Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

If you are a habitual credit union conference attendee, you'll likely see more than your fair share of key-note speakers. 

These speakers can serve a few different purposes:

• Big name can arguably attract attendees.
• A wonderful speech can leave attendees with wonderful ideas, new motivation, or both. 

But even the best speech lasts but an hour.  No matter how fantastic the experience, it will eventually fade away as time marches on.

The beauty of today's social media channels is that you can now tap into the ideas and thoughts of key-note speakers year-round.  

Case in point, NAFCU has the following three key-note speakers that will appear at conferences this year.  Each speaker has created a social media footprint that provides a ton of useful ideas.  And while this tip-toes ever closer to being a shameless plug for NAFCU events, keep in mind this can work for any speaker you see at any credit union conference. 

NAFCU's CEOs and Senior Executive's Conference. 

1. John Spence has a wonderful website that dispenses blog postings and very useful videos that help managers become better at their craft.  Attendees at this conference will receive John's new book, Awesomely Simple.   I recommend that you sign up for his blog. It is entertaining, useful and free.  
2. Brett King, another key-note speaker, also has a fantastic website.   Here's a recent post where he talks about branching for financial institutions, with an eye to Apple's experience. If you have a "branch" guru within your shop, I'd share that read.  Attendees will also get his book, Bank 2.0.

At NAFCU's Annual Conference and Exhibition , you'll hear from Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics.  It is a mind-blowing read.  Guess what?  Yep.  He has a fantastic website with his co-author.  Here's a link to a blog/podcast where he discusses whether lotteries could be the answer to America's poor savings rate.  And he mentions credit unions, to boot! 

Listen, I understand that you may or may not go to one of our conferences.  But if you do, and you like what you hear, you can keep the conversation with a speaker going as long as you want.  Social media allows you to invite the best and the brightest into your office each day.  

That's pretty cool. Pretty cool, indeed.