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Make a plan for BarCampBankBC.

Yesterday, Gene Blishen and I booked the space for BarCampBankBC. I'm very excited that we got such a great space at BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology).

BarCampBankBC will take place in Vancouver all day on Saturday, September 20th and a half day on Sunday the 21st. You can sign up here.

What is BarCampBankBC?

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.

It's going to be an amazing time, and may just:

• change the way you do your job
• introduce you to new concepts and innovations
• connect you to some amazing people
• inspire you

We've already got 16 people coming from some great FIs and vendors, including HSBC, Industrial Credit Union, Westminster Savings Credit Union, Everything CU, Credit Union Central of BC, Creative Brand Communications, Citizens Bank of Canada, Ripple Project, Open Money, Mount Lehman Credit Union, Community Savings Credit Union, Vancity and Currency Marketing. And I just noticed Denise Wymore is planning on coming in for it.

I have no doubt that by the time September 20th and 21st arrive many more FIs and vendors will have signed up.

BCIT's downtown campus is extremely well located, right in downtown Vancouver. If you're coming in from out of town, you can walk there from any of Vancouver's downtown hotels. It's also very close to a SkyTrain station, so it's easy to get to from almost anywhere.

All that for about $35 Canadian. So go ahead, add your name to the wiki and come on down.

See you there!

UPDATE (May 29): Thanks to Boris for adding this event to Upcoming.org!

Labels: banking, barcampbankbc, credit union, currency marketing, innovation, technology, tinfoiling, vancity, vancouver

posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2008

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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 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

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ChangeEverything.ca is nominated for a Webby Award.

I am so pleased and excited to announce that ChangeEverything.ca was nominated for a Webby Award.

This is such an incredible honour, and follows on the heels of being an Official Honoree last year. Please vote for ChangeEverything.ca for the Webby People's Voice Award.

It is worth noting that the four other sites nominated in the category of Social Networking are:

• Bebo
• Facebook
• Flock The Social Web Browser
• Ning

Perhaps you've heard of some of them. It is mind-boggling to be nominated against some of the biggest developments in social networking of the last year or two. Amazing also to be the only company-created social network, up against a bevy of startups.

Equally impressive is the lineup of judges who selected the nominees and will select an ultimate winner.

The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, Crispin Porter + Bogusky Partner and Chief Creative Officer Alex Bogusky, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.

It is pretty much exactly two years since we started developing the site from a concept, and so rewarding to see where Kate has nurtured and engaged the community of over 3,000 registered users. I am also heartened that we are the only socially responsible community in the running. Proves you can do well by doing good.

UPDATE: I added a link to where you can vote for ChangeEverything.ca for the People's Voice Award.

Labels: banking, changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, drupal, facebook, innovation, media, social media, technology, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2008

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Give One Get One - the $200 laptop.

I've been loosely following the $100 dollar laptop for a while now. And now there's a campaign where you buy one for yourself and one for a child in need in the developing world.

During Give One Get One, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution.

In reality, the $100 laptop is actually $200, but it delivers on most of what was envisioned. The NYTimes has a great review of the laptop.

Here's where you can find out more about the Give One Get One program, and sign up for your own laptop.

Labels: innovation, poverty, technology

posted on Sunday, November 25, 2007

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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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My final thoughts on Finovate.

I just posted my final thoughts on the presenters at Finovate in a post titled My Finovate Wrap-Up. In it, I try to pull out those products and services that resonated with me, as someone who is passionate about social media and credit unions.

And some photos from the event below...


The building in NY where Finovate happened.


NetBanker's Jim Bruene introducing the event.


Finovate organizers Jim Bruene and Eric Mattson.

Labels: azaroff, banking, credit union, finovate, innovation, netbanker, social media, social personal finance, technology, web 2.0

posted on Monday, October 08, 2007

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A great time at Finovate.

I had a great time today at Finovate. I gotta hand it to Jim - he ran a good show. The format of giving each presenter only 7 minutes, no powerpoint, no bullets, just a real live demo of their product, was genius.

Maybe it was the curating, knowing that each presenter was invited to participate because they had something to offer made the difference, but every conversation I had was so amazingly useful. I don't think I have ever been to a conference where I got so many useful business cards.

I'd be curious to know what others thought, but I had a great time.

Now, my vacation begins...

Labels: banking, credit union, finovate, innovation, netbanker, social media, social personal finance, technology, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, October 02, 2007

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More live blogging from Finovate.

My afternoon coverage can be found here.

Labels: banking, blogging, credit union, finovate, innovation, netbanker, social media, social personal finance, technology, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, October 02, 2007

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Live blogging from Finovate.

I'm live-blogging from Finovate for NetBanker. See my updates here.

UPDATE: My second part of this post can be found here.

Labels: banking, credit union, finovate, innovation, netbanker, social media, social personal finance, technology

posted on Tuesday, October 02, 2007

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Off to Finovate.

I'm off to New York to attend Finovate on Tuesday. I'm excited to see first-hand demos of all of these products and services that are evolving the landscape of the financial services industry. Many of them I've read about, but seeing them first hand is a real opportunity to understand them on a deeper level.

I'll be live blogging the whole thing on NetBanker, so check in throughout the day on Tuesday and I'll be updating as often as I can.

And if you're gonna be there, please say hi.

Labels: banking, blogging, credit union, finovate, innovation, netbanker, social media, social personal finance, technology, web 2.0

posted on Saturday, September 29, 2007

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Live blogging at Finovate.

I'm very pleased to be going to NYC in October for Finovate. This is a new conference created by Jim Bruene who runs NetBanker. According to the website:

Following the popular format pioneered by DEMO, FINOVATE 2007 will provide each company with a mere 7 minutes to "wow!" an audience of 200 leading executives, investors, analysts, members of the press and bloggers with an actual demonstration of their latest and greatest product or service. The demos will be followed by intimate networking sessions where the attendees will get unprecedented access to the executives from these innovative companies.

Twenty leading companies have already committed to present including (in alphabetical order): Andera, Billeo Inc, CheckFree, ClairMail, Firethorn, Digital Insight (an Intuit company), Geezeo, Identity Theft 911, iPay Technologies, Jwaala, Lending Club, Metavante, mFoundry, Mint, Monitise, MortgageBot, MShift, Online Resources, Prosper Marketplace, and Yodlee.

I'll be a fly on the wall for the day, live-blogging the whole thing. I'm very excited to be covering the event and getting a chance to learn from all the innovative presenters. See you there...

Labels: banking, blogging, credit union, finovate, innovation, netbanker, technology

posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007

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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

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The long wait is over.

When the sunflower iMac came out, I rushed out and bought one. It was amazing. Now, 6 1/2 years later, we've been dying for an upgrade. So slow, so frustrating. But we've been waiting for a serious refresh of the iMac line before plunking down our cash.

Today Apple announced their new iMacs. So beautiful. So powerful. And in about twelve days my new one will be shipped to me.

I can't wait!

Labels: apple, azaroff, technology

posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007

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GonzoBanker is amazing, again.

I've been a casual reader of GonzoBanker for some time. I think I first got hooked in with their amazing summation of a bank boardroom discussion of Generation Y. So funny and insightful, and it reminded me of a few painful meetings I've attended in my short banking career.

Then, more recently, I fell in love with their prophetic piece on the demise of the banking industry. This article actually gave me great hope because so many people (including execs) at Vancity were emailing the link around. Great to work at a place where so many get it.

But today I'm commenting on their newest article, Web 2.0: It's Not Just for Customers Anymore. The article makes an excellent case for banks to begin using social media, like blogs and wikis, internally as a way for staff to become more comfortable with and aware of these tools before embarking on a public-facing web 2.0 project.

One of the things that's been interesting for me working at Vancity is the focus on the branch employee experience. I am very head-office-centric. I work at head-office and that's where I see decisions getting made. But the majority of the employees live in the branch system. It's what keeps everything running, and is the real centre of the company - where the action is. And yet there are 50+ branches, so it's a hard world for people to feel connected to each other, share ideas and collaborate. It must be a very disconnected feeling, working out at a branch in Abbotsford, far away from any other Vancity branch, or head-office.

This problem is even greater with big banks. It must be hard to keep up any sense of cohesion amongst employees in such a fragmented, fractured work-place. This is where the future of the intranet comes in - allowing cross-company, inter-employee collaboration, idea sharing, building and communication. Hierarchies need to get flattened (what, a bank with hierarchies?) and everyone needs a voice at the table.

The writer of the GonzoBanker article, Cornerstone Senior Director Tripp Johnson does an outstanding job of putting down the reasons why banks should be using web 2.0 internally:

• Most employees already know how to use this technology
  
• The tools are easy to use
  
• Blogs, wikis and/or RSS feeds provide a coherent, consistent way to find, share and leverage information
  
• The tools are FREE!

He also provides many reasons why the vast majority likely never will:

• What the hell is a wiki?
  
• We couldn't determine a tangible, quantifiable ROI
  
• Bank executives wouldn't know what to do all day without committee meetings
  
• Leveraging the collective intellectual capital of our organization is something HR makes us say; we don't really mean it
  
• We have comment boxes in all our break rooms where employees submit their ideas on a regular basis
  
• We don't really want our staff collaborating; they might actually come up with new and disruptive products and services

A great article. The main thing I love about GonzoBanker is that they're on the inside pushing for change and innovation among their peers.

PS: Oh, and I'm not just talking up this article because they unexpectedly linked to my blog as an example of industry folk who use social media (but thanks for the link-love, Tripp)!

Labels: azaroff, banking, blogging, credit union, gonzobanker, innovation, technology, web 2.0

posted on Sunday, August 05, 2007

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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

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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

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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

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Future Shop is ready for 1997.

According to an article by Media in Canada, Future Shop, a leading retailer and e-tailer of consumer electronics with over 121 stores from coast to coast in Canada, has launched a new community forum to discuss electronics.

I know it's difficult for companies to figure out how much to open up in these days when everyone's collaborating online, but it seems like Future Shop has totally missed the boat.

Here's their claim:

This is the space where Canadian technology enthusiasts and industry insiders (Future Shop Product Experts, Product Buyers and manufacturer representatives) connect to exchange and learn about technology, entertainment and the products and services available at Future Shop. It's the perfect place for exchanging product information, tips, and of course, bragging about your new 62" plasma display.

But when you poke around, there's almost no collaboration, no meaningful interactivity. There are twelve buckets for information (Home Theatre, Home Office, Photo, Communications, iPod & MP3, Car Audio & GPS, Gaming, Movies, Music, Tech Services, Appliances and Off Topic) but they look and work just like bulletin boards did in the 1990s.

Why on Earth would they launch this now? A company like Future Shop could actually do something really interesting in this space and map out some new territory for themselves.

Imagine this: I go to the Future Shop Community Forum (or a someplace better named, like Gearhead Central) and what immediately surfaces are the people who have registered, my fellow gearheads. Their profiles have photos and are full of their latest gadgets, how they've customized them, their passions for the greatest camera packages, sounds systems, record collection, home theatre system, you name it. They can put all the tech specs and photos they want of their set-ups.

Then I rate the users and those who write posts that are useful or have systems tricked out in a completely innovative way will rise to the top and gain stature. Future Shop could leverage these brand enthusiasts and create a whole new relationship with them. Value is created for everyone.

It would be so on brand and would separate Future Shop as a company that "gets it" with this crucial niche of consumers. It could help with internal Future Shop product innovation, messaging, it could attract self-identified technology nuts and offer a great service just for them. If it was done right, Future Shop could become the A-list place to start when buying your latest gadget or peripheral.

What makes this missed opportunity so incredible is that Future Shop's brand positioning is "Ask An Expert". If they had started with that, it would have led them in a whole different direction: decentralizing what it means to be an expert. Blurring the lines between a Future Shop-employed expert and a whole army of lay experts ready to share advice and brag about their configurations.

They could have leveraged the power of crowdsourcing, and created a truly social place where technophiles could run rampant and connect over shared passions.

Instead they have this:

Labels: future shop, innovation, technology, user experience, web 2.0

posted on Friday, July 13, 2007

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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

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The new must-have: Microsoft Surface.

Labels: apple, funny, innovation, technology, video

posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007