I asked for a cure for the Mondays, and, because you’re awesome, you came through.

Here’s how to make a Monday better:

From Matt Davis -

From Kelsey Balcaitis-

From Braden Young-

From Sara Dyer -

From Natalie Singer -

From Get Amp’d -

From Cheryl Wiens -

Y’all are my favorite. Thanks.

And you? How do you cure the Mondays?

You can embed tweets now using Twitter’s brand new “Blackbird Pie.” Here are a few faves to get you started:

The CU Times awesomely asked me to write an op-ed piece on Gen Y misconceptions I’ve run into while working in the credit union industry. Here’s what I said (click here to view the slightly edited version at the CUTimes.com) -

. . .

Sometimes being a young person in credit unions feels like being a monkey in a cage, or a leprechaun, or a unicorn that sneezes rainbows. A novelty to be poked and studied and questioned and dissected.

For better or worse, our generation is no more mysterious than the previous and no more elusive than the next. But after working in the movement for a few years, I’ve noticed certain misconceptions continue to bubble up. Let’s talk stereotypes. One, two, three, ready, set, go:

Stereotype #1: If you’re young you love technology and social media

I wish I could tell you how many of my friends have looked me in the eyes and said, “Twitter is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.” I wish you could hear them talk about how it represents the decline of society, narcissism en masse, the end of focus and attention as we know it. These friends are in their twenties.

It doesn’t stop there. I could go on and tell you about twenty-somethings in Dallas who are too content with their “real” friends to bother with Facebook or young adults in Brooklyn who don’t own a computer.

By the same token, some young people lose their mind when Twitter goes down for an hour. But that’s not because they’re young. It’s because they have a borderline personality disorder.

Don’t get me wrong, the internet is a cultural force responsible for significant (cross-generational) changes, but it’s not a blanket.

Stereotype #2: We don’t respect older generations

I spent my time at CUNA’s Governmental Affairs Conference this year with a group of under-30 credit union professionals. We called ourselves the “Crashers” after deciding that regardless of cost or logistical barriers, we were going to find a way to “crash,” to be a part of, the conference. We ended up staying in a DC hostel, which is another story altogether.

One of the most amazing things about our week at the GAC was spending time with pioneers of the industry.

Tossing around trendy buzzwords like “social marketing” is one thing, but after hearing Larry Blanchard discuss mobilizing 2.4 million people to get HR 1151 passed, a law that might have kept our movement afloat, we realized we knew diddly-squat about what “going viral” really means.

We have so much to learn from those who have been here before us. There’s a lot of room for mentorships in this industry. Please don’t mistake our ambition for recklessness or disregard. We just want go deep, work hard, and learn from older generations as soon as we can.

Stereotype #3: Our passions revolve around “What Works With Gen Y”

Some colleagues and I recently noticed that when you put “seasoned” credit union professionals in a room with younger credit union people, it’s only a matter of time before the exchange turns back to “How to Reach Gen Y.” We’d love to get past that and dig into meatier issues.

For example: Robbie Wright is 27 and runs the product development consultancy CU Innovators. He is passionate about credit union collaboration, emerging payment methods, and the implications of an open source core processor.

For example: Mackenzie Snyder is 22, another “Crasher,” and the Latino Market Research Specialist from Consumers Credit Union. She loves Latin culture and is fascinated by the work WOCCU is doing in developing countries. She wants to learn how to make American credit unions better for hispanic immigrants.

For example: I’m 27, and spend way too much time thinking about how design and storytelling affect the way people feel and behave.

I could go on and on.

Research & Relationships

How do you kill a stereotype? You interact. You mix your world up with theirs.

Being shy myself, I understand that a conversation with someone you don’t quite know or understand can be scary or uncomfortable. So it makes sense that in trying to learn what makes Gen Y tick, many older credit union employees would rather learn through research reports, business books, and conference breakout sessions than through directly reaching out to young people.

While I’m not discounting the importance of research (after all, I work for a research organization), it’s important to understand that this information is like a set of blueprints. A blueprint can show you that a house has three bedrooms, twelve windows, a den and a kitchen. Now you’ve begun to see the house. But until you’ve spent time in the house, you won’t learn that the best spot for hide-n-seek is behind the stairs, the guest bedroom fills with sunlight every day at noon, and the smell of sizzling bacon wafts down the hall in less than a minute.

The best way to get inside of the heads of young members, young employees, or anyone for that matter, is to step through the door and build a relationship.

Changes & Constants

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”

You know who said that? A cantankerous old Plato.

Cultural specifics, the window dressing, change over time - Elvis Presley becomes Michael Jackson becomes Lady Gaga and a flapper’s bob becomes a headbanger’s mop becomes punk’s mohawk. But the roots and sentiments behind these changes are constant. The idealism and optimism of youth outlives each generation.

There’s a lot to do in our movement. The sooner our collective generations start learning about and from each other, the sooner we can take it on together.

. . .

Thanks so much to Lindsey Siegriest and the rest of the CU Times staff for the opportunity.

Thank you, Stephen Colbert, for this bit on how wrong overconnectedness can/haz gone:

Non -USA kids,  try this version.

(via 37signals)

I’m lucky enough to have some very creative friends. I thought I’d share a few things we’ve worked on together.

Music

En Route to Traverse City

I travel a lot for work, and have started toting my musical apparatus with me. This is an idea laid out in a hotel in Traverse City, Michigan.

Immediately after recording this, I walked outside and watched an entire family flop over their canoe in the lake, scream at each other, and then burst into laughter. It was entirely too cold that day to be canoeing.

Liquid Lunch Theme Song

Almost a month ago my buddy and colleague Matt Davis gave birth to the weekly BlogTalkRadio show “Liquid Lunch.”

This little intro piece is musical collaboration with my brother Drew (you’ll recognize the beat from “Frost/Dixon” just below). Everything you hear is either a mouth or a cup of water.

Frost/Dixon

This is a musical collaboration with my brother Drew we began over Thanksgiving. The lyrics are from the Robert Frost poem “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.” Hence, the bad joke for a title.

I hope we finish it over the Christmas holiday.

Videos

Below are a few videos I worked on with Daniel Miller, Carter Martin, and Charlie Trotter for CTCE’s brand new (massive) in-branch TV screens. Some of you have seen a couple of these on Twitter.

Doodles

And just for fun, here are a couple of doodles snapped with my iPhone.

I’m making some slight changes to the design and layout of this site over the next few days. If you come visit and something looks whack, that’s most likely the reason.

That, or I just happen to have some whack-looking thing on my site.

There’s a Kurt Vonnegut short story about an alien named Zog who visits the planet Earth. He comes with the noblest cause: to explain how war could be prevented and cancer could be cured. His home planet is Margo, where everyone communicates through farts and tap dancing.

Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golf club.

(from Breakfast of Champions)

What a nice picture of the relationship between credit unions and young people. Both need to reach each other, badly, but both tend to completely miss each other. And then someone gets clubbed and a house burns down.

Gen Y needs help.

Here are some snapshots of the state of the union (pulled from the Filene report “Reaching Generation Debt“):

• By 2004, people under the age of 25 were the fastest-growing age group in bankruptcy declarations ¹
• Also in 2004 (the latest year with national data) 25 - 34 year olds with credit card debt used an average 25% of their income to pay off debt, and 45% of them used credit cards for day-today-living like rent and groceries. ¹
• As if we need another crisis: “Analysts say rising defaults, coupled with federal subsidy cuts, are beginning to strain the student loan industry…the question is whether a similar crisis [to the mortgage crisis] is on the horizon for student loan borrowers.” ²
• More than half of Gen Yers aren’t saving for retirement because they’re busy with other financial obligations…like paying down their massive debt. ³
• Financial products are more complicated - 401(k)s, IRAs, student loans, and credit cards are all relatively new - and financial literacy is as dead as a doornail.

I could go on, but you get the picture. The situation is dire. Because credit unions’ actions are driven by people and social responsibility, and not lining the pockets of stockholders, they are the group to get us out of this mess.

All growns up (too growns up).

Because credit unions and their members are dying (sadly, I mean that literally). Here are some bits that most CU industry folks have heard before:

• The average age of a credit union member? 47 years old. The average age of a board member? 52.
• Prime borrowing years are 25 - 42. And as the older members continue to age, their borrowing needs dwindle and they want a higher yield on investments.
• I don’t know the stat offhand, but I do know that credit unions are merging and shutting down like crazy. Maybe one of you can help me with that in the comments.
• Only 6% of people ages 19 - 24 have said they’d use a credit union for their next financial product. ⁴

To quote Cornerstone’s Steve Williams:

The point is, we’ve got to replace the old customers that we lose – God bless ’em – with new, younger ones.

Again: The situation is dire.

What can we do about it?

Let’s get our hands dirty.

I’m completely floored to announce that I’ve partnered with the Filene Research Institute for the next year and a half to lead their Young Adult Implementation project. The project picks up where Ben Rogers and the 30 Under 30 (not a bad band name) left off - I’ll work with credit unions to put Filene’s Gen Y products and strategies into action.

I’ll be working alongside some of the smartest people in the industry helping to solve the problems that get my belly all firey. It’ll be hard work, it’ll be exciting, and together we’ll make people’s lives better.

Let’s do this. Who’s in?

Every exec in the world should set down their cigars for a second and read the first chapter of “Make It Bigger,” by Paula Scher.

Corporate Politics 101 -

“I quickly learned that the judgments made about graphic design in corporations, institutions, and organizations composed of more than one decision maker often have little to do with the effectiveness of a given design in the marketplace and more to do with how human beings naturally behave in complicated hierarchical environments.”

This 2-part video has been around for a while, but a recent conversation reminded me of how great it is. In these two videos, This American Life’s Ira Glass breaks down the ingredients to creating a great story. Among them: the balance of movement, curiosity, meaning. Dig it:

Also worth revisiting, but for entirely different reasons: the grape lady video.

Some of the best musicians I know have the most ridiculous music tastes I know (”I don’t know, I just love Céline”). A couple of them rarely even listen to music. They just write it. This “Ignore Everybody” approach helps them make their ideas happen without distraction and self-edit.

Other friends are inspired - they love going to shows, looking at art, reading books, talking perspectives. This outside perspective opens up new directions in themselves they didn’t even know were there.

What about you?

Does consuming ideas - music, art, essays, stories, tweets, talks, articles, and on and on - open your eyes and make you want to make things? Does it make it harder? Or do inspiration and solidarity compliment each other?