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The CU2.0 Podcast
This podcast explores contemporary, critical thinking and issues impacting the nation's credit unions. What do they need to be doing to not just survive but prosper?
The CU2.0 Podcast
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 381 West Community Credit Union's Josh Rodriguez on Getting Creative
The conversation with West Community Credit Union’s Josh Rodriguez started in Ashland OR at the CU 2.0/ Room (39) a event in late September and in this podcast it picks up again.
Fodder for the show came in the form of a questionnaire distributed to event attendees and Josh had dutifully filled his in. He agreed to discuss his answers on this show and we take as the jumping off point West Community Credit Union’s podcast “Banking on You.” It’s a good show and ought to inspire other credit unions to try something similar.
We also talk about West Community Credit Union’s implementation of an AI bot - this is ambitious stuff for a $400 million credit union but West is proving it can be done.
Also dazzling are Josh’s plans for more video and more audio content that will be surfacing in West Community.
Along the way we discuss work being done by Anne Legg and Saroop Bharwani - and regular listeners know about this from podcast #378.
There’s also mention of an episode with Lee Silber, editor of The Credit Union Way. There’s a link in the show notes.
Listen up.
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Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, and welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with big new ideas about credit unions and conversations about innovative technology with credit union and fintech leaders. This podcast is brought to you by Quillo, the real-time loan syndication network for credit unions, and by your host, long-time credit union and financial technology journalist Robert McGarvey. And now, the CU 2.0 podcast with Robert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_01:The conversation with West Community Credit Units Josh Rodwick has started in Ashton, Oregon, at the CU2.0 Room 39A launch event in late September. And in this podcast, the conversation picks up again. Fodder for the show came in the form of a questionnaire distributed to event attendees, and Josh doodlessly filled his in. He agreed to discuss his answers on this show, and we take the jumping off point, West Community Credit Union's podcast, banking on you. It's a good show and auto-inspire other credit unions to try something similar. It's a different kind of show. We also talk about West Community Credit Union's implementation of an AI bot. This is ambitious stuff for a 40 million eye credit union but West is proving it can be done. Also, Dazzlinger Josh's plans for more video and more audio content that will be servicing a West community. Along the way, we discussed work being done by Anne Leggins to Root Barwani. And regular listeners know about this from podcast number 378. Link in the show notes. There's also mention of an episode with Lee Silber, editor of the Credit Union Way. There's a link in the show notes to that episode. Listen up. Yes. And what's the status of the podcast you're doing? I gotta tell you, as as a listener, I got a bone to pick with you. Oh yeah, what's that? I really like seeing the show St. Louis Part One. But I don't see St. Louis Part Two.
unknown:St.
SPEAKER_01:Louis Part two. And St. Louis Part One posted in July. This is now uh late October, and I looked again today. I said, where the hell is part two?
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, let me let me explain, and this will this will be helpful. So when we first started the podcast, my original idea was to do um audio stories. So a little different than just traditional interviews.
SPEAKER_01:You're doing you're doing very different kind of podcasts, and I really like it. Yes. I I I like the one that you did before that uh about the uh community art museum, the credit union art museum. That was great. It was a lot of fun. Um you're doing very different kinds of things. This is not uh question answer, question, answer. No, you're you're you're you're you are telling a story. And in the St. Louis one, what I thought was so great about that podcast was that it reminded me that St. Louis, like Baltimore, Baltimore wasn't mentioned. It used to be they were great important cities a hundred years ago, really important. And and it's it's wonderful to be reminded of that, that history. And you did a really nice job with your guest on that show.
SPEAKER_02:Jared is Jared is a longtime St. Louis lover, uh born and raised here. He spent some time away from college with well while in college and for you know a few other things, but came back, and he's just a he is St. Louis's number one fan. I loved having him on. And and you're gonna hear again from Jared in part two.
SPEAKER_01:So okay, so what's the status of that podcast? Let's go back to that question.
