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We win!

doug@trabian.com (Doug Williams) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:22:00 -0600

We spend a lot of time tooting and…um…the opposite of tooting…the horns of various and sundry credit union marketing efforts – particularly if they involve social media.

This time we’re going to toot Third Degree Advertising, out of Oklahoma City, and Trabian’s horns at the same time. It seems Third Degree went and won itself an Addy with the Buck the Norm online campaign. The site won several, actually, including Best Interactive and the prestigious Best in Show. Third Degree designed it and Trabian built the CMS and generally created the Internet magic.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first award Trabian has won recently – our work with A-Plus Federal Credit Union landed A-Plus and us a first place in the Lone Star Awards from the Texas Credit Union League Marketing Council in the fall.

Toot.

Traby Boom

charlie@trabian.com (Charlie Trotter) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:46:00 -0600

Around a year ago, due to the writer’s strike, there was nothing on TV.

Now, between nine and eleven months later, our favorite shows are out of reruns and, Matt, Derrick, myself and our respective wives are all in the parenting business. Which is a business of blood and tears and feces, and, when lightning strikes, hugs and kisses and sleep. It’s rarely glamorous, as we are learning more every day, but it has it’s fulfilling, sweet moments. Like when we all miraculously get an actual night’s rest and get to spend a Saturday morning with our family all piled in bed, cooing and being in love with each other.

We have the blessing of getting to work from home where we can enjoy several little belly-raspberry breaks through the day. Little Gracie Dean and Wesley Spell and Julie Trotter are getting to sit in their daddy’s lap every day watching him do what he’s best at: Development, Development and Booger Jokes, respectively.

So we are pleased to properly announce the arrival of our precious, fat-cheeked, screaming little bundles of tax deductions from youngest to oldest.

A Tough Decision About Our CMS (Updated)

matt@trabian.com (Matt Dean) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:44:00 -0500

Update: Mark brought up some interesting points in his comment (see below), and while the overarching message of this post still stands, I didn’t intend to discourage the use of open source software throughout a credit union. Mark and I will be discussing this issue tomorrow (Friday the 27th) from 3 to 5 EST in the chat with the ceo chat room if you’d like to drop by!

For the past six months our team has been hard at work rewriting the content management system that runs all of the websites we produce. While we still have quite a few improvements in store for our CMS, we’ve launched several sites on it in the past couple of months and are finally ready to wean ourselves off of the Red Bull.

Unfortunately, during the rewrite it became clear that we’re not ready to open source the CMS as we had promised earlier. A few of our clients have raised legitimate concerns about the vulnerability of a system whose source code is exposed to the public, particularly one without the developer base of software such as Linux or MySQL, and we certainly don’t want to put those clients at risk in any way.

While we have decided not to release our source code, we do plan to share snippets of code that we’ve found helpful and perhaps release some plugins that other developers can use in their Rails projects. We’re also happy to answer any Rails questions you may have, either via email at development@trabian.com or in a Campfire chat with your development team.

If you have any questions about this decision, please feel free to email me at matt@trabian.com or meet me in my daily Campfire chat between 3 and 4 pm EST on weekdays.

Thanks for your understanding!

Hopewell Launches GWU

doug@trabian.com (Doug Williams) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:58:00 -0500

I’m long overdue on this post. Apologies to our new friends in central Ohio.

Hopewell Federal Credit Union has recently deployed GiveWith.Us. The site, http://hopewellfcu.givewith.us will connect the Heath and Newark, Ohio communities with the credit union and provide a resource for non-profits and local groups to connect with volunteers.

We’ve been working with SELCO Community Credit Union in Eugene, Oregon, to complete the feature set for GWU to make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. The final changes are near completion and will be rolled out soon.

Hopewell FCU, née Heath Federal Credit Union, then Newark Aerospace Federal Credit Union, serves Licking County, Ohio, east of Columbus. A little trivia for you from Hopewell’s website:

Just a stone’s throw from our main office you can visit the Newark Earthworks Complex of prehistoric Indian earthworks – better known to locals in the area as the mounds. These earthly mounds are unique and some say you can still find arrowheads around the surrounding mounds. The mounds form geometric shapes and some rise to impressive heights. Pretty impressive, considering the Hopewell mound building era began around 300 B.C. to 1500 A.D. There’s still debate as to what the Hopewell Indians used them for, but most historians believe they were created for burial and religious rites.

