about me
I'm William Azaroff. I direct Online Strategy & Community 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
:.Open Source CU
:.Small FI Blog
:.Social Signal
:.The Story
:.Tinfoiling
:.Trey Reeme
:.Verity's Our Voices
:.Visible Banking
:.Web Strategy

Seven questions with me on Buzz Canuck.

When I was in Toronto last month speaking on a panel at the CMA Word of Mouth Marketing Conference, I had a chance to reconnect with my friend and trusted advisor, Sean Moffitt.

Sean is simply one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to viral marketing, social media and word of mouth. He is the guru.

So I was very flattered when he asked to do seven questions with me for his blog. He published it today, iPhone Day here in Canada.

Take a read.

Labels: buzzcanuck, marketing, social media, vancity

posted on Friday, July 11, 2008

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Help rate Metro Vancouver.

For all my local Metro Vancouver readers...

Be a citizen grader for Vital Signs 2008. Vital Signs reports on our region's overall wellness and livability, based on the input of citizen graders. Vital Signs is produced by the Vancouver Foundation, and Vancity is a Project Sponsor.

Get involved. Register to be a citizen grader by June 20, 2008 at Vancouver Foundation's Vital Signs.

Labels: corporate responsibility, vancity, vancouver

posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008

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Vancity's Choose Green videos on YouTube.

A recent Choose Green campaign at Vancity included a series of videos with helpful tips about living a more sustainable lifestyle.

I just put all six videos on YouTube. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Here's a sample below...

Labels: environment, vancity, vancouver, video, youtube

posted on Saturday, May 31, 2008

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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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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

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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

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Congrats to Flock, hats off to Facebook.

So we gave it all we had, but in the end ChangeEverything.ca didn't take home a Webby.

Truly, it was such a crazy honour just to be nominated. We got all of Vancity behind this, right up to our CEO. It was great and very fun, but it was not meant to be.

The last time I was able to check, we were in second place for the People's Voice Webby Award, but a distant second (7%) to Facebook (78%). Needless to say, Facebook took it.

And the judged award went to the very cool Flock, the social media browser.

Here are the winners in our category of Social Networking

Labels: changeeverything, facebook, flock, social media, vancity, webbys

posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2008

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The last day to vote in The Webbys.

A great article in the local daily 24 Hours today about ChangeEverything.ca (below). Today is the last day to vote for The Webbys. If you haven't already, please take a moment to do so now.

Thanks!

UPDATE: The writer seems to have spelled Kate's name wrong in the article. For the record, it is Kate Dugas.

Labels: banking, changeeverything, credit union, news, vancity, webbys

posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008

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Live blogging the Vancity AGM.

Who woulda thunk it, but Nancy Zimmerman live blogged the Vancity AGM tonight.

Impressive!

Labels: blogging, credit union, vancity

posted on Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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I'm asking for your vote (and showing you a funny video).

As most of you know, ChangeEverything.ca was nominated for a Webby Award in the Social Networking category. And now I have to ask for a favour. I need you to do two things:

Register on the Webbys site and vote for ChangeEverything.ca in the Social Networking category
Spread the word by sending this video (below) to everyone you know

For you Credit Union folk, spread the word among your staff, and help a CU get a Webby over Facebook. Voting ends May 1st, so time is of the essence!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Labels: changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, social media, vancity, webbys

posted on Monday, April 21, 2008

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Celebrate Vancity's carbon neutrality.

Here's a video from the celebration on Wednesday when Vancity announced it became the first North American financial institution to achieve being carbon neutral.

Enjoy!

Labels: banking, climate change, corporate responsibility, credit union, environment, innovation, social media, vancity, vancouver, video, youtube

posted on Friday, April 11, 2008

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Vancity is carbon neutral.

There are so many reasons why I love working at Vancity, and now I have another really big one.

We announced today, after having it externally audited and verified, that as of December 31, 2007 Vancity is offically carbon neutral. In fact, we are the first North American financial institution to become carbon neutral.

So what does that mean?

It means we've tracked our footprint to assess the amount of carbon we emit.

Then we focused on reducing our emissions as much as we possibly could.

And finally, whatever carbon emissions we could not reduce, we purchased high quality local offsets to bring us to carbon neutrality.

This is a huge accomplishment and has been a major focus of the company for quite some time. In fact, we achieved our goal a full two years ahead of schedule by getting our employees across the organization involved and engaged in the issue.

A truly great announcement, and I imagine we'll garner quite a bit of press coverage about it.

I especially love our new limited-time carbon neutral logo on the website.

Labels: corporate responsibility, credit union, environment, innovation, news, vancity

posted on Wednesday, April 09, 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: