THINK 14 kicked off today in New Orleans with four tracks of Evolution Sessions aimed squarely at blowing the lid off of the credit union movement. These industry-focused sessions brought a practical, tactical approach to some of the leading challenges of the day.

Track by track, here are a few key insights:

TRACK ONE: THINK Fast & Lean Legislation, regulation and litigation are poised to disrupt your business – along with massive innovation in the payments space. What can you do? Think strategically. Get up to speed on recent developments in EMV; stay on top of the ever-breaking mobile wallet story; and find the tools you need to lead your organization intelligently through challenging times. Slow and steady won’t win this race.

TRACK TWO: THINK Bigger Credit remains one of the most compelling opportunities for credit unions right now, but how do you make a significant impact in the market and sustain member loyalty? Key suggestion: Consider your rewards program a profit center and market it accordingly. Building loyalty and engagement takes the front seat.

TRACK THREE: THINK Different Differentiating your credit union from big banks, small banks, other credit unions and new alternative financial institutions takes some ingenuity, but credit unions can stand out from the crowd. Sharpen your community involvement – and tell that story. Don’t rule out innovating ahead of the pack: Social media lit up today in response to Rachna Ahalawat’s introduction of CardNav, a breakthrough in card controls and alerts.

TRACK FOUR: THINK Impact As the consumer experience changes, credit unions must rise to meet new expectations. From devising a digital plan to deploying analytics and finally understanding the omnichannel experience, new approaches and insights spell the difference. You have more options than you know: “It’s almost embarrassing how much more data you have compared to Amazon – and how much more Amazon is doing [with less]. They would kill to have what you have,” said Brian Bodell, CEO of Finivation.

THINK Social

THINK 14 attendees were socially active, positive, energetic and enthusiastic – generating a large spike in traffic at the start of the Evolution sessions. Many said they couldn’t keep up with posting, there were so many great insights.

Most shared topics: mobile wallets, Ondot and cause marketing

Top 5 Social Insights

@CookeonCUs: 80% of consumers differentiate between TP brands yet only 10% differentiate between retail financial institutions. #coopthink

@ronaldohardy: Credit unions began as an innovative idea to transform financial services. What happens if we push ourselves to innovate again?

@onthegreen88: 90% of consumers want to hear about what causes we support and how we are supporting them – Phillips McCarty – Good Scout Group #coopthink

@jpooley99: Technological advancement is our members’ expectation. Are we a championship swimmer, or just simply treading water?

@Howie_Wu: Leverage data you already have to strengthen cardholder relationships. Keep ‘em coming back for more!

Up Next

Tuesday Morning: Branding expert Debbie Millman and Cirque de Soleil Director of Creation Welby Altidor weigh in on living the promise – what it means and how to make it happen.

Tuesday Afternoon: Entrepreneur and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk and Randi Zuckerberg, founder/CEO of Zuckerberg Media dive into what consumers really want to experience.

Follow the action!

Follow the hashtag #COOPTHINK on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Fun during the City Launch

Margaret Heffernan, Porfessor and Author, discussed why we ignore the obvious at our own peril, why we don’t see the changes we most need to pay attention to.

Ms Heffernan raised the example of Dr Alice Stewart, a British epidemiologist and physician who worked in Oxford during World War II. Dr Stewart wanted to understand the rise in childhood cancer, and in particular, why childhood cancers preferentially afflicted children of affluent families, when other diseases were typically correlated with poverty. After a nationwide postal survey, she found that the families with children who died from childhood cancers were three times more likely to have had mothers who were x-rayed when pregnant. This was such an extraordinary finding that Dr. Stewart rushed into print.

However, it was 25 years before the British Medical Association abandoned the practice of x-raying pregnant women. This was an interesting scenario, as on one hand there was a huge body of data suggesting a course of action, and on the other, it was a long time before any action was taken. She elaborated that orthodoxies attract confirming data and marginalise disconfirming data. Thus one can be blinded to truths and changes that should be implemented within one’s professional or personal life. “Orthodoxies are not just a medical phenomenon – everyone builds mental models in order to make sense of the world, and they are very effective and powerful ways of organizing information until they blind us to things that do not fit in,” Ms. Heffernan noted. Because orthodoxies give priority to evidence that support them and trivialize threatening data, this leads to the shaping of beliefs, which in turn affects how one views the world.

We have all these orthodoxies in our daily life. While they might help us guide our life, at the same time, they prevent us from seeing changing trends. just take Alan Greenspan who said: “I believe in my ideology.” Even all the data didn’t convince to change course. Only when the financial crisis hit, he had to admit that his ideology was flawed. Orthodoxies and theories help us lead our daily lives but blind us to the changes we most need to pay attention to.

Organizational Silence

Moving into the topic of organizational silence, Ms Heffernan explained that it was a huge issue that happens when people get together and feel that they should not rock the boat. What academic research into organizational silence shows is that people silence their fears and concerns either because they are afraid of retribution from bosses or co-workers (this is the chief cause in the U.S.) or they feel that speaking up would be futile because nothing would change (this is the chief cause in Europe.) Fundamentally what this means is that companies go to great lengths to hire smart people – but then abjectly fail to get the best from them.

This is because very few organizations appreciate the extent of the suppressed knowledge or the very real risk which it represents. Many CEOs and leaders think that silence is indeed golden, that consensus is bliss. It is – sometimes. But more often what it signifies is that there are no respected processes for surfacing concerns and dissent.

Slow down

To do more creative work, we need to slow down. We need to give people in our credit union time for a life. We need to give ourselves time for a life. Only when we give people the space and time to create, we will disrupt business as usual.

Daymond John, entrepreneur and cast member of Shark Tank, shared his life story and connected it to the need for credit unions to disrupt business as usual. 

John was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, but spent his childhood in the Queens neighborhood of Hollis. He was raised an only child by his mother and attended Bayside High School. In high school, he participated in a co-op program that allowed him to work a full-time job and attend school on an alternating weekly basis, which he credits with instilling an entrepreneurial spirit.

S – Set your goals. You can’t hit a target you can’t see.

H – Homework. Do your homework, understand how the industry outside of the credit union industry. Not only analyze your own data, get data insights from external sources as well.

A – Amore. You need to love your customers and love what you do. You need to be empathetic to your customers, love what they stand for and love your day at work.

R – Remember your brand. You need to know what you stand for and align all your work and communications to your brand. What do you stand for in 2-5 words.

K – Keep swimming.

Lauren Pollak, Financial Services Lead at Jump, moderated a panel (Chad Lynch – America First, ATM Services Manager, Bryan Thomas, WyHy FCU, VP Finance, Susan Valley, Dow Chemical ECU, Remote Services Manager) actionable ways to harness disruptions and translate them into opportunities. 

The panelists felt that technology actually leveled the playing field but the numerous technology options make it imperative for credit unions to choose the right vendor. Combine curiosity for technology with a fresh eyes approach and you’ll be able to disrupt credit union business as usual.

The panelists were very appreciative about being part of THINK 13 because it allows credit union leaders to think outside of the box and collaborate with other thought leaders. Actually, pretend there’s no box and start with fresh thinking each day.

Trust is not only developed through human-to-human relationships but also through digital experiences. We don’t think twice to pay through iTunes and credit unions need to make sure that they develop this trust through all customer touch points.

Parting words from the panel:

- You should welcome business disruption as a spark for change.

- Disruptions are now the business as usual and we need to welcome these are part of our business processes.

- Credit Unions have to think more like Apple and Google, leading the industry into new ways to disrupt.

TEAM MEASURED (Sandra Scott, Jill Nowacki, Frank Diekmann), TEAM MASSIVE (Sarah Snell Cooke, Patrick Baster, Michael Bell)  TEAM EXPERTS (Chip Filson, Mollie Bell, Brandie Stankovic

Team Massive: Their argument was based on the observation that credit unions were founded on massive change, from their inception over changes in their loan products to home owners and small businesses. The credit union industry is fueled by massive change and disruption. Historically, the credit union movement has been too reactive and not proactive enough, this is a major threat in disruptive times.

Team Measured: The opposing team answered with their theme: Measure change is change you can measure- with success. Extraordinary growth of credit unions is the last two years has shown that measured change pays dividends. Credit unions and living breathing examples of sustained improvement and ongoing value. Believing in measured change doesn’t mean being opposed to change. If massive means the abandonment of core values, then we’re on the wrong path. The more massive the change, the more resonant becomes the idea of the financial co-op.

The initial reaction by the audience was split, favoring a mix of massive and measured change.

What are the common elements for changes in the credit union movement? Persuasion Campaigns, creating a learning opportunity, institutionalizing the change effort. The key to successful change is adoption throughout the credit union and making sure the change goes through measured processes.

What should credit unions do adapt to evolving payment options? Credit Unions should stop the “affirmative action” approach to banking, focus on the members they serve best and not serving everybody. Most importantly, focus on multi-channel strategies.

How important are branches for members? It depends on your strategy. If you’re focusing on older team members, branches remain an important part of the members experience, when younger members are your target, a multi-channel strategy is much more important. Data Insights will be your best friend. Branches are not dead. It’s all part of building relationships and just one channel to reach members.

What is the role of credit unions in the financial institutions ecosystem? People like the idea of the cooperative model but credit unions can’t be everything to everybody. By definition a relationship will be a generation or longer in duration.

When the first Q&A ended, 80% of the polled audience believed that credit unions must respond to disruptive change with disruptive changes.

The disruption challenge ended with a spirited debate. We chose the best tweets following the debate:

“There’s a clear advantage to being a first mover, but doesn’t always have to be an either/or.”

“Deep knowledge of your members should drive your marketing efforts.”

“Measured change vs. massive change? Kodak avoided disrupting retailers’ film developing business, despite pioneering technology in digital cameras.”

“Technology is a commodity for Generation X and Y. You know what’s not? Your business model.”

“Can credit unions be pseudo-traditional? Still maintain traditional business model philosophy but throw in evolving technology?”

“Merely following others ideas will only get us so far. Creating the new norm instead of following it will lift our industry.”

“Given the value we provide for customers, it’s not okay to have 6-7% market share forever.”

“Ask the average young person what a credit union is, and they will usually respond with a blank stare. Massive change is needed

And the winner is:

Team Massive with 57%.

Just a few months ago, Daria Musk was just a girl with a guitar who wanted to sing for the whole world, and was willing to sit there in front of her webcam for hours so that she could connect with as many people as she could. 

Daria had a dream of reaching out to people with her music and playing in front of large crowds. Using Google+ Hangouts she was able to advertise shows and bring people together to watch them. Before she could even recognize the power of this type of social networking she was playing to huge global crowds.

Cory Booker reminded the THINK audience to refuse to surrender to the circumstances of current reality and asked them change the world for the better. If you have compelling values, the stubbornness, the willing to sacrifice, you can change the world.

He provided an entertaining and insightful  tour de force through his life, the values his parents instilled in him, the environment he grew up in and what it taught him: The world outside of you is the reflection of the world inside of you. It’s in you to see hope and opportunity every time you open your eyes. Don’t just accept reality as a fact, discover what reality could be. Don’t give in to the oppressing reality of now, give in to the power of hope and love.

The most common way people give up their power is to not understand they have power at all. We often feel so powerless to change the world that we give in to sedentary aggravation. Instead, we need to begin doing things that others would not do to get the results others would not get.

Technology is changing everything facts of our lives and is an amazing disruptive force. We’re democratizing access to higher education, providing services unthinkable just a few years ago. Why can’t government use technology to disrupt the Status Quo? All those technologies give people more power than the people in power. We have to see the things that are out there and transform reality. Our country is a living testimony of disrupting business as usual. We all need to take small steps every day, small acts of kindness, small gestures that will transform our world.

By bringing people together,we can manifest the power of people, the collective imagination and minds of people. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Nicole Clemens, Senior Development at FX, brought a bit of Hollywood to the THINK conference and how the FX networks disrupts business as usual. 

FX (then-stylized in print as “fX”) was launched in the United States on June 1, 1994. Broadcasting from a large “apartment” in Manhattan‘s Flatiron District, fX was one of the first forays into large-scale interactive television. The channel centered around original programming, broadcast live every day from the “fX Apartment”, and rebroadcasts of TV shows from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. fX was relaunched as “FX: Fox Gone Cable” in early 1997, targeting men aged 18 to 49. The channel became known for original drama series and NASCAR programming.

Today, FX is in 90+ million households and seen as an innovator in the television industry. Why? Because they are willing to take risks.

While lots of networks boast that they give control to creatives, FX does it — with strings attached.  FX takes huge risks when it comes to creative execution but combines with low risks when it comes to profitability and budget allocation.

FX’s mantra: Go big or go home.