So, to Cammie and all the staff at Hopewell FCU: Welcome!

CU Times Hollers at Your Boys

charlie@trabian.com (Charlie Trotter) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:45:00 -0600

Our very own Matt Dean was included in a recent CU Times article highlighting five sassy young entrepreneurs. The article is titled Gen Y Entrepreneurs Shake Up CU Industry, Helping to Reveal Authenticity.

Here are two snippets from the article, which is chock-full of some great points and insights from the interviewees.

Matt had some great thoughts on CUs engaging young people without necessarily having to wear a backwards hat and drop hip-hop references.

“The best business decision a credit union can make is rekindling the focus on the membership and reigniting their evangelistic feel to encourage passion and empower younger staff, ... These are our future leaders; they need to be engaged. People are more willing to stick around if they feel that the value of what they are a part of is bigger than themselves.”

(Who knew he was so smart? Me.)

Creative Brand Communications CEO Jeff Stephens made some bang-on comments on the practice of a CU hanging it’s hat on better service over different service.

“It is a cliché. So you define this great customer service as knowing everyone by name, friendly, pleasant staff, being responsive to member’s needs, and those attributes are all good and positive, but those alone won’t differentiate that credit union. ... Being nicer is not different, and the more credit unions succeed at being nicer the more they all seem the same. You build a position only you can occupy.”

Amen, right?

I don’t want to spoil any more of the article than I have. Get over there and read it.

Big Valley 2008 Presentation Handouts

doug@trabian.com (Doug Williams) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:08:00 -0600

We’re a company based in Indianapolis, so we are very influenced by Peyton Manning. We don’t often win Super Bowls, but we do often call audibles.

Matt and I were preparing for our presentation tomorrow (March 18, 2008 at 9:45 a.m. PDT) and decided to change our presentation. We know the handouts are printed and nicely bound, but we felt it more important to make changes now and deliver a great presentation.

With my apologies to Diane and the rest of the staff at the California and Nevada Credit Union League, here are our slides for the presentation:

Download the notes in PDF here

Download the slides in PDF here

View the slides here

Enjoy!

Launched: A REAL Solutions Media Hub for CUNA's GAC '08

brent@trabian.com (Brent Dixon) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:03:00 -0600

We launched a micro-site for the National Credit Union Foundation’s REAL Solutions last week. The site is a media dashboard where we’re covering CUNA’s Governmental Affairs Conference through video and audio interviews with industry thought leaders, photos, and microblogging.

Visit the REAL Solutions GAC site here.

We used YouTube for video, Odeo for podcasting, A Flickr Group for photos (if you’re here, feel free to join and add photos), and Twitter for micro-blogging.

The site is a simple one-pager that automatically adds content based on updates from each RSS feed.

Here’s REAL’s Lois Kitsch kicking off the conference (hat tip to Chaz for the cool intro idea), followed by Scotland’s Capital CU CEO Marlene Shiels discussing Britain’s fight against predatory lending:

In Q2, we’ll be launching a knowledge and resource center for REAL Solutions to distribute research and innovation products directed as serving low-income households.

Learn more about the work REAL Solutions is doing here.

We Heart The 2008 Symposium

kelly@trabian.com (Kelly Dean) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:26:00 -0600

Planning for the 2008 Symposium is well under way. If you keep up with industry blogs you’ve undoubtedly heard about some of the awesome things in store for this year.

Ron Shevlin will serve as the host for the event.
An Idea Exchange Session, BarCamp style, is in the works.
The speaker list is outstanding and so are their presentation topics.

You can register for the Symposium here.

Last year we used Twitter to keep those of you who couldn’t attend in the loop during the Symposium.

We’ve tossed around several ideas for this year including the following:

Ustream.tv for live video of sessions, interviews and more
Coveritlive for live blogging of sessions

So, our question for you is how would you like to consume the Symposium if you can’t be here in person this year? Any ideas? Any pointers? Anything we shouldn’t do?

Last day to co-author / pick a topic for Age of Conversation 2.0

brent@trabian.com (Brent Dixon) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:10:00 -0600

Last year, marketing bloggers Drew McLellen and Gavin Heaton brought 100 marketing bloggers under one book called “The Age of Conversation.” They��re doing it again, and you can help. Today is the last day to sign up as an author of The Age of Conversation 2.0.

