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From Mass To Grass is where it's at.

Let me start this post by stating that I am, in fact, a reasonably proud Canadian. So now I must confess something to you. I've never been to Toronto. Ever. Well, other than the airport a few times. Insane, I know.

So I'm very excited to take my first trip there to speak at the Canadian Marketing Association's extraordinary From Mass To Grass Word of Mouth Marketing conference.

I'm on a not-for-profit panel called Building Buzz for Good, along with Deborah Kaplan, the Executive Director of Zerofootprint, a renewable energy company. The panel is being moderated by Kate Trgovac a very well known and well respected blogger.

It is being described as so:

Not-for-profits have been organizing and activating grassroots influencers since their first inception. Learn from some of Canada's top and most innovative non-profit organizations and initiatives on how they build community, activate influencers and build support for their causes. If you are a non-profit or CSR-focused organization, this is a must attend segment.

Check out this funny video promoting the event (hat tip to Michael Seaton for the video):

Labels: canada, changeeverything, conference, corporate responsibility, social media

posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

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Telus - ensuring the future is not friendly.

One of the ways I ended up at Vancity was that I left Telus, Canada's second largest Telecom and BC's main phone company, during the strike of their Telecommunication Workers' Union employees during their 2005 strike. It was an ugly affair, especially for me, as I had never before crossed a picket line and was suddenly sent away from my job as a project manager to a suburb, Surrey, which is an hour away, to run wires in a big concrete building. The whole experience was difficult and ridiculous, especially because my son was only several months old at the time and we "managers" were all required to work 12 hour days, six days a week. Between those hours and my commute, I only got to see my son on my one day off.

Needless to say, I left the company for one whose business model I respect, switched to VOIP and never looked back.

At Vancity I became a big proponent of the social web and believe strongly in having a business model where openness is widely adopted, making it easier to engage in online collaboration under the auspices of your brand. I used to use Telus as an example of a company that doesn't have the fortitude to allow itself to leverage the social web. Now, reading Wikinomics, it's even more clear to me that companies need to harness the power of collaboration to make their business stronger. I believe that isolation will increasingly lead to poorer performance.

But lately I've been feeling like I may have been too harsh with Telus. Time heals all wounds, I guess.

And then I read this excellent article in The Tyee that shows a pattern of blocking access to websites on its network, removing videos from YouTube that they may not even own, and other big-brother practices. Holy moly. I guess time wounds all heels instead. How could a company, which is one of the biggest ISPs in Canada, start shutting this stuff down. Which executives think this is a good idea? I remember when they blocked a TWU-supportive website during the strike I thought it was a horrible act resulting from maintaining an extreme position during the strike. But now, when I assume they are still trying to heal rifts left over from that strike between union workers and everyone else, it reveals something much darker about the intentions and nature of the company.

Telus is a clear example of a company that doesn't get it. Its brand tagline is The Future is Friendly. When I worked there we used to joke that the future better be friendly, because the present certainly sucks. Anyone with experience in marketing or PR knows that a company's tagline is their consumer promise and has to reflect reality for it to be believable. I hope there are VPs at the company who kick and scream over these actions, because it reveals the image of the company as an empty promise, something they're trying to portray, totally divorced from reality.

The thing that boggles my mind is that in their fight for high-speed internet dominance, Telus execs should know that consumers want to be able to trust their ISP? That if the public associates Telus with blocking websites to their customers, many people would simply choose another provider for this commoditized service? And if they can't trust them for web service, can they trust them to have transparent rates on long distance (a well documented no), or fair fees and service charges, or... well, the list just goes on and on.

I would guess that over time they will either need to wake up and reform and become more open or become a fossilized old-boys boardroom clueless as the world becomes a little more egalitarian.

Labels: canada, corporate responsibility, media, telus, vancity, vancouver, web 2.0

posted on Monday, July 02, 2007

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Net.Finance Day Two

So today started off strongly. Eskander Matta from Wells Fargo gave a very good presentation of some of the things they've done for business customers. People back at Vancity will be happy to know that business banking is a big focus here this year, and I don't remember anyone addressing it last year. Some good info to take back with me, including the keynote address from Michael Donalson from HSBC. Everyone's moving on business customers.

Also some great new research from James Van Dyke from Javelin Strategy & Research on online banking trends and stats. He was great last year and his info was strong and relevant this year too.

James McGuire from Royal Bank of Canada also had a great presentation, which I'm hoping to get my hands on. Great to meet the Canadians down here, and there are plenty of us. Everyone comments how the Canadian banks are so far ahead, which is nice to hear, though not altogether believable.

At the cocktail reception, I met Jim Bruene, which was great. I've followed his blog for a while and am a subscriber to his extremely useful Online Banking Report. Nice to put faces to names of the bloggers I follow.

The conference just isn't as strong as it was last year. It's good, and I am getting some great ideas to bring back with me, but last year by this time my head was already swimming with new ideas and I had taken a ton of notes of relevant material to bring back with me.

