CU Blogs

I’ve been in discussions with people across the industry numbers times about common bond vs community charter and the ramifications of selecting either one.  Most people know how Denise stands about community charters and I share the same ideology: credit unions were started on common bond and should continue on that path to be successfully.  Many, many CU’s have converted to community charter recently and have lost the affinity base they used to have. 

Tim’s post over at Currency sparked this thought today and now I can’t get it out of my head.  As the internet becomes more prevalent across the US, or North America to keep those Canadians happy, we have a new opportunity to go back to the common bond roots and create strong relationships with out members.  At BarCampBank this past summer, Jesse talked about starting Black Rock Federal for burners which is a perfect example of starting a distributed CU.  Imagine the affinity and strong ties that would come from burners being able to form a CU together.  Same thing goes for NASCAR.  Imagine if each team was able to start their own CU, with their own rewards programs, charity donations, or a spare tire fund.  Any national group with a strong community would be a perfect opportunity. 

This is just me ranting, but CU’s need to get back to that common bond and we have a real opportunity to leverage technology to get us there.  I just hope the NCUA cooperates with some charter requests that are not exactly what they are used to seeing.

 Rather than regurgitate what many people smarter than I have already said, here are some resources for credit union looking to get into blogging. 

Tony from CU Hype talking about starting a blog

Open Source CU talking about starting a blog 

Here are some responses to credit unions starting blogs… 

Here’s William Azaroff’s article on Verity’s new blog.

Morriss talking about First New York’s entry into blogging

Open Source CU cautioning CU’s

Welcome to cublogs.org, the free blog hosting site for the credit union industry!  I setup cublogs.org to provide an alternative to the other free blogging services out there but at the same time give everyone the flexibility that comes with running your own blog, just without the hassles.

Getting started is simple!  Just click on the “Get A Blog” link on the top of any page and get started!  The blog is yours, so you can export your data at anytime to move to another provider or delete the blog at any point as well.  This site is just getting started so I encourage everyone to leave their feedback on any post or on the Contact page.

I’ll be setting up an FAQ section shortly that describes some of the functionality, but the best way to learn is to try! If you need a theme, plugin, or anything else just drop me a line.