If you want to contribute or vote on the topic, click here and get in touch with Drew.

Now��s the specific call-out time. I��d love to see contributions from: Trey Reeme, William Azaroff, Shari Storm, Tim McAlpine, Terrell Meek, and Ron Shevlin.

Ron wrote in the first Age of Conversation, and just because I enjoyed it a lot, here��s a piece from his essay, ��Behavioral Conversations�� -

To succeed in the Age of Conversation, it��s not sufficient for marketers to engage customers in verbal conversations on social networking sites. Instead, they must develop a new marketing competency �� a sense-and-respond competency �� to sense consumer needs and intentions based on their behavior, and to respond with appropriate advice, guidance and offers. And in a broader sense, this capability is about understanding trends and directions about the customer community based on their collective actions and behaviors.

I’m excited to be contributing to the second book. You can order the first book here. All proceeds go to Variety – The Children’s Charity.

Roles, changes, and constants

brent@trabian.com (Brent Dixon) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:08:00 -0600

One year ago, Trabian was five people in a Plano, TX apartment. A few months before that, Trabian was three people on TV trays in a spare bedroom. Today, there are seven of us – spread across four states and five cities. Some of us work out of a proper office, some of us are back in the bedroom.

Since Matt began writing about Trabian’s role evolution, things have already changed. A lot. We’ve bid farewell to one team member and welcomed another aboard. The roles originally envisioned for that series of posts have transitioned into something new.

Some days Matt is more developer than CEO, and some days the opposite is true. Some days, Doug sells websites…some days he gets them built. And while I’m a designer through and through, there are times when I’m managing projects and go weeks without opening Photoshop.

We wear a lot of hats at Trabian, and I imagine (I hope) to some degree we always will. Part of staying agile and passionate is shapeshifting our roles to accommodate changing needs and our vision for this company.

Even as our role definition is somewhat amorphous, our shifts all play within genres that reflect our passions – both inside and outside of our jobs:

Matt will always be a visionary. I don’t think Matt can go a day without asking the question “What if?” Whether it means he’s developing new products for Trabian, envisioning the state of the industry in ten years, or helping us see our own potential, Matt’s eyes stay miles down the road.

Kelly will always be a caretaker. I have often said that Kelly is Trabian’s momma, she makes sure everything is okay. When our clients need something done, they go to Kelly because she’s sweeter than the rest of us. When I do something stupid and need help, I go to Kelly because she’s good at fixing problems. When we visit Trabian HQ in Indianapolis, she always makes sure we are comfortable and well-fed.

Brandon will always be a builder. Brandon tinkers and, somehow, is an expert at almost everything. He built and installed a computer (specifically, an “engine control unit“) in his car to make it race harder. He built an electronic drum-set…just because. He brews his own beer. At Trabian, he takes all of our pretty little ideas and makes them actually do something.

Charlie will always be a craftsman. Chaz has to create. He comes from a family of artisans – cobblers, knitters, and carpenters among them. He makes toys, illustrates with quill and inkwell, and paints (with coffee!). He’s a filmmaker, a brilliant designer, and crafts designs into prototypes that Development builds on.

Doug will always enable. The number one question Doug has asked me since he began at Trabian is “What do you need to make that happen?” Doug solves our pain-points, brings in new business, and empowers us to accomplish our goals. Doug is one of the most giving people I’ve ever met. In and outside of Trabian, if you need something Doug is all over it.

Derrick is brand new, so I don’t know his “will always” yet. But I can tell you this – he’s an incredible developer (sometime Brandon calls him “The Sledgehammer”). He’s already helped us make vast improvements in tools like our Content Management System. And what’s more – him and his wife Leanne are just good people.

(Matt stepped in to write mine, because talking about myself in third person is weird.)
Brent will always focus on impact. Before every decision he asks: “How will this affect the people it touches?” This could mean designing for user experience, developing educational sessions, or refining the production process for smoother sailing. He holds the rest of us accountable for the way we represent Trabian and the values we profess.

. . .

So whether we call ourselves Directors, Custodians, or Chief Whatevers…throughout the changes and reshuffling that comes with being a small company, our foundations will remain constant.