SPEAKER_02:So it's gonna launch November 17th, it's coming up here in a couple weeks. The reason why is part two is actually gonna focus on um the devastating tornado that hit here uh in the city May 16th of this year. So the last time the city was hit by a tornado, you know, we're here in the Midwest, we get tornadoes all the time, but rarely does it happen in the city. I believe it was in the 1950s, I think 1958 was the last time a tornado actually touched down the city. So the reason why there's such a gap in between there is I've been gathering information, getting interviews, and and talking with people because what the tornado it went through um some of the poorest neighborhoods in the St. Louis region and just devastated them. Um I've been there myself. I've we've got some interviews with some people that are on the ground. I've actually got another interview scheduled for tomorrow with a doctor that is working hard to restore the area to get we're almost six months out, Robert, and there are still a lot of needs. Um, so the reason for the delay is we are working to keep awareness, uh the awareness alive about the effects of the tornado and the individuals that are directly affected because winter is coming. And you know, winters in St. Louis are not quite like winters in Phoenix. They're a little bit warmer in Phoenix, but we have homes that are still covered with tarps. We have homes that are uninhabitable. We've got people that are living in tents on their front lawns because they're not allowed to access their homes. Um, we've got tarps that are falling off of homes or have long since fallen off of homes that were, that were heavily damaged um in in the spring. And so um we are building, building this next episode. The first part of banking on St. Louis was to talk about how great we were and where we can go. And then this one is to really help open up people's eyes to where to about um what we need to do to to to to make to correct or to fix not just the effects of the tornado, but these neighborhoods have been falling into disrepair for many years. Um, a lot of these individuals don't have any mortgage insurance or insurance, homeowners insurance on their properties. They have been passed down from their parents and oftentimes from their grandparents. And so these the titles that are on these, on these, uh, on these deeds, the names that are on these deeds, oftentimes are not even the individuals that are living in the homes at this time. They're from you know previous generations. So this has caused a huge problem when it comes to repairing these homes and getting these people back on their feet. They simply don't have the funds. They're underinsured or uninsured, and they need help. And so part two is gonna take a look at these neighborhoods, these individuals, and the people that are helping restore St. Louis. And we're gonna try to get some awareness out about what needs to be done and how we can continue to help our people, our neighbors in need, all part of the community mission of the credit union, uh, to help our community, to be people helping people, to shine light in areas that need attention and to be part of the uh part of the whole, you know, the whole program ourselves, to be part of the whole effort ourselves. And we've done that. And uh we're gonna continue to do that. So I think you'll like part two. It's a little different than part one, but it still continues the storyline of this wonderful place called St. Louis and how what we can do and how we can improve um the lives of the people that live here in our region overall.
SPEAKER_01:Are you aware of other credit units that have a podcast? I know CUNA, whatever it calls itself today, has a podcast. Um but and are do any other credit unions have a good idea.
SPEAKER_02:I so I have I have scoured um the internet. This was part of my research before launching Banking on You. Scoured the internet for all credit unions that uh do have podcasts. And there are there are quite a few out there. Uh in my research, I've discovered that most of them are um from the C-suite or CEO point of view, and they're often focused on leadership, which is fine. You know, leadership is is is important. Our credit unions can all, you know, we can all, every one of us can use uh a good, you know, a good helping of leadership encouragement and and um and instruction. But you know, leadership is not only it's not just based in credit unions, right? There's hundreds, thousands of credit of, I'm sorry, there's hundreds and thousands of leadership podcasts out there. So while other credions are in the podcast space, um we wanted to do something a little different. We wanted to really dive into the lives of people into our community and tell effective stories to get the attention of of um of those that are in our field of membership and those that are in our industry. I think credions have done a not so great job of telling our story. You know, we we we we love to help people and we love to, we're we're empathetic. Uh, you know, credible professionals often many of us didn't intend to get into this industry. We kind of like fell into it or found our way into it, and we have a heart for people. Um, unfortunately, along with that heart also comes a bit of timidity, and and we don't get out there and tell our story very well. So we do some incredible things. Every credit union does fantastic things for the community, for the members, but we've not done a very good job of actually telling the world what we're doing. So that was one of our is one of our strategies with Banking on You is hey, let's actually tell everyone what's going on in the form of an audio story. And we're gonna have as as we get into the new year, we've got a ton of things planned. Um, we're gonna branch out a little bit beyond just member stories, and we're gonna have some more of these, like we're having right now, these one-on-one interviews. Um, and we're gonna be putting out a lot more content uh within the next couple of years and kind of you know broaden our spectrum as to what we're doing. The audio stories, Robert, take a lot of time um to produce. They they um it that's just the fact of the matter. It takes time, a lot of time and effort to produce, and uh we got we we have a kind of a small team, and so that's another reason why there's this large gap between part one of Banking on St. Louis and part two. We've been working on getting this this the second half of the story put together. So in order to do that, we're gonna we're gonna focus on different other formats rather than just the uh just the audio storytelling. We're not abandoning that by any means, but we're gonna continue putting out good stories and we want to put out good good content that helps not only our communities but also the credit union industry as well. So look look for that next year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would say my sense of what you're doing in that show is more analogous to a non-existent medium that written the radio play, which was very popular in the 40s, 30s. And those those were produced. It wasn't just four people sitting around reading a script. There would be sound effects and all kinds of stuff, all kinds of cool stuff, which doesn't happen in your standard podcast QA.
SPEAKER_02:I I'm flattered a bit that you mentioned the old-time radio place because I've been an old-time radio fan since I was about nine years old. Um, and I've made my children into fans as well. Uh, my inspiration for this podcast, for Banking On You, has been uh This American Life, um, another and some other similar shows that are mostly aired on NPR, but there are a lot of other podcasts that are you know produced in the same way. Um This American Life is fantastic. I mean, I just love listening to these really great stories, and they such they do such a good job at producing those, and they've done it for, oh boy, like 25 or 30 years now. It's been maybe not quite that long, but it's been it's been a long time. And uh I didn't see the that type of storytelling in the credit union space. And so when I approached my CEO about the possibility of putting together this type of of a of a show, it was it's something new. And like I said, I've scoured the podcast apps and the internet for all credit union podcasts, and I don't see anything out there like banking on you. Um I think it needs to be duplicated. I mean, I'm doing my best. I'm sure others could probably do it better, but uh it needs to be to be duplicated so we because everybody is on, you know, everybody's listening to podcasts these days, from the 10 and 11-year-olds all the way up to you know, every age. So um it's a great medium, it's convenient, and we can, you know, we can listen to it anytime, whether we're brushing our teeth or on our commute or just sitting out on the porch with our morning coffee, whatever we're doing, working out, you know, doesn't matter. And so it's a great opportunity for credit unions to tell our story, but we have to do it well. I guess that's that's the that's the key. And I like I liken it too when I was when I first started before we launched um the show, I traveled around to all of our branches because I wanted to get as many member stories as I could. And where else do you get member stories