Thank you to everyone who joined Filene for our signature member event, big.bright.minds., in Durham, NC, last month. We spent two days with several hundred credit union leaders and innovators to highlight their powerful impact by looking through the eyes of the consumer.
Starting from the consumers’ point of view, we explored insights from Filene’s research and incubation testing on debt, savings, entrepreneurship, innovation, data, automation, technology and the future of work. We heard from leading experts and academics on the driving trends and future outlook on members’ greatest financial challenges, and then got some hands-on experiential learning to explore ideas in action.
We hope our guests took away not only new and implementable ideas, but also powerful connections: between people, industries, actions and solutions. We believe the strength of our connections to be one the credit union system’s greatest strengths.
To relive, or experience for the first time, the biggest take-aways of this year’s event, we will have a full event recap for you next month.
But for now, we invite you to explore these resources:
A-Ha!
One of the main questions I get after our events, from both attendees and those seeking to learn more about it, is around ‘what were the “a-ha” moments?’ I wanted to share some of what we heard:
- “The importance of what Filene does with its programs (crashers, i3, incubation, research, etc...) is a critical piece that CUs should not take for granted and is in fact critical to counter everyday operational thinking and works hand in hand with creating the vision of where the CU (and industry) is going and remaining relevant.”
- “Amazing content and discussions. The lightbulb moment has been the impact of harnessing the power that treating members with dignity (through data, engagement and tailored services) can have on changing the paradigm for and with these members.”
- “We need to look at standard procedural practices from the member’s perspective so we can work on reducing the pain points.”
- “The idea that practicing good data stewardship could be a membership driver not just the right thing to do.”
- “We need to be mindful and intentional about learning what is going on outside of the credit union space that will influence how we do business with and be relevant to consumers. And when we learn these things, we must be deliberate with our actions."
See you in 2020!
In 2020, Filene is here to bring you more – more research addressing your biggest challenges, more incubation and testing of innovative ideas to address member needs, and more connections to transform your organizations for the future. When we think forward, we can change lives.
We hope to see you many times throughout 2020 – staying connected is how we ensure we are constantly making progress on the work we all do. Event attendees from this past year say these are the best parts of what happens when we get together:
- “I appreciate meeting and connecting with peers to establish and foster relationships that are readily available down the road to assist with credit union challenges.”
- “The positive spirit, the determination to create something even better for our world, and the thought-provoking topics and speakers.”
- “Wow - the attendees, speakers, Filene staff, topics - basically the whole experience was very inspiring and educational. I found my Tribe.”
Your first 2020 opportunity to connect with us is January 28-29 in Irvine CA where we bring together our work on Consumer Decision Making and Emerging Technology. We invite you to bookend your year with big.bright.minds 2020 in Dallas Oct. 27-28. And for everything in between, check out our 2020 events calendar.
I hope to see you soon!
Check out the full recap for this event here.