Credit unions in the Twilight Zone 4: Technology invading

Respectfully submitted for your perusal – a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment, we’re going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time.

That was the opening monologue of a March 1962 episode The Twilight Zone.

Don’t worry, this article isn’t about sci-fi Martians invading the United States. It’s about technology invading the credit union space faster than we can say “Jetsons”. Before we begin, let me give you a quick synopsis of this particular episode:

One of the giant aliens arrives at the United Nations with a book. Then speaking without moving his lips, he tells the world that they’ve come to help humanity.  At first national leaders are skeptical.  But when hunger is ended, energy is affordable, and nuclear weapons are disarmed, they take notice.  A code breaker finds the book’s title is “To Serve Man.”

Soon, people from all over the world are welcomed onto space ships bound for the Kanamit planet.  The lines are long as everyone wants to go “paradise.”  The episode ends with a man boarding one of the ships.   His assistant, the code breaker who identified the title of the alien book, has some urgent news.  She warns him:

“Don’t get on that ship! The rest of the book.  To Serve Man, it’s…it’s a cookbook.” The alien doesn’t allow him to get off, the stairs go up and the ship takes off.

Now that you have some background, does this sound at all familiar? Think about the many emails you get from vendors promising the latest and greatest. Or the last conference you attended where the newest app or technology was unveiled. Too often, we look for the magic silver bullet to ease all of our woes.  In the Credit Union world we jump into a frenzy over the next best thing. I’m not bashing technology.  But how many times do we go along with something new before we have a use for it or have planned how to get the most out of it?

I distinctly remember getting a call from one excited credit union marketer several years ago proclaiming “we must have QR codes, we need to use them on everything!” No reason why, or any investigation into how to best use them. This marketing professional had swallowed the bait—hook, line and sinker—from a salesperson peddling the latest snake oil.

I urge you to look at everything available in regard to tools and technology. But do so with caution. Have a good understanding of it. Plan how and why you’re going to use it. And most of all, promote it! Too often I see credit unions jump from one trend to the other, never giving a chance for success because we tend to have a “build it and they will come” attitude.

Consumers have a lot of options to consider. Think like them, not as a credit union.  Find out what technology they need.  Not telling them you have something that they want is a sure way to turn from “dust to dessert.”  Serling closed his episode with some sage advice:

This, simply stated, this is the evolution of man. The cycle of going from dust to dessert. The metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone’s soup. It’s tonight’s bill of fare from The Twilight Zone.

 

Bo McDonald

Bo McDonald

Bo McDonald is president of Your Marketing Co. A marketing firm that started serving credit unions nearly a decade ago, offering a wide range of services including web design, branding, ... Web: yourmarketing.co Details