BarCampBankBC: Help us pick the shirts

We are now inside two months to go until BarCampBankBC. If you haven't signed up yet, I encourage you to head over to the Wiki and sign-up today. Plan to be in Vancouver for September 20 and 21, 2008.

Today's BarCampBankBC interactive challenge for you: help us select the T-shirt design. The design with the most votes gets printed.

 
Some of you are no doubt wondering what the heck this BarCampBankBC thing is. One of my organizing partners, William Azaroff, does a great job of explaining the BarCampBank phenomenon in his recent blog post on NetBanker.

If you are on the fence and wondering if this type of event is for you, I encourage you to get off the fence and give it a try. You won't regret it.

Tim

Merry Christmas from your friends at Currency!

In the spirit of 2007—the year we embraced all things Web 2.0—we give you our digital Christmas card.

Share the joy by sending this URL to your credit union colleagues. Copy and past this link into your own e-mail or on Twitter and spread our credit union Christmas wishes!

http://tinyurl.com/yq7xnk

We are going to give $1,000 to a worthy cause and we want your help. Please participate in our simple poll to help decide where we should donate the funds. 

We wish you, your friends, your family, your co-workers, your members and, especially, your credit union a Merry Christmas and a very successful 2008.

Tim

News flash: user-generated content is dumb!

I was catching up on my blog reading last night when I stumbled upon this comment by Ron Shevlin on his Marketing ROI: Whims from Ron Shevlin blog.

"I think UGC (user-generated content) is dumb. (nothing like burying THAT statement in a comment where hopefully nobody sees it)"

Well Ron, I saw it and it stopped me in my tracks. I am compelled to comment.

Ron had an excellent discussion on "Hiding behind the veil of experimentation" that you should read before going further. As usual, Ron has given a clear and well-argued point of view.

I read Ron's blog regularly and tend to agree with each post. He is a thought leader in the marketing return on investment space and, trust me, his brain is at least 230% bigger than mine. I agree that companies should not be hiding behind experimentation for experimentation sake. I agree that every marketing initiative deserves measurement.

What I took exception to is the blanket statement deep in the comments that user-generated content is dumb. 

I believe that a brand is no longer something that can be controlled from behind the marketing and public relations desk. I believe that successful brands in today's over-saturated marketplace have to engage with the audience in new and meaningful ways that create two-way dialogue.

User-generated content is not just people submitting goofy videos, personalizing a company jingle or amateurs producing a Doritos Superbowl Ad. As defined by the user-generated content kings at Wikipedia, user-generated content refers to various kinds of media content, publicly available that are produced by end-users. User-generated content is a two-way conversation. The comments on this and every other blog are examples of user-generated content.

I spend the lion's share of my time thinking about how to differentiate credit unions and I believe that credit unions need to work harder to engage members and potential members. We need to go beyond the safety of traditional advertising and get out of the statement-stuffer mentality of the past.

To say user-generated content is dumb is to ignore the crashing reality of Web 2.0 and the rise of social networking as the primary use of the web.

I don't think user-generated content is dumb. How about you? 

UPDATE: Due to Ron's comment clarifying that he meant user-generated advertising and not just user-generated-content, I have adjusted the poll to read user-generated advertising instead. As Ron was the first to arrive at the scene of the crime, there were no votes cast. Sorry Ron, at least I am helping your Technorati ranking!

 

Tim

P.S. Hey Ron, you asked the Credit Union Warrior what it took to get featured on our blog. I guess you figured it out. I will agree that a great percentage of what is on YouTube could be considered dumb!