Your One-Stop GAC Wrap-Up

by Ron Daly 

Being based just a few miles outside DC has its advantages. Chief among them, we were able to pop in and out of the GAC and meet with our clients, our friends, and our fellow CUSOs. While we didn't hit any of the big talks or breakout sessions, we didn't feel out of the loop. Nor would anyone else, I would wager, as CU professionals from across the country that were attending the GAC were eager to share their thoughts via blogs, emails and social media outlets of all kinds. We thought we would do a service to our followers that might have missed some of the highlights of the week and try to bring all those links and stories together in one place. If you feel there's a link or two missing that might be vital to people reading along at home, leave us a comment with the link in it down in the comment section. 

BEFORE CONFERENCE: 

morrischris: For all you GAC attendees & burger lovers, there is a Five Guys about a block from the convention center. Thought you should know. #GAC10

A few enterprising CU professionals created a "hashtag" label for Twitter posts related to the GAC. If you want to see how the whole thing unfolded in 140 characters, go to Twitter's search page and search #gac10. 

Certainly one of the most talked about parts of this particular GAC was the "Crashers", a group of young CU professionals dedicated to making their CUs better. Crash the GAC was started by Brent Dixon of The Haberdashery and Filene, who took the idea to CUNA. CUNA offered a number of scholarships so that attendees wouldn't technically be "crashing" in the traditional sense, and Palmetto Cooperative Services LLC sponsored a number of beds at the DC Hostel for attendees. As Crashers went about the conference, they wore their custom CU*Swag shirts with their slogan "Five Star Leaders, Two Star Lodging". Having received a CU*Swag shirt (Jimmy won one and gave me his - It's a nice shirt!), I can say they'd be great for any CU that wanted to deck out tellers in some custom gear. 

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE GAC:

aplusfcu: Packed crowd here at the GAC Opening Session. Lots of talk about job creation. #gac10 http://tweetphoto.com/12186755

The kickoff started with David Gergen, former presidential advisor and pundit, talking leadership in the Nation and in finance, and stating "The great American job machine is broken" and that innovation will be the key that gets it started again. 

CUNA President and CEO Dan Mica was greeted by a standing ovation when he took the stage for what will be his last GAC in said position. His talk centered around raising the MBL, the hot-button issue this year to be sure. His talk seemed well received by the majority of CU citizen journalists in attendance. [Read Dan Mica's opinion column here]

The MBL echoed throughout the conference, with more and more breakout sessions and private meetings devoted to its discussion. Gigi Hyland, also of the NCUA board, spoke her mind on day two about raising the MBL cap and the forward momentum of CUs through 2010, which she admitted would be a "tough year". She also gave due attention to the Crash folks, much to their delight. 

Debbie Matz, the newest chairperson from NCUA, took the stage to talk about what she felt should be key goals for every credit union in the nation, including expansion of online services and payday loan alternatives. [Some more thoughts from Matz in this article from cujournal.com]

CU_Ninja: RT @Paulsworld: Debbie Matz: 4 ways for CU's to succeed. Alt capital, biz lending, payday alternative and electronic services. #GAC10

There were quite a few impressive guests this year, including Joe Scarborough, Alan Greenspan, Ondine Irving, and even Reggie Bush snuck in at one point to the delight of attendees. Needless to say, if you weren't there, you missed out on a lot of interesting talk and a lot of insight. 

robwright: Hike the Hill! #gac10 http://tweetphoto.com/12386760

Wednesday was the day for attendees to "Hike the Hill", visiting with representatives and lawmakers from across the country on CU matters. Representatives Barney Frank and Spencer Bachus (MA and AL, respectively) stopped by Wednesday morning for a chat with attendees on Interchange Fees (which Frank said was not on the table) and, of course, more MBL talk (which Bachus said would be a tough fight for CUs to push through). Attendees then met with lawmakers to talk credit union issues, racking up pictures and stories along the way. 

Jimmy Marks, our CMD, and some of his Crashing buddies were also behind a "tweetup", a meeting of Twitter users in attendance. I'm told it was a big success and that there were some great conversations happening in the midst of all those young whippersnappers. 

FOR THE FULL EXPERIENCE: 

I couldn't possibly tell you everything that happened at the conference and around the conference - to do that, I'd have to start blogging Monday and not quit until the end of the week. Which the folks below did!

Carla Day of CU Chat Up was a one-woman GAC reporting supercomputer. She typed her poor thumbs right down to the knuckle on her Palm Pre, live-blogging and reporting events as they happened. To get a great recap of the whole experience, see her personal Twitter feed.  

To read about the full day's worth of events through Wednesday, spend some time with Rob Rutkowski's "That Credit Union Blog" which did a day-by-day recap. Read all about it here. 

The CU Water Cooler gang made time for a "Liquid Lunch" chat podcast, which can be heard here. 

