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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.

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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

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A whole 'nother level of online community.

I love Open Source software. The self-organizing of people to collaboratively create something they feel is worthwhile is an amazing model.

I've written a lot about ChangeEverything.ca here, but I have never written much about Drupal, the platform CE was developed on. This week we launched a small bit of new functionality to the ChangeEverything community called nudge. It's a fairly simple application:

...you use it to tell the creator of a change or the writer of a blog post that you're inspired by what they're doing... and you want to hear more. Click it, and ChangeEverything.ca instantly sends that person an email - including, if you want, a personal message from you.

But the thing I love most about it is that when we wanted to add this feature to the site, there wasn't a module available that did this. So after custom-developing "nudge" for the CE community, we released it free to the world as a module for any Drupal site.

Now that's community!

UPDATE: Here's a post on the subject from Social Signal.

Labels: blogging, changeeverything, drupal, socialsignal, technology, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007

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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

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My Net.Finance podcast at OpenSourceCU.

Thanks to Trey and Brent at OpenSourceCU who have turned my Net.Finance presentation in April into a podcast. I hope it holds up without the visuals.

Enjoy.

Labels: azaroff, banking, blogging, changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, innovation, netfinance, opensourcecu, podcast, socialsignal, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Monday, June 18, 2007

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The debate online.

Recently I was contacted by Darren Barefoot about ChangeEverything.ca, and the lack of serious debate on the site.

It's an issue I think about a lot. I don't think debate is bad, by any means, but rarely do I see healthy debate online. It's usually vicious and caustic and blocks honest discussion. When we started ChangeEverything.ca back in July, we cultivated the community carefully. We reached out to specific people who we felt we could trust to nurture and grow the community and handed the site to them for two months before launching it wider.

One thing we learned from the kind folks at The Tyee was that the first 500 members of an online community set the tone. We wanted to make sure that the tone was one of positive change-making, where good ideas would flourish and those who wanted to spew anger and attack their peers would not feel welcome.

Much of the credit goes to the Online Community Moderator Kate, who nurtures the community in a deliberate and wonderful way, as well as Social Signal, who identified early in the planning process that we needed to spend more time discussing the development rather than the moderation of the community. For companies who engage in the social web, it's easy to get caught up in blocking conversations we are prone not to like, rather than promote discussion that we do want. Rob sums it up so well when he says that we need to be a concierge not a security guard. Nicely put!

After receiving our response to his questions about online debate on ChangeEverything.ca, Darren posted about this issue and it was great to read his thoughts on the matter. It's obviously an issue he's thought about a lot, and he's someone who enjoys a lively debate online and off.

There seems to be some division here between communities that group around a lifestyle (green, goth, whatever) and those that group around a hobby or common love (skydiving, Lindsay Lohan, whatever). The former are, I’d guess, less likely to experience the diversity of opinions which drive debate.

I also love what Todd Sieling had to say in the comments:

I think people seek out some communities where debate doesn't happen so much because they’re fatigued by the fact that it is almost everywhere that you can discuss stuff on the interwebs.

That is, after too many discussions that start from mere disagreement and devolve into personal attacks, misinterpretations and lack of closure, people just want a place where they feel they can say something and not have to get out the flak jacket just to do so. It can be a value of a community that people are just allowed to have their personal conch without stirring up debate, like the therapy couch where all answers are ok.

Well put. One of the things I love most about ChangeEverything.ca is that the discussion is positive and respectful. There are so many places you can go to engage in vigourous debate, but not so many where you can be encouraged by total strangers to make changes in your life. I am happy that my colleagues at Vancity are respectful and protective of this special place we've created online, it's something I'm incredibly proud of.

Labels: blogging, changeeverything, socialsignal, technology, web 2.0

posted on Thursday, May 31, 2007

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Two articles in the new issue of The Credit Union Journal.

I was interviewed for an article in the new issue of The Credit Union Journal about ChangeEverything.ca and why Vancity created it.

Two articles by Technology Correspondent Kevin Jepson were posted today, and both require a subscription to the magazine, or at least a temp two week online trial subscription (which I signed up for) to read. The first article, CU Challenges Community To 'Change Everything' descibes ChangeEverything.ca in context against other CU social media ventures.

Vancity certainly isn't the first credit union to tap into the flow of social media on the Web. Credit Union Journal recently reported how other credit unions are trying to reach out to the online market by hosting sites at MySpace.com, talking to members and colleagues on blogs or spreading the recorded financial word through podcasts.

But Vancity stands apart from the podcasting, blogging, MySpacing credit unions in a number of ways-in fact, "Vancity is the best example of a credit union building a social network," according to Trey Reeme, one of the creators of the credit union blog called Open Source CU and executive vice president at Trabian Technology, a business application and development company in Plano, Texas.

Thanks to Trey as always for his kind words.

The other article, Vancity Creates A 'Thriving E-Community', describes ChangeEverything.ca and its history including the two events that helped ChangeEverything reach its tipping point: Got Hats? when over 4,000 items of clothing and blankets made their way to local shelters within 48 hours during a Vancouver winter cold-snap last November, and EnviroWoman's amazing New Year's resolution to use no plastics in 2007.

Credit unions are reinventing the way they use the web with "social media": online technologies such as podcasts, blogs, vlogs, wikis and message boards where users share opinions-and advertise.

Change Everything, Vancity CU's social networking website, encourages members and non-members alike to change something in their lives, or even just to talk about changing something.

The site has produced a "thriving community" of more than 1,000 registered users who offer up some "inspiring" social and environmental changes, explained William Azaroff, interactive marketing and channel manager at Vancity CU.

Pleased that the credit unions are getting this kind of information so more can start harnessing the power of the social web to engage their communities.

Labels: azaroff, banking, blogging, changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, innovation, opensourcecu, socialsignal, technology, vancity, vancouver, web 2.0

posted on Monday, May 21, 2007

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The Bankwatch on my presentation

Colin summed up my presentation in a series of bullets. Here's his post.

Labels: azaroff, banking, bankwatch, blogging, changeeverything, credit union, netfinance, socialsignal, vancity, vancouver, web 2.0

posted on Friday, April 20, 2007

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Net.Finance Day One

It was a good kickoff today at Net.Finance. This was the Customer Acquisition and Cross Selling Summit, an optional first day to the conference. I gotta say, so far it doesn't seem quite as strong as last year, but some great highlights.

It's a tad early to say, but people seem to be buzzing about social media. There have been a few questions from the crowd, some comments in presentations about blogging, YouTube, Facebook, social networking, etc...

Emily Edwards, SVP of Online Sales Marketing at Bank of America was talking about Bank of America's plans in the social media space, and she asked of her company "How do we start to give up control without giving up complete control?" I thought it was great to hear a big bank talk like that. People seem to get the new world of marketing where companies don't control the message, and have to operate with a greater level of transparency to increase trust among the network of people who are talking about your company and brand online.

It's nice to reconnect with some great people I met last year and meet some new folks, including Shari Storm from Verity Credit Union in my old stomping ground of Seattle. Also nice to meet some Canadians who make up a sizable group here, including Michael Seaton from Scotiabank, who was recently in a panel in Toronto with Rob Cottingham from Social Signal.

Looking forward to tomorrow, and hopefully meeting Colin Henderson.

I am excited to give my presentation. I think it will create some good dialogue, because it's so far removed from anything anyone else is doing.

I discovered today that I can't do math. This whole time I thought I had 45 minutes, but if I had added the minutes on the schedule together, I only have 35 minutes. Ugh. I'll move fast and hope we have some time for discussion. I really don't want to cut anything out, I feel it's a strong presentation as-is.

Labels: azaroff, banking, bankwatch, blogging, credit union, netfinance, socialsignal, vancity, web

posted on Monday, April 16, 2007

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Net.Finance

On April 19th I'll be talking about ChangeEverything.ca at Net.Finance. I'm pretty excited about my presentation, and am ready to go. This week I had two practice runs, one for our agencies TBWA\ and Social Signal, who created ChangeEverything.ca, the other at Credit Union Central of BC. I received great feedback which has made my presentation better.

Net Finance is a conference at the intersection of eBusiness and the world of financial institutions. It would have been hard for me to believe a few years back that this would have gotten me excited, and yet here I am raring to go. I am speaking on the "Financial Services Innovation Forum" day.

I think my presentation really tells the story of ChangeEverything.ca as a form of social marketing - as engagement rather than traditional marketing. I hope I capture how this came about, why we did it, and how the site has been a success. I'll blog after the presentation, and if I can, throughout the conference about what I'm learning. Between me and Colin, we should sum it up pretty well.

Labels: azaroff, banking, changeeverything, netfinance, socialsignal, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Saturday, April 14, 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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Aw shucks...

Rob Cottingham is such a mensch.

Labels: azaroff, socialsignal, vancouver, web 2.0

posted on Wednesday, April 04, 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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