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about me
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
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:.The Story
:.Tinfoiling
:.Trey Reeme
:.Verity's Our Voices
Changing Everything on ChangeEverything.ca
When we first launched ChangeEverything.ca, it was a hectic and amazing time. Not enough time to get everything done. One of the areas I felt we could do better was site usability and overall design. Kate and I always felt like we wanted to go back and make some improvements.So this year, we blocked out some budget and started working on fixing some of those areas. Among the areas we focused on were:
- improving the registration flow
- improving the workflow for adding changes and blog posts
- grouping social features together so people discover each other and interact easier
- putting a sharper focus on the people, and not just on the text
- making the site, well, just prettier
The process, like the original creation of the site, was charmed. Everyone worked together well, there were no real hiccups, and people had a lot of fun.
The upcoming design changes, including as mock-up of the new look and feel, were announced on ChangeEverything.ca today. We're looking for Beta testers, so check it out and help out if you want.
Otherwise, I'll let you know when everything launches in September!
Labels: changeeverything, currency marketing, design, drupal, innovation, technology, vancity, vancouver, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2008
What does Vancity do in the community anyway?
A major project I've been working on for the past few months is spearheading the re-architecting and rewriting of all the content in the community area of vancity.com. It's been a massive project because, well, frankly we never expained the myriad ways we do good things in our community everyday. A little gap I think.In other words, the very reason I wanted to work at Vancity, and the main thing that keeps me excited to come to work everyday was almost entirely absent from our website. It's a long story.
So, I'm so extraordinarily pleased to share with you our new MyCommunity area.
Inside you'll find out about our four pillars of community leadership (Acting on Climate Change, Facing Poverty, Growing the Social Economy and Being Accountable), what we do in our communities, why we do what we do, what financial products we have that help create positive change, how we help the not-for-profit sector in our local economy, what grants we give out and whole lot more. This project has been absolutely amazing, and I'm really excited about sharing it with you.
I'd love to hear what you all think, especially other CU folks.
Labels: banking, corporate responsibility, credit union, design, environment, microcredit, poverty, social economy, underbanked, vancity
posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008
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
ChangeEverything.ca is a 2007 Digital Marketing Award winner.
I am so pleased to learn that ChangeEverything.ca won a Certificate at the 2007 Digital Marketing Awards in the category of Website: Financial services.
The category is described as "Any site designed to promote banks, trusts, co-ops, investment brands, insurance, etc."
The awards as a whole are described this way:
The Digital Marketing Awards represents the best of interactive marketing in Canada. The awards are produced by Marketing magazine, and judged by the industry. The mandate of the DMAs is to inspire many by rewarding few. Those few will be chosen for their innovation and creativity, and for leveraging the interactive environment to it's full potential.The jury is impressive, and includes my friend Michael Seaton.
It's so nice to see ChangeEverything.ca doing good things in the community, while getting recognized by the industry. Feels good.
Labels: changeeverything, credit union, design, media, news, social media, socialsignal, user experience, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Sunday, October 07, 2007
The $2 multi-touch pad.
Thanks to my friend Ruben for this great video. For all the fuss about multi-touch pads, here's one for $2.Labels: design, innovation, technology, video
posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007
Online branding & Vancity.
One of the things I love about the Vancity brand is that it's complicated, and therefore a challenge to express succinctly. Vancity is a credit union that uses its profits to give money back to its members and the community. Sounds simple in a way, but there's a complication as soon as we have to express how we do it and what it costs.The more money Vancity makes, the more money it can give to the community, and it gives money in a myriad interesting and meaningful ways. Many prospects and members want to know what all this good work will cost them; surely they must pay extra. This sentiment always strikes me as odd - no one expects to pay more at a big bank when their stock prices are high, and yet they're returning profits in the form of dividends to the shareholders. It's the same with us, except the money goes to something meaningful.
So all of this is to say that when we launch a new brand campaign, it's always tricky to engage people around our mission in a way that rings true and feels like us, but is still entertaining and works as marketing.
This week we are launching our 2007 TV spots, outdoor advertising and our web site to promote Vancity. This microsite launched yesterday, and I think it does a nice job conveying our brand and who we are. I'm curious what readers think.
Vancity | We All Profit
Labels: azaroff, credit union, design, user experience, vancity, vancouver, web
posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Stitching together all of Flickr.
It's not often that I see something that surprises, delights and fully engages me, while making me think about how technology can be used in a new way. I urge you to watch the video below or click the link to see it on TED.See the video on TED.
Labels: design, innovation, media, technology, user experience, video, web 2.0
posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007
What's the point of a homepage?
Because most banks have homepages that look like web portals from the 90s, I think a lot about the purpose and function of Vancity's homepage. It's not as cluttered as some, but not as clean as others.Then, along comes Seth Godin's article Blow Up Your Homepage. He says that your homepage is the page for newbies, not a real page people will use over and over again. That it's akin to the old splash pages with a 'skip intro' button. With an Online Banking log in on the homepage, this isn't as true for banks as it is for some, but still, a clarifying remark. Focus more on major internal pages (that we often neglect) and let the homepage be for those unfamiliar with your company.
Sounds obvious, but I found it rather helpful and timely.
Labels: banking, credit union, design, user experience, vancity, web
posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007
Verity's blog has kicked it up a notch.
Wow. I spend a lot of time looking at blogs and after a while they all start looking the same. But Verity Credit Union in Seattle has launched a new blog and has taken blog usability and readability to a whole new level.By moving to 1024x768 they have three nicely sized columns to work with and they make a lot of their real estate. The left column works like you'd expect a blog to work. The middle column gives you easy access to different posts by department, laid out in a very graphically pleasing way. Really makes you want to click to find out more. And the right column surfaces the people who post and some other blogs they like. Impressive.
It was designed and built by the fine folks at Trabian. It's one thing to know a lot about social media like Brent and Trey do, but to be able to design a site that's attractive and functional, honestly this gives me a whole new appreciation for what they are capable of. Kudos to all of them, and Shari Storm, Verity's CMO who has stuck with this and made it work better than anyone else. If you're thinking of creating a corporate blog no matter what industry you're in, you'd be well served to study what Trabian and Verity have done here.
Jim also gave it a rave.
Check it out, it's well worth a visit.
Labels: banking, blogging, credit union, design, innovation, netbanker, opensourcecu, technology, usa, verity, web 2.0
posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007
The Long Take
The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Cinema.Labels: design, filmmaking, media, video
posted on Monday, May 14, 2007
ePaper at hand
South Korea's LG Philips LCD has developed the world's first A4-sized colour electronic-paper.Labels: design, environment, technology
posted on Monday, May 14, 2007
tinfoiling on the virtual human experience.
In a post I made a few days back, I tried to articulate some of the issues I've been thinking about our web site design to enhance the member/user experience.Gene at tinfoiling left a comment in which he said:
The online experience seems to revolve around the person, their personal networks and being able to keep things the way they want to. Our products need to capture these elements.
I was intrigued, but his short comment on my site obviously didn't capture the depth of what he was getting at, so I asked him to expand on his own site. Much to my delight he has.
Here's Gene's response on tinfoiling.
His theory, and I hope I do it justice is that web design as we've been dealing with it is a bit of a boondoggle, avoiding the key element of what the customer wants. And it goes back to our product design as well. A huge idea really, and I gotta admit, I'm still fully wrapping my head around it.
Colin, as usual, had a great comment:
Product - my take: forget about it. It comes last. Banks have been product centric for ever, and that doesn’t work when you get into experiential design.
A great conversation. I had no idea the doors I was opening when I started...
Labels: banking, bankwatch, credit union, design, tinfoiling, vancity, web
posted on Saturday, May 05, 2007
All things to all people
Thinking a lot, as I have lately, about the design of our website, I find myself focusing about three things. Obvious as they may be.1> The vast majority of our site traffic is coming to do their online banking, so in a list of priorities the website is a relationship deepening tool first and foremost.
2> If we look at our member (credit union speak for customer) segments there are clear heavy users of our website and clear groups of members who don't use online banking for their transactions. Based on the known priorities of the segments who use online banking, we can easily make the webiste sing for them, while bringing like-minded members along for the ride quite nicely.
3> I have stopped looking at my FI peers for inspiration. No offense to the other FI sites, but we're competing against other e-tail experiences, not other FI sites. The kind of members who are core users of online banking are not comparing us to other sites in our vertical, but to the kinds of experiences they have shopping elsewhere on the web. Maybe not even just shopping, but getting entertainment and amusing themselves online.
Not rocket science, I know, but man do we have a whole lot of work ahead of us...
Labels: banking, credit union, design, vancity, web
posted on Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Kids furniture from cardboard
Make your own kids furniture out of cardboard at foldschool.Labels: design, environment, odd
posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007
A good widget: LibraryThing
I've been thinking lately that I'd like to show what books I'm currently reading on my blog. I did a little search and came up with LibraryThing.You can see it at work in my sidebar. I think it's terrific. Social networking around your library of books. Great idea and it seems to be very nicely done.
Nice to think of a widget I want and then find it, done to perfection...
Labels: blogging, design, librarything, web 2.0
posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007
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
Nikon's Universcale
A beautiful way to show scale of size. Universcale.posted on Sunday, April 08, 2007
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
Gotta love the Stripe Generator
Check it out.posted on Saturday, March 31, 2007
New Feature From answers.com
I'm experimenting with a feature from answers.com, which allows you to double-click any word, or highlight any words on my blog and get information about that word or words. For instance, highlight January 2003 above and see what comes up. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment. (It doesn't work on Safari or Opera, unfortunately.) It's pretty neat.Labels: azaroff, design, web, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007
LinkedInABox
This is neat.posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
Labels: design, media, video, web
posted on Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Not your ordinary folding chair
posted on Monday, February 12, 2007
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