than those that deal with members every day, right? The front line. And the way I explained to them how we're approaching storytelling is you know, when you sit down to watch the Super Bowl, which is coming up here in a few months, there's two different types of people, maybe more, but people that watch the Super Bowl, first of all, there's football fans, they love to do it, and there's others that are there for the company and for the commercials, right? And uh, they just maybe just have a good time being at parties, but it's the commercials and they loops, it just grabs them. Well, when a company is producing a Super Bowl commercial, let's just say it's a bank. The worst thing they can possibly do is talk about their rates or their product or their history or any of those things. No, you'll immediately just get up and go get another soda, another plate of wings or chips and dip or whatever, if that's the case. But a Super Bowl commercial is structured to grab your emotions, right? Right out the bat, whether it's it's um sympathy or empathy or laughter comedy, whether it's making you tear, making you maybe a little bit angry or make you think it is structured to grab the emotions. And that's why Super Bowl commercials have become the monolith that they are, right? These things are talked about from December to middle of February, and they're just they're just top of mind. Why? Because they move us.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, I've I haven't watched a Super Bowl in many years. But most years I watch at least a half dozen of the commercials nowadays on YouTube. Right, and that's great. You can do that now, you don't have to go through the whole thing. You can just watch the commercial. Yeah, well, they're aggregated, so you you just it's it's you don't even have to hunt for the thing.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:It's uh and so th those commercials do have a life of their own. And you know, what one of the great commercials like ninjo ninjo green with color. I mean, that's a and and tell me what the argument is there. There is no argument, it's pure emotion, but it's beautiful. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Way back in the day, right? The Bud Riser Frogs. I mean, just funny. There's just silly stuff. But it you don't forget about these things and they they move you in one way or another. Now, it's funny that you mentioned not having watched the Super Bowl. I hadn't watched the Super Bowl until for many, many years. I think since I was, I don't know, a young child, until about three years ago, I was out in California and just didn't have any interest in it. I was out in California with with family, and they had a Super Bowl party, so we went ahead and watched. Um, one of the commercials was, and I don't remember what the car maker was, but it was it was uh it was like Audi or I don't know. And it was the the commercial had nothing to do with a vehicle. It was a a young girl that was ice skating at a competition, and the shot showed her her dad, and there was this empty seat next to her. Her her mother obviously wasn't there, a little bit pulling out the hard strings. So then it switched over to this cabin where her grandfather was, and the it was an electric vehicle, and the father plugs these outdoor lights into his electric vehicle, which shines lights on this frozen pond. The grandfather comes out and gets to see his granddaughter skating, right? And so it made me want to buy an electric vehicle. It's like, wow, this is amazing. Of course, I'm not gonna do that necessarily, but it was all about pulling at the heartstrings, right? Pulling at the emotions, and it was effective. Now the ROI on the commercial, I couldn't tell you. It doesn't matter. It affected me uh emotionally. That was the whole point of the commercial. So that's our approach. We want to tell great stories that really affect people move people to action and really hit them in their emotions, whether it's you know, laughter or or or whatever it is. We want we want to tell a great story that moves people and tells them about our story.
SPEAKER_01:Um, that's really the whole the whole uh look in my credit union the podcast library. This is a fairly recent show, a guy named Lee Silber, uh who's written a book or edited a book called The Credit Union Way. Which is uh loosely based, shall we say, on chicken suit for the show, usually and uh short show, it's it's uh 25 minutes ago. But you might you might get some idea from that you might not be interested to talk to. And one of the authors in that is M Land was that you were at in Oregon. That's when he was working for a free unit in San Diego County. It's a very small world. Yeah, I I asked him, okay, read read one story in the book put it in the show, you read it. And then I said, Who wrote that? I think uh guests on the show. It's a it's a credit union world can be a very small world. Yeah, and unfortunately, they all believe their own stuff and are very poor at communicating it in ways that touch other people. And I I'm more cynical about credit union marketing than I think you are. And I totally agree, you tell me what the auto rate is, I don't care. I'm a minor car today. Who cares? You you you you have a emotional three or something, and then you're gonna be going you say that uh if you were celebrating the glass of three in a year from now, what would you be celebrating? Celebrating 3,000 podcast downloads and two additional audio projects. What would those audio projects be?