If it gets summed up much better than this, let me know: 

Matt_Vance: At DCA getting ready to fly home. GAC has come to a close but the ideas, projects & action are just getting started #gac10.

Telling Potential Members to "Move It!"

by Ron Daly 

A new force is emerging in the battle for new members at CUs...from the pages of the Huffington Post comes the "Move Your Money" campaign. The goal: convince people across the country to move their money from any of the big banks to a community bank or credit union. 

moveyourmoney.info

When we first mentioned this, it was in passing, but we thought it was worth a whole post because of the traction it's been getting. We were interested to see our friends over at American Debt Relief Challenge wrote an article for Huffington Post about their good work getting folks to move their credit card balances to a CU. To date, almost $20 million has been saved thanks to balance transfers to a CU. 

Got Snow?: What our company (and our clients) learned from The Blizzard of 2010

by Ron Daly

This story originally ran on the DigitalMailer Blog. 

Call me an optimist, but I'm going to call this storm "THE blizzard of 2010", in the hopes that it's not just "A blizzard of 2010". 

It's been an interesting week here at DigitalMailer. In case you missed any news outlet of the past week, the DC/Metro area got almost THREE FEET of snow dropped on us in the span of a week. Many of our account managers, operations staff and marketing department had to work from home for the entire week - and one of our staff members won't be dug out until days from now. Hang in there, Steve! 

CUNA to Administration: Where Do CUs Fit In?

by Ron Daly 

For the past few weeks, CUNA has been striking out at the Obama Administration's new Small Business Lending Fund plan. The plan, which would distribute $30 billion in unused TARP funds to 8,000 community banks, doesn't mention credit unions as a potential business lender or alternative to community banks. 

From the above Fox News story:

Senior administration officials say the Treasury Department, SBA (Small Business Administration) and other White House officials and community bank groups worked on this legislation together and will affect banks that have between one billion and 10 billion dollars in assets.

CUNA, upon hearing the details of the President's plan, registered its outrage in a series of posts and stories on its website and in the CU Times. CUNA President and CEO Dan Mica registered his disappointment with further bank investments and is asking for face time with President Obama to speak on behalf of CUs across the country.

From CUNA News Now: 

"Credit unions have been making loans over the past year and can make even more if legislation expanding their capacity to make small business loans is enacted. I hear credit unions say: 'Don't just subsidize the banks; let us help this country get back on its feet--without using taxpayers' money,'" [Mica] added.

Business lending caps have been a hot topic for credit unions in the past year. A recent Washington Post article about CU business lending has this quote from a Treasury rep about bringing CUs into the fold: 

"We work very closely with credit unions and we have put forward a number of initiatives to help small businesses, but we are always willing to explore new ideas," Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Monday.

We're eager to hear your opinion about the Small Business Lending Fund. If the business cap needs to be lifted, or increased, are the ramifications going to be so dire for banks? And what if the cap ISN'T lifted? Credit Unions nationwide have been doing more to lend to businesses with their own money. Do we really want to get in on the bonanza of $30 billion in TARP leftovers, or just keep up our "thanks but no thanks" attitude and lend to businesses as much as we possibly can without the cap disappearing?

Tell us your thoughts in the comment section.

Follow-And-Friend Freeze Out

by Ron Daly

Have YOU been subject to it yet?

If you're a marketing person at a credit union, you've probably entered the world of social networking. Whether you're just dipping in your toe with a Twitter account (follow us, by the way) or you've moved into your own Drupal backboned-supersite complete with blogs and Facebook links (like our dear friends at CU Rising), social media and social networking can be fun...and it can be daunting. 

Right now, our Twitter's holding at ~260 followers/friends. If someone wants to chat or feedback with us, we're available - really, feel free! Our site now boasts its own "Chat Now!" button so that you can reach us personally or leave us a message. 

Where things start to break down for most business-minded folks on Twitter is in dealing with a large follow count. Friend of the blog Jeffry Pilcher (@FinancialBrand) has almost 2,000 followers and is following almost 1,500 people and banks/CUs/businesses. Pilcher's follow count is pretty high, but he puts a great deal of time into his social media plan - following movers and shakers in finance marketing and making sure his posts, tweets and emails get read. Two-thousand followers is a lot, but it's still considered a "group" in terms of social media - not just an audience.

And then, there's Oprah.

Send the Word

by Ron Daly 

Charity begins at home - or in some cases, on your home page. 

As the head of DigitalMailer, I get to see every email that goes out on behalf of our clients. I take a few moments to read things over and get a sense of what CUs are up to all over the country. Right here in Northern Virginia, Belvoir FCU has teamed up with Cell Phones for Soldiers to provide our service men and women with cell phones to call home. 

 

 

This was something I'd heard of before, but the full story of Cell Phones for Soldiers is really quite impressive. 

From Belvoir's marketing email: