for all of us! Thanks for including me. I even added it to my blogroll.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, credit union, RSS, technology, web 2.0
posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007
A final reflection on BarCampBankSeattle.
I have been reviewing my notes and trying to write some coherent posts about BarCampBankSeattle to sum it all up. I'm finding that a tall order.So much of the weekend was about the relationships, the dialogue, the intense collaboration, that it doesn't do the experience justice to write it out.
I think I captured some of the key takeaways pretty well on NetBanker, in my latest guest blog post.
Have a look and please shoot me a comment there.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, credit union, innovation, netbanker
posted on Thursday, July 26, 2007
BarCampCreditUnion?
In the end, no banks showed up at all. It was mostly credit unions, consultants to credit unions and suppliers. One surprising thing to emerge from BarCampBankSeattle was the talk about the mission of the credit union movement and its relevance in today's world. Didn't expect that, but it was a vibrant, and I would argue important discussion to have.Banks were invited, specifically Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo. I know that Ed Terpening, VP of Social Media at Wells, was planning on coming, but couldn't make it. I look forward to meeting him at some point. But in the end BarCampBank had no bank representation. An odd state of affairs.
When we talked about innovation and supporting communities, we all thought that that was the job for credit unions. What was incredibly reassuring is that there are many people who are passionate about what credit unions can do for communities and their constituents.
We need to be vigilant to ensure that credit unions don't become, as Jesse put it, small shitty, inefficient banks. In the end, it was a great marriage of a discussion around banking innovation and the role credit unions can continue to play in the service of people and their money. I hope the conversation continues, because it's exciting for me to see the next generation of CU leaders engaged in the credit union mission, who see it as a movement and believe in it passionately. Sometimes I wonder if the shift from Boomers to Gen X and Y will lead to a shift away from strong credit unions supporting their communities. We had an amazing blend of younger people, new to the CU world, and some long time champions of the movement - it was an excellent cross-section. This weekend gave me renewed faith.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, underbanked
posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007
Why BarCampBank?
One of the interesting things about coming to an event like BarCampBankSeattle is trying to explain it to people who have no framework with which to contextualize it.What's a BarCamp? Why a BarCamp for banking? Why not just have a regular conference? What are you doing down there in Seattle? Why on Earth would a grown man go to Banking Camp?
It's only now struck me that with new tools emerging to allow for greater online collaboration, whether you're talking about BaseCamp, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn or Second Life, the needs for in-person collaboration is changing. For people who are not using these new tools, nothing has changed and therefore they don't need new ways of interfacing with their peers. But for those of us who have embraced these new tools and found that they have significantly improved their ways of collaborating and working together, we want our real world events to change too.
Along comes BarCampBankSeattle. I wouldn't be interested if a traditional conference was organized this way because you'd be in a room full of people who want content served to them, just like people who are used to traditional web experiences (the irony of a term like "traditional web experience" is not lost on me) want content served up to them. They aren't used to co-creating and collaborating.
So the idea of BarCampBank - that the right people are here and the right things are being discussed - really works because the people who have opted in to this process are all on the same wavelength when it comes to collaborating and working together. The guys at Trabian are leaders in this space, because their employees live in different cities and still work together through tools like AIM, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, BaseCamp and so on. So a loose, informal heavily collaborative event like BarCampBank makes perfect sense to the people who are here because we want new models for in-person meetings that fit into our new working relationships.
The penny dropped and it's amazing to be here.
I'll format my thoughts properly and post some content this week - I promise.
Labels: azaroff, banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, credit union, innovation, opensourcecu, technology, twitter, web 2.0
posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007
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
posted on Saturday, July 21, 2007
Facebook vs. iPhone.
Quick update. It's great to meet Jason Knight of Wesabe.com and hear his thoughts. He spoke of choosing a platform, because no one can afford to develop for everything that exists. He feels that the iPhone is a better platform for them than Facebook. Not that he'll ignore Facebook, but the 'always with you' experience of the iPhone is more compelling to him. Very interesting, I hadn't thought of those two in the same space, but to him there's a choice to be made.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, innovation, social personal finance, web 2.0, wesabe
posted on Saturday, July 21, 2007
So far so good.
BarCampBankSeattle is off to a roaring start. I wasn't familiar with this Open Space model, but people started by proposing different sessions they were interested in and then started grouping and discussing. Some really impressive thought leaders here, and we're all mashing up, running ideas.
One session that kicked things off for me was "Credit Financing of International Relief & Development Projects" and we discussed some very interesting and innovative ways to get funding to needed projects in developing countries.
I'll blog the notes into more of a thoughtful post later. Powerful stuff.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, corporate responsibility, credit union, innovation, microcredit, poverty, social personal finance, technology, underbanked, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Saturday, July 21, 2007
See you at BarCampBankSeattle.
Labels: azaroff, banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, changeeverything, credit union, innovation, microcredit, social personal finance, technology, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Register now for BarCampBankSeattle.
Online registration has now opened for BarCampBankSeattle, taking place July 21-22 2007. You can pay by credit card or Pay Pal, and the whole event is $35 USD (not including accommodation). Register here.Thanks to Jesse Robbins for organizing the event.
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, credit union, innovation, technology, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Update on BarCampBankSeattle
BarCampBankSeattle is now on both Google Groups and, more importantly, upcoming.BarCampBankSeattle is described on upcoming as
If you are an innovator, a disruptor or a professional of the banking and finance industry, if you are excited by or just curious about all the innovations that the new technologies could bring to the banking and finance world, if you want to present a project, confront your ideas or just echo lively debates with your own experience, then you should definitely consider joining us on BarCampBankSeattle.
Looking forward to it!
Wm
Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, credit union, innovation, technology, web 2.0
posted on Friday, June 01, 2007
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