SPEAKER_02:So that the the podcast downloads is more of a professional um goal or celebration. The audio projects are are something a little more personal to uh outside of my credit union work. Although there might be some crossover there, and there is a little bit. So I have been, as I mentioned, has been a long time um fan uh of of what's known as audio dramas, um, radio plays, also known as old-time radio shows. And I'm part of a group that um it's called the Audio Drama Alliance. And uh we're a bunch of of hobbyists, enthusiasts that create, write, create, produce, act in, sound design, um audio dramas. So audio, audio plays, audio shows. Some people refer to them as as movies for the ears because they they just kind of encapsulate you and just draw you into the story, give you everything but the visual, because the visual is on the theater of the mind, which I think is a thousand times more fascinating than anything that could be created in a in a in a cinema. Nothing wrong with movies. Movies are great, but the theater of the mind is is is there's no limits to to what you can create there. And it's a lot less expensive, to be honest with you. So um I have one project that I did actually September of last year. It's out on audio.com on LinkedIn, and it's just a simple five-minute story um about a uh the beauty of the love between the longtime love between a husband and his wife. And so the this goal would be a couple of those that that I wanted to produce. I'm I'm in the middle of producing one right now. Um it's supposed to be ready here in a few days, but maybe but over the weekend. Um, but just just audio projects to, you know, it's kind of my own thing. Now, on another, on another note, we also do some internal projects uh with the credit union. These aren't released to the public. Um, these are both audio and video. Actually, we've moved more towards video this year. Uh I'm part of our workforce development committee. And we do in some internal projects um around our workforce development committee to inspire our employees um to to um give them a better workplace to to really help them out as far as, and I'll just give you an example. So we have a series, we're on the second season now that's called My CU Journey, My Credit Union Journey. And the first season was uh I sat down and interviewed everyone of our senior leadership team and just talked about their career journey. Um not necessarily all related to credit unions, but just whatever they had, whatever path they had taken to, you know, to the vice president position here at West Community. Some fascinating information. Um, things that that that many in the staff had never heard of. We have one one uh member of the senior leadership team that spent 14 years managing a movie theater uh before moving into accounting, which she worked with a temp agency in accounting and then uh worked her way through a credit union to become the CFO. So just wow people oftentimes I think when you're when you're younger and you see a vice president, you think that they just you know they graduated from college and boom, they can became a vice president. That's not necessarily the case. There's always a there's always a path, there's always a journey. So we put together these audio uh stories for the staff and they just absolutely love them, which is fantastic. Just really like humanized our our senior leaders. And you know, that that's kind of a it's kind of a of a of a I guess of a natural thing that happens when somebody is in senior leadership in a senior leadership position. Um, sometimes those that are in the lower levels of the organization look at them and think, well, I could never be that, or they're untouchable, or they're better than me. And it's just a natural, natural thought. But so we really wanted to like humanize them. They really wanted to bring them and make them relatable to everyone else, and it really helped to do that to show the journey that they had been on in their career. And so this year with the new season, we're doing we're doing video. I'm actually working on one right now. Uh it's on my screen. Uh, we're doing video instead of audio. And uh we're interviewing, we we dropped down a level or two and we're interviewing some of the middle level, middle level, if I can say that right, the mid-level managers and some of the others that are not in management and just talking about how they came to the credit union, what they experienced and why they fell in love with the credit union, and you know, what they want to do next, where they want to go next. We're looking to inspire our um our teammates, our employees to really take control of their career. And this is an encouragement to help them to fill out, which is another part of the workforce development team, an individual, an individual development plan. So whether they want to be a VP at the credit union, or they want to be an architect, or they want to be an artist, it doesn't matter. What the focus is on the individual's desire, what do they want out of their career? And the credit union is here to help you, to give you the proper resources, to give you the tools, to give you the guidance, to get to wherever you want to go. And yeah, even if it is outside of the credit union, we know that many are not going to stay here for their entire careers. It's just a given. We know that some have ambitions elsewhere. But what can we do as a leadership team to help these individuals reach their goals, to help them get to the next level and to really pour back into them to help them to get to, we know where they want to go, whether that's here or somewhere else. Just pour back into people. So that's all part of those projects. Um, that's the big picture as far as those, you know, those, those, uh, the my see you journey project and others that we're doing, which was just really to pour back into our our uh our workforce and help them get to the next level, whatever that might be.
SPEAKER_01:Why video as opposed to audio?