Looking forward to Michael Seaton tomorrow from Scotiabank talk about crowdsourcing, and of course I'm super excited about Thursday. Evidently a bunch of people are leaving tomorrow night, as Thursday's an optional day, but 100 new people are coming in just for that day's presentations.

Labels: azaroff, banking, blogging, canada, credit union, netbanker, netfinance, vancity, vancouver, web

posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007

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A follow up on my America Saves post

I was speaking to some people at Vancity about the issue of serving the underbanked and underserved, both of which are areas where we focus strongly. Two interesting things came back.

1> Someone in our Sustainability division (who shall remain nameless) came back with this nugget:

Money is like sex, you can have a lot of it or none of it and still have an unhealthy relationship to it.

2> Catherine Ludgate in our Community Business Banking division told me this story:

I was at a conference last week with a woman from Micro Business USA, and she was talking about the different mindsets of folks along the income spectrum. In her 30+ years of doing microlending and setting up savings programs, she said she has learned that poor and low income folk generally think of what they earn only in terms of their hourly pay (and certainly not about savings). An income cut above, the lower middle class earners think about their weekly earnings. Middle class earners think in terms of their monthly income, and upper middle class earners think in terms of annual income. The truly wealthy (however that is defined) think ahead in terms of three to five to ten year investments they will make.

Her argument was that changing how folks identified their value (hourly to weekly to monthly to annually to forward looking) is the first step in changing other behaviours, like the ability to save. And that change in thinking can lead to movement out of an income group, as the woman in the case study in the NY Times article moved.

I thought those were two good and valuable insights.

My original post is here.

Labels: banking, canada, corporate responsibility, poverty, underbanked, vancity, vancouver

posted on Thursday, April 12, 2007

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ChangeEverything.ca is a Webby Award Official Honoree

After a lovely four day weekend, I arrived back at my desk at work this morning to find out that ChangeEverything.ca had won the status of Official Honoree at this year's Webby Awards.

From their site:

Congratulations on being selected as an Official Honoree

Your submission has been selected as an Official Honoree of The 11th Annual Webby Awards. As a result of the exceptional quality of submissions this year, the Academy has chosen to recognize work exhibiting remarkable achievement that was not selected as a Nominee. Out of more than 8,000 entries submitted to the 11th Annual Webby Awards, less than 15% are deemed Official Honorees.

After years of producing web sites, this is my first Webby. Needless to say, I'm extremely excited. And just in time for my Net.Finance presentation next week!

Thanks and cheers to Kate Dugas and the team at Social Signal for making this happen.

Labels: azaroff, banking, canada, changeeverything, design, media, socialsignal, vancity, vancouver, web, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007

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America Saves

Interesting article in the NYTimes: Can Poor People Be Taught to Save?

Why can't poor people save money? Part of that psychological barrier... was social pressure to not save; the minute people got a little surplus, friends and family would start asking for loans. There were other obstacles too. People in both communities feared losing welfare benefits if they accumulated cash. Many families didn’t even define savings monetarily; they talked about the things they would sell in desperation - baseball-card collections, heirlooms or other low-value assets.

Enter AmericaSaves.org. What is America Saves?

America Saves is a nationwide campaign in which a broad coalition of nonprofit, corporate, and government groups helps individuals and families save and build wealth. Through information, advice, and encouragement, we assist those who wish to pay down debt, build an emergency fund, save for a home, save for an education, or save for retirement.

It's a social network changing the peer pressure in poor communities from spending and lending to saving. According to the article, "about nine million households have effectively no financial assets - nothing to fall back on for emergencies or retirement."

Banks help out by joining the program and creating accounts that charge no fees and have no minimum balance requirements. Amazing.

Something credit unions should get involved with. Creating wealth and assets for those with none. Banking for the under-banked and under-served. Hey, isn't that already our mandate?

PS: Thanks for the link, Rob

Labels: banking, bankwatch, canada, corporate responsibility, media, opensourcecu, socialsignal, vancity, web

posted on Sunday, April 08, 2007

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Focus groupie

We held a focus group with members of the ChangeEverything.ca community. Fascinating stuff.

I don't want to give away anything proprietary, but the trust the members of the focus group have in Vancity is amazing. It's a bit of a virtuous circle: they use CE because they trust Vancity as a local, mission-driven organization with strong roots in, and ties to the community (if we replaced the Vancity logo with one of the big 5 banks, they wouldn't even have tried the site even if everything else remained the same), but it goes the other way too because their trust in Vancity has improved because of CE and our lack of ulterior motives.

We also walked away with a lot of usability issues to address and some interesting functionality enhancements, which hopefully we can afford to make. There are some frustrating issues with the site, and seeing it through their eyes makes me happy the site is so sticky that it keeps our users coming back in spite of the technical issues. They all really liked the design, the open space, the colours. The Vancity brand lends itself well to this kind of endeavour, both aesthetically and thematically.

Watch the site over the next few weeks and even months for changes we'll implement as a result of this amazing and inspiring evening.

Labels: azaroff, banking, canada, changeeverything, corporate responsibility, design, socialsignal, vancity, vancouver, web, web 2.0

posted on Thursday, April 05, 2007

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Housing roller coaster

US Home prices adjusted for inflation plotted as a roller coaster. This is truly brilliant.

Labels: canada, housing bubble, usa, vancouver, video, web

posted on Wednesday, April 04, 2007

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CommunityLend

I find the explosion of peer to peer lending very interesting. Avoid the bank, lend money to someone who needs it - you get a better rate on your investment than a bank would give you, they get a better rate on a loan than a bank would give them. It's a win-win. As long as no one defaults.

I love the openness of it, the eBay quality. We buy and sell things for money, why not just buy and sell money itself? Clearly a reputation mechanism is key to this working.

So if we go five years in the future, will anyone remember this, or will the banks be screaming mercy? Is this to the banks what Napster was to the recording industry? Is this a classic case of a spider battling a starfish. I look forward to finding out.

If I was a betting man, I'd say that this will have a significant impact on banking, not a life or death impact, but enough that banks and credit unions will notice and either try to buy some of these guys up or start their own.

Time will tell if I'm right. What do you think?

CommunityLend.

Labels: azaroff, banking, canada, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007

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A new direction

I have recently been asked why I don't give my opinion about web 2.0, social marketing, banking, etc on my blog. Why I limit it to a more frivolous link blog. I was surprised by the question: lots of people are talking social web and FIs. My favourites include:

Social Signal
Open Source CU
Net Banker
NextCU

But then it occured to me, all of those are written by people outside of an FI. They're written by supporters, vendors, partners, but not insiders. So I'm branching out and will start blogging more about trends I'm seeing, things I'm focusing on, ideas percolating under the surface. I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes at these other fine companies and blogs. I admire and respect all of them, and merely am attempting to join their online conversation.

I also hope I won't upset anyone at Vancity. I love the company and my job, and will strive to merely represent how we do business without giving away any trade secrets, inside information or anything else. I'm going to assume I have that freedom unless I'm told otherwise. Sara, I'll wait for your call...

Now the question is, am I doing this for myself only, or is anyone else listening.

Thanks,
Wm

Labels: azaroff, banking, bankwatch, canada, corporate responsibility, nextcu, opensourcecu, socialsignal, vancity, web, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2007

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Flood Map of Vancouver

Here's an amazing Google Map mashup. See what a 7 meter rise in sea level will do to any part of the globe. Scary stuff: here's a view of Vancouver with a 7 meter rise in sea level.

Labels: canada, climate change, environment, vancouver, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007

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Only now processing...

It was quite a shock this week to learn that Dave Mowat, the CEO of Vancity where I work will be leaving in June. His leadership on climate change is both admirable and inspiring. He will be missed and nearly impossible to replace.

Labels: azaroff, banking, canada, climate change, vancity, vancouver

posted on Saturday, March 17, 2007

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The Climate Change Mortgage

Here's a great project I've been working on the last little while. Today at Vancity, we introduced a Climate Change Mortgage. Who better to speak about this than our CEO, Dave Mowat?





Check out all the details at ClimateChangeMortgage.com.

Labels: azaroff, canada, changeeverything, climate change, corporate responsibility, environment, vancity, vancouver, video, web

posted on Tuesday, February 27, 2007

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My Panel at Northern Voice.

The panel I was on at Northern Voice today went pretty well. We had a great discussion on how to include a social aspect to the work being planned for New Media BC's World Centre for Digital Media. Here's the wiki we created at the event.

Labels: azaroff, canada, corporate responsibility, politics, vancouver, web

posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007

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A Web 2.0 Valentine

From my friends at Social Signal.

Labels: canada, funny, web

posted on Monday, February 12, 2007

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Mandatory recycling in Vancouver?

Friends in Seattle told me recently that their city has mandatory recycling, and that those in violation are fined. The city performs random inspections of people's garbage to check.



On that note, there's a poll this week on ChangeEverything.ca about mandatory recycling in Vancouver. If the results are strongly in favour, we're taking our case to city hall. Cast your vote now.

Labels: azaroff, canada, changeeverything, climate change, corporate responsibility, environment, media, politics, vancity, web

posted on Monday, February 05, 2007

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An Inconvenient Truth Mashup

An Inconvenient Truth and Malphunktion

Labels: canada, climate change, environment, politics, vancity

posted on Friday, January 26, 2007

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The story of a Canadian who posts brilliantly absurd reviews on amazon.com.

Labels: canada, funny, media, web

posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007

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Net Neutrality in Canada

The Tyee has an excellent article on the lack of interest around the issue of Net Neutrality in Canada. I remember when I was working at Telus during the strike in 2005 and they blocked access to the site that the Telecommunication Workers Union created, I was shocked. It was so dramatically undemocratic. Now, that action has been cited south of the border as a worst-case scenario.

Worth a read: Canada Sleeps Through War to 'Save the Internet'

Labels: canada, media, politics, web

posted on Monday, January 22, 2007

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