Killed With A Fork
Until several months ago, I was in charge of digital at Vancity, and I saw innovation linked inextricably to technology. I shared the concerns of many in financial services who looked at the disrupters in our industry and felt great concern about what I saw as a lack of systemic innovation amongst credit unions. We needed to modernize our approach to be relevant to new members.
In my new role in community investment, I have a different vantage point. I am still concerned about the lack of innovation within credit unions, but for very different reasons. I am far less concerned with the disrupters outside, and far more concerned with the lack of focus and vision within.
In my digital role I was constantly bombarded with sales pitches. There were around-the-clock emails and calls from venders telling me that I must focus on something new. CRM, BYOD, ERM, LOS, the acronyms were endless. If I listened to all of these people Vancity would be on every social media platform ever created, regardless of how many of our members were using that platform. It was a giant buffet, and the choices and options were paralyzing. It looked and smelled a little like innovation, but it was about technology solutions, not really about innovation.
Innovation is a form of creativity, an aptitude for looking at a situation and seeing a way to solve a problem differently than you previously relied on, and hopefully differently from your competitors. And in order to unleash creativity, you need limitations.
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