SPEAKER_02:I made the mistake of saying we could do video and then there's no going back. You know, this video is so captivating. And these are these are into their interviews, they're they're kind of done in a documentary style. And we what we did the first year is we had um, we debuted them at an all together, which was what we call our uh uh our quarterly meeting, and then we had a monthly call where everybody would get together via Zoom or via Teams, and then we played these through that way. And so we found that having a visual when we're doing things virtually like that really helped to keep everybody's attention. Um, now it wasn't just audio last time. We had, I would, you know, we put in a few pictures and shots and different things of the individuals as we were talking about them. So we kind of had like a slideshow that supported the audio. Um, but it did kind of, you know, it did kind of lose some some of the uh individuals' attentions at times. And so having that video produced and and uh and uh just getting that out there in front of in front of the staff seems to be seems to be a better way to engage because we also changed our delivery system this year where we're not meeting together via Zoom to debut these. We put them out on our internet and then we just continue to encourage the staff to to view those until we you know we we can look at the metrics and see that you know like 90, 95 percent has actually partaking of and viewed it. So that's why we kind of moved over to video. I'm an audio guy, I'll forever be an audio guy. It's been a bit of a challenge moving into video, um, but I like challenges, so so maybe this can open up some other opportunities and some other doors for us internally and externally as well.
SPEAKER_01:At this point, as as you know, many, if not most, podcasts are also coming out in video format. And I I resist it for a very simple reason. I listen to 90 minutes of podcasts every morning when I'm walking. I never listen to them any other place. And how can I watch a video when I'm walking for 90 minutes? It's I I couldn't do that, I'd fall.
SPEAKER_02:Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm aware that video is a trending thing in this this podcasting world when I'm existing.
SPEAKER_02:I'm I'm kind of on the fence about it. There's there are very few video podcasts that I consume.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's mainly just talking heads. I mean, it's I it's like why are we even bothering with the pictures? But uh I guess that's just me being cracking what it's doing.
SPEAKER_02:Well, no, I I think I think there's part of it though, it's it's a lot easier to create content for social media when you have have video. Oh sure. So you can create a 10 or 15 or 20 second clip with video um, you know, for any of the social media pages.
SPEAKER_01:I that's that's the main difference it face to watch. Like I look at my screen, there must be half the page must be filled up with little short video clips. Yeah. Yeah. Um you know, I like 10 seconds is a tiny, tiny click.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's our shrinking attention span. That's uh contributing to that.
SPEAKER_01:And it's all about attention span. Yeah, and unfortunately with things like Facebook attention spans get really road. Or TikTok trends. That's all different things. Yeah, and in that you also say that you successfully implemented a generative AI for an internal chatbot. What's involved in that?
SPEAKER_02:So Les Community slash Tigers Community, we have two brands, we're one credit union, um, has been in the AI game for well, since 2017 or 18. Uh, predates my actual, you know, my being uh part of the the credit union effort. I was at my previous credit union back then. Very, very early to to debut at a chat bot. Uh my CEO Jason Peach has always been very forward-looking, very progressive. Um, he's a he's a fascinating individual in that he's I wouldn't call him a techie. As a matter of fact, he'd be just the opposite. I wouldn't call him an early adopter himself. But he's a great businessman and a great leader. And so he sees um he sees the uh the coming landscape, whether that's AI or or whatever it might be, he sees it very well and very clearly. And he's he's good at getting in on, at least as an early adopter, in some cases, you know, a bleeding edge. Maybe not so much anymore. Things are changing so quickly, but still, he's been fantastic at it. So we had an AI chatbot internally and externally for many years now. And then, of course, with you know Chat GPT and generative AI and all these, all these other LLMs just uh you know popping up all over the place. I think it was 2022 or 2021, can't remember now. It's been a couple of years. Um we moved from just the it's funny to say the traditional AI to generative AI. It's silly to me to even say that because everything's just moving so quickly. And so our internal chatbot, who we have we have uh nicknamed Watson, he's quite the fellow, