Welcome to the Stupid Life CU
So I was going through my blog feeds and I went to YES Summit (Excellent Blog) and read a small post about CUs and Second Life. I know what I am about to say may scream blasphemy to my pro-cu-tech amigos but here it goes…
I have never seen SL as an opportunity for credit unions. Actually I think SL is pretty dumb.
I will go further to say that maybe in 5 or 10 years there may be a point to it, but right now I am not really “Feelin’ it”.
The Filene group has posted a video about how SL and credit unions could interact. The video explains how a CU could leverage the SL technology to attract young members. That video was pretty bad. The voiceover was a little rough to understand (maybe its because I have the begginings of a migraine).
The examples that the video gave included “Virtual Annual Meetings”. Come on, Annual Meetings are mind numbingly boring in person let alone being interesting enough to “Pretend to attend”. I can’t imagine the “hip young crowd” that they are hoping to attract will sit around for this when the adult, dating, gaming and gambling islands are a hop skip and a jump away. I don’t think that CUs will get the draw that they are hoping for.
The “CU Money Game” based on the old “Choose Your Own Adventure”books is equally lame. It’s like you are trying to “Trick” these people into learning how to save their money. How is this fun? Why would I participate in this exercise of lameness? It is like the video games that teach you math - do you ever see kids saving up their money to buy these games? No, they will skin kittens and sell the pelts to pay for Halo though. You know why? Halo is fun, Math Attack 4 is not.
Basically why would I go on to SL to view my account info when I could text my bank or check my account online? How would SL create a better interaction with my credit union? I don’t go into the branch anyway, why would I visit a pretend branch? The real question is would I stand in line in a virtual world to visit my CU when I dont even want to do that in real life?
Maybe this is the first sign that I am getting old, but I dont think that SL and CUs will intersect in a meaningful way. I don’t really care for SL. There are plenty of online worlds, but if there isnt anything interesting to do then they will not capture a meaningful membership. Though I havent been able to find solid numbers on sustained membership, I have found current numbers on average users online (35,000) and monthly hits (3.5 million). I think the last numbers I saw was 200,000 regular users of SL worldwide. That is worldwide. Also I have read that 75% of their users are outside of the US. When you could focus your efforts on more active communities like Facebook (23 million active users) which is basically free - why would you spend money on something that would likely have no possibility of a return? I mean SL has 1% the userbase that Facebook has and 75% are not in the US!
To me, a CU in Second Life is like the 25 year guy old who hangs out in the high school parking lot and telling the girls “You know, I used to go here. I was on the football team. I was a big deal around here.”
Being there and trying to act cool doesn’t make you cool. It makes you lame and a little creepy. But thats just me right?
Popularity: 45% [?]
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Hi Tony,
I have been following some of the news about Second Life and thought that this article would be useful for discussion: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-secondlife22jan22,1,5958139.story?track=rss
I don’t think with this sort of development would encourage CU’s to enter this space just yet.
My two pennies…
@Ginny - I would love to hear a compelling argument FOR Second Life. I have sat in on countless discussions and have yet to hear one.
I love to be exposed to new opportunities, so being proven wrong here would not hurt my ego or embarrass me at all. I would be too busy taking advantage of the new technology to care about ego. 
The reason why alternate environments like World of Warcraft or the other game based realities work is because they are entertainment first and everything else extends from making that entertainment deeper and more engaging.
Second life seems to be an environment for the sake of an environment. The information or activities are secondary to creating a “Second Life” with virtual clothes and cars or homes. I just do not think that the SL environment will become a replacement for regular web interaction for maybe 5 or 10 years and SL may not be the final incarnation of this technology.
My point is that for most people banking is a chore. I don’t like to do chores. Things like washing dishes, visiting the Dentist, going to the post office are not fun and no matter how much you dress it up like a game they are still chores. This is why I have a problem making the connection between credit unions and Second Life.
I hope someone can convince me otherwise. I hope Filene can because I have nothing but respect for those folks.
@Gabriel -I knew something like that would happen.
I started watching the video and got a headache - not the best presentation of the technology. You think they would have presented it a bit better - again just my two pennies…er…linden whatevers.
Gabriel
I’ve never taken a liking to SL.
It doesn’t make sense to me to visit a pretend branch, either. There are other, more interesting things I could be doing in a virtual world than checking balances or attending a virtual annual meeting. Those things are boring, thats why I don’t do them in real life. why would I do them in a virtual life? Not to mention that even though there are lots of people playing second life, its a much smaller portion of the population than exists in other channels of the Internet.
I have to agree with you. I’ve seen a bit of SL and am not that impressed. Virtual worlds and electronic dollars are for a select group. The percentage of members that are even aware of this is pretty small.
I am working with Filene for a couple of months on an Implementation Raddical Sabbatical. The Virtual Finance project isn’t one of the ones that I am focused on, but I have taken an interest in it as a young CU manager. So don’t take this as a representation of their opinion. It is my opinion.
The basic idea behind Filene is to create innovative ideas that allow Credit Unions to provide innovative services to their membership. The idea behind virtual finance is that members are online in communities such as second life, so they are looking for ways to take the BORING credit union functions to them. The demo on youtube that was done by Filene is an example of the possiblities. Ideas such as Annual Meetings and going for education do seem lame to someone who doesn’t care but it could provide another oppurtunity to reach out to its members. It is up to the CU to weight the costs and the benefits.
I have never been on second life, therefore I am not a real fan, but I would give one example of how this could have a positive impact on CUs.
Take the annual meeting for example. A CU as developed a way to put their meeting on the CU island. As an innovator within a CU, I would love to have someone like me on the Board. So how does that happen. Gen Y isn’t going to go vote at the meeting. A candidate can get himself nominated by petition and then have each of those Gen Yers that signed the petition and more get online to vote at the annual meeting.
Even if a young CU advocate can get nominated for the board (no small task) why would the members who acutally attend the meeting (avg age of 70) actually elect him. They don’t want some young gun running their CU.
The virtual world has its pros and its cons. Virtual Finance is an idea about how to reach out the Gen Y.
My opinion is that it likely won’t be effective for at least another 5-10 years. Facebook, MySpace, and blog are the places that CUs need to be.
Tony, I hope Filene enters into this discussion. They seem to be a “lab” for cu innovation and I’d like to hear their reaction to your take on SL. I have to say that I think Gen Y members are the same as Gen X, Boomer and Senior Citizen members. We’re all looking to our credit unions(or other financial institutions) to provide products and services that meet our, individual needs. This could include easy access to accounts through texting or online banking, competitive loan and savings rates or help in dealing with financial crises. I agree, it doesn’t seem to me that a presence in an alternate reality is all that crucial. I wonder if Filene can help persuade us otherwise?