In Vancouver? Check out the Internet Marketing Conference.

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

3 comments | make a comment

Great time at Convergence.

I was at Convergence for most of today, and it was an impressively put together and attended event.

The event, which partnered with the overall VIDFEST, is a production of Cossette, one of Canada's largest communications agencies. They brought together some impressive speakers, with a nice mix of locals and imports.

One thing I don't get to do enough of is meet peers here in Vancouver. I spend so much of my time on the road at events, I don't attend that many in town. Today was a welcome change, and I met some amazing people doing some amazing things.

The panel I was on was called Giving Your Brand Away: Brand Communities and featured four of us, all on the client side, who have created online communities to support our brands and companies.

I was delighted to learn from my fellow panelists:

George Hradecky from McDonald's USA launched an enormous community undertaking called StationM, which is an online community for McDonald's' 770,000 front line staff across North America.
Thierry Hay-Sabourin runs the Future Shop Community Forum a place where gearheads can ask questions and exchange tips on their gear. It was so great to meet another local online community guy.
William Bakker runs eBusiness at Tourism BC, including their blogs and social media initiatives. Again, great to meet another local doing interesting things.
The panel was moderated by Angele Beausoleil, who is the Director of Strategic Planning at Fjord, Cossette's interactive wing. She ran a great panel, with enough moderation to give us focus, but a light enough touch to let the panel unfold organically.

It was one of the best panels I've ever participated in, and we got lots of great feedback.

One thing I was really struck with was how we ran four totally different communities, with four different business intentions behind them, and yet we all came to remarkably similar conclusions.

We all felt that the community had to be authentic and transparent, that you needed to seed the community with the right kind of people to get it going in the desired direction, that it had to grow organically in its own time, that you had to get buy in from the top to start initiatives like these, that you have to know exactly what you want the community to do for your business regardless of how hard or soft that impact will be.

I was honoured to be a part of it, happy to meet so many amazing people and impressed at how well run the event was.

Labels: changeeverything, conference, social media, vancouver

posted on Thursday, May 22, 2008

Great time at CUES Experience.

Got home today, and I'm just too tired to write anything even semi-salient right now, but Tim managed to do that, and I think he got even less sleep than I did.

It was great seeing so many amazing friends, and meeting some great new people. Quite a whirlwind.

Presenting at CUES Experience

And thanks to Morriss for snapping this pic of my presentation (with his iPhone no less)!

Labels: conference, CUES, currency marketing, everythingcu

posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008

See you in Minneapolis.

I'm off to Minneapolis tomorrow for CUES Experience.

I'm excited to see so many of my CU alum there, including Morriss Partee, Tim McAlpine, Robbie Wright, Denise Wymore, Brent Dixon, and am most excited to finally meet Ron Shevlin, Steve Williams and Christopher Stevenson in person after months of being eConnected. I hope I didn't miss anyone - did I?

I'm presenting a Credit Union case study from Vancity, covering who we are, how we show up and how we leverage social media. Should be a good presentation.

It's also been a fantastic way to procrastinate finishing my chapter for the new Age of Conversation. Truth be told, I'm starting to panic, it's due in 3 days.

If you'll be in Minneapolis, please say hi.

Now I gotta figure out how to transport fresh fruit across the US-Canada border, because my son Ivan is expecting tiny apples from a place called Minneapolis (say it aloud).

Labels: changeeverything, conference, credit union, CUES, currency marketing, everythingcu, gonzobanker, shevlin, vancity

posted on Monday, May 12, 2008

See you at Cossette Convergence.

I'm excited to participate in the upcoming Cossette Convergance 2008 here in Vancouver at the Arts Club Theatre.

I've been asked to speak on a panel entitled Giving Your Brand Away: Brand Communities, and will be a panelist alongside Ben Stringfellow from McDonalds USA, Thierry Hay-Sabourin from Future Shop and William Bakker from Tourism British Columbia. The panel will be moderated by Angele Beausoleil from Fjord, Cossette's online agency.

I'm honoured to be among these amazing people, and it should turn out to be a great event.

I'm very keen to hear from the keynote speaker Grant McCracken the author of Culture and Consumption.

If you'll be there, please let me know. And if you're thinking of attending, you can register here.

Labels: azaroff, changeeverything, conference, social marketing, social media, vancity

posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2008

My Net.Finance results.

I received my scores this week from Net.Finance. These are the accumulated scores I received from the people at my presentation on April 14th.

Highest possible score: 5
Content: 4.4
Presentation: 4.7

Comments:

Great presentation
Excellent concept, illustrative presentation, thought provoking
Very interesting. Would have liked a bit more info on how they built this channel
Great insight into social marketing
Great presentation, just a little fast at times

I'm really pleased, because it means people liked both my content and my presentation style (although I was called out for speaking too quickly, to which I plead guilty).

I now have results from three Net.Finance presentations: this year's, last year's and this past January's Online Innovation conference.

Just as a point of reference, my scores from last year's Net.Finance were:
Content rating: 4.72
Presentation style rating: 4.61

My results from Online Innovations were:
Content Rating: 4.5
Presentation Style Rating: 4.67

It's nice that my results are fairly consistent, and people seem to like what I've been serving up. I look forward to the myriad of conferences that lie ahead for me this year.

Labels: azaroff, conference, netfinance

posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008

Net.Finance reflections

This year's Net.Finance conference was the best yet. This was my third annual Net.Finance (not including their Online Innovations conference this past January).

The first year, I was new to financial services, and it was a great opportunity to learn about the industry from some of our leading thinkers and doers. The second year was great for networking, but the presentations were somewhat hit and miss. This year many of the presentations were strong, and the people I met were incredible. It was a great experience, professionally and socially.

The main takeaway I have from this year is that the online part of the financial services sector is at a healthy, natural plateau. Many of the things we've been exploring are now in place, and it's time to execute, learn and improve. This includes metrics and analytics, optimization (A/B testing and multivariate), search engine marketing & optimization, website usability and core online banking functionality. We've gone from a period of doubt and experimentation to a period of adoption and execution.

I sense many of my peers are getting the respect they deserve within their organizations, and have roadmaps in front of them to follow. All the while they're keeping an eye on some of the upcoming innovations, including social lending, personal financial management and mobile banking. I was amazed and heartened by how many more people were open to the Prosper and Wesabe models. A year ago, it was all so foreign, and many people I met at other FIs just didn't have it on their radar. Not any more.

If you want to catch up on great blog coverage of the conference, my peer at Westminster Savings Credit Union, Ed Brett, captured it all on his new and valuable blog, Small FI Blog. Check it out.

Labels: banking, conference, credit union, netfinance

posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008

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 aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovations and the creation of new business models in the world of 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.

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

8 comments | make a comment

Day 1 at Net.Finance.

Today was a good day. I'm too tired to write much. I was extremely pleased with the way my presentation went. The hard work paid off.

If you're looking for good Net.Finance coverage, my peer at Westminster Savings Credit Union is partially live-blogging. Meet the fantastic Ed Brett and his Small FI Blog.

Oh, and how did I miss that Michigan First Credit Union started a blog? It's all about their community engagement, and is called MI Community Space. Did you all know that? I met James Anderson at Net.Finance last year, and spoke with him again today. A highly impressive individual.

--
Also, check out Rob Cottingham's latest cartoon with a reference to our Webby Nomination.

Labels: banking, blogging, changeeverything, conference, corporate responsibility, credit union, netfinance, socialsignal

posted on Monday, April 14, 2008

I'm off to Net.Finance.

I leave today for Scottsdale, Arizona to attend and present at the Net.Finance conference. This will be my third year attending Net.Finance, and I always come back with some great new ideas to implement, lots of ideas to share with my peers, some new friends and colleagues from across North America and a nice time away in a sunny climate.

This year, it's especially nice because this is an important first anniversary for me. It was a year ago when I presented at Net.Finance about ChangeEverything.ca, and my journey on the conference circuit began in full force. Presenting at conferences has become a real passion for me. I get to share knowledge, meet lots of fascinating people, attend conferences that Vancity simply doesn't have the budget to send me to, and I get to perform in front of a crowd, which is something I truly enjoy.

This year I'm presenting on Corporate Social Responsibility As Key Differentiator, which is a fancy way of saying social marketing and social media. I'll talk about how Vancity's community focus takes an increasingly strong role in our advertising and marketing, how we can leverage that community work into successful use of social media, and how it positively impacts our triple bottom line.

I gave two practice sessions to my peers at Vancity on Friday, and feel ready to go on stage and present in Arizona.

And this year at Net.Finance marks another nice anniversary. It was a year ago, in April of 2007 that I changed my blog's purpose and focus from a place to put humourous links for my friends (with a whopping subscriber base of 8 readers at the time [thanks Ruben]) to a place where I discuss social media, corporate social responsibility, online branding and banks and credit unions (and now have a subscriber base of 140 or so readers [thank you]).

It's been profoundly rewarding, enlightening and social. I have met some great people through my blog, taken part in some amazing discussions, and have received some very useful feedback on my work. It's something almost indescribably wonderful.

So now I head off to Arizona, with five more major conferences ahead of me this year, an excitement about my work, and some extremely exciting projects ahead.

So thanks for reading, let me know if you'll be at Net.Finance, and I hope to break 500 connections on LinkedIn by the time I return.

Labels: banking, blogging, changeeverything, conference, corporate responsibility, credit union, LinkedIn, netfinance, social marketing, social media

posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008

4 comments | make a comment

The Social Economy at the Partnership Symposium.

I'm so pleased that FORUM Solutions published a guest post I wrote on their blog.

It's about my preparation for the keynote I'm delivering at the Partnership Symposium in October.

The post is called Discovering the Social Economy.

I'm really looking forward to the conference, and I hope to see you there...

Labels: azaroff, blogging, conference, credit union, partnership symposium

posted on Monday, March 24, 2008

Ready and raring to present.

I spent a big chunk of this past weekend creating my presentations for both Net.Finance 2008 and CUES Experience.

It's funny to look back at my initial presentation from last year's Net.Finance about ChangeEverything.ca. It was so full of words and clunky. I am relying mostly on images and my own storytelling now to get the message across. It's a big evolution, and I'm excited to see how it will go over.

My talk at Net.Finance will be Corporate Social Responsibility As Key Differentiator, which may be like speaking socialism to a room full of bankers. Hopefully I can at least make it funny and entertaining. I am pulling data from our experience at Vancity as a community-driven organization, proving the model that social marketing can break through the clutter, epsecially in our heavily commoditized industry.

At CUES my talk is called Credit Unions and Social Media: A Case Study, and will cover a lot of the same ground, but deal a lot more with social media and go into more detail around how ChangeEverything.ca works. I have the luxury of a 75 minute session, which is by far the longest talk I have given. It'll be nice not to be pressed for time, and be able to engage in a discussion throughout, rather than at the end, time permitting.

I'll take what I learn from them to shape my end of the year keynote at the Partnership Symposium 2008. I'm really excited about it. My talk is called Engaging with the Social Economy, and I'm just starting to wrap my head around what I'll cover. It will deal with how credit unions are uniquely positioned to use the banking platform to make our society a better and more equitable place.

Please let me know if you'll be at any of these events. I look forward to seeing you there.

Labels: banking, conference, credit union, CUES, innovation, netfinance, partnership symposium, social economy, social media

posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008

4 comments | make a comment

Can you help me with nicer graphs?

I don't like Microsoft products. There I said it, and hopefully you're not offended.

For an upcoming presentation I want to create some charts and graphs nicer than anything Excel can spit out. And I don't have Keynote, which is probably the solution I should be looking at. In the meantime though, are there any good web 2.0 offerings that allow you to input data and create nice looking charts and graphs?

If you do, please comment here with the URLs or email me at william [at] azaroff [dot] com.

Many thanks in advance...

Labels: conference, design, netfinance, web 2.0

posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008

10 comments | make a comment

BarCampBank continues East, West and South.

BarCampBank in San Francisco & New England

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 Francisco
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

And 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...

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

5 comments | make a comment

My scores at Net.Finance

I was so pleased to get the audience's rating of my presentation at Net.Finance's recent Online Innovations in Financial Services Marketing conference in New York.

PANEL RATING:
Highest Possible Score: 5.0

Content Rating: 4.5
Presentation Style Rating: 4.67

COMMENTS:
Very engaging
I like his presentation

It makes me very pleased that my content resonated with people, and that I delivered it in a way people responded to. Okay, enough horn tooting... for now.

Labels: azaroff, conference, netfinance

posted on Friday, February 08, 2008

Looking forward to the Partnership Sympiosium.

Last October I was unable to attend the Partnership Symposium, a credit union conference sponsored jointly by FORUM Solutions and Trabian. I was greatly disappointed because my peers who were there said it was a highlight of their year.

So I'm very excited to announce that I have been invited to deliver a keynote at this year's Partnership Symposium. Some of the other amazing speakers already announced include some of my favourite CU peers and thought leaders: Tim McAlpine, Morriss Partee, Robbie Wright and Gene Blishen (with more to follow I'm sure).

I have proposed the following as my topic, and I'd love feedback from you on this. Does it sound interesting? Am I missing anything at a high level?

Engaging with the Social Economy
A growing segment of the economy is being driven by social decision-making. Credit unions play a natural key role in this shift, both as community-focused organizations and as holders of significant consumer assets. This presentation will include examples of the emerging social economy, as well as a case study of ChangeEverything.ca, a social network created by Vancity which speaks to the values the largest credit union in Canada shares with the community it serves.

UPDATE (Feb 4, 2008): Ron Shevlin was just added to the lineup in a very interesting way:

Ron Shevlin will serve as the host for the 2008 Partnership Symposium. He will spend time with each presenter following their session to ask a couple of questions and engage the audience in asking their questions. This is an interactive conference and Ron will help ensure that everyone takes part!

I'm nervous and excited to work with Ron in this way. He's tough, but all in search of making us better, more rigourous marketers.

Labels: azaroff, conference, credit union, partnership symposium, social economy, vancity

posted on Saturday, February 02, 2008

5 comments | make a comment

Off to Net.Finance.

On Tuesday I fly to New York for a couple of days to attend and speak at Net.Finance's Online Innovations in Financial Services Marketing conference. This is an extension of their main conference which occurs every April in Arizona.

Last year the final day was focused on innovations in the financial services industry, and included an excellent set of speakers and presentations. I spoke about ChangeEverything.ca, why Vancity did it and what we get out of it.

Next week I will be doing a brand new presentation about responding to bloggers. I have been delivering the presentation internally, getting some incredible feedback, and am excited to deliver it in New York.

I'm particularly keen to see some terrific people, including Shari Storm (who always speaks right before me), Michael Seaton, Jurie Pieterse, Jason Knight and Jim Bruene.

I have been to the last two Net.Finance conferences, and find them to be valuable sources of information and incredible networking opportunities. This April's conference looks like an outstanding line-up. I am delivering a presentation about FIs and social responsibility. It's a big topic, and frankly I'm a little nervous as I begin to plan out what I want to cover.

So let me know if you'll be at either of these two conferences, and if you are there, please make sure we connect in person.

TWO QUICK UPDATES: One, I'm so excited that my friend Trey Reeme will also be there. And I'll try and blog the conference each night. No promises though!

Labels: azaroff, blogging, conference, netfinance

posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008

Speaking at CUES Experience.

I'm excited to be going to Minneapolis in May to speak at the new CUES Experience: Immersion Learning for Marketing, Technology & Operations Leaders. This is a new conference CUES is putting on, and they're planning on mixing a traditional conference with on-site visits to some of the more innovative companies in Minneapolis.

They have some amazing speakers lined up, including Arkadi Kuhlmann from ING Direct, Jeremy Gutsche founder of trendhunter.com, Steve Williams and Terence Roche of Cornerstone Advisors and GonzoBanker.

But, I'm especially excited to meet one of my favourite bloggers, Ron Shevlin.

Plus I've never been to Minneapolis, so that should be very fun. I'll do my best to live blog it as well.

Labels: azaroff, banking, changeeverything, conference, credit union, CUES, gonzobanker

posted on Friday, November 09, 2007

3 comments | make a comment

My Net.Finance session.

Net.Finance has just updated their website with the full agenda of their upcoming Online Innovations in Financial Services Marketing conference. It will take place at the New York Information Technology Center from January 23-24, 2008.

The main proposition is: Engaging Your Customers Through Social Media, Social Lending & Mobile Banking. Sounds pretty good. I'm fortunate enough to have been asked to speak at this conference, and I'm also happy to be speaking about something other than ChangeEverything.ca (not that I ever get sick of talking about it).

My topic is Responding To Bloggers - Playing On Their Turf. The session is described as so:

There is a conversation going on right now in the blogosphere about your FI. Are you tracking the comments being made? Are you responding? Do you have a strategy in place to determine the right course of action to deal with bloggers who write about your company?

Learning how to track conversations in the blogosphere

Determining when is the right time to respond

Seeing and evaluating the pros and cons of entering the conversation

Should be a fun time, hope to see you in New York.

Labels: azaroff, banking, blogging, conference, credit union, netfinance, social media

posted on Friday, October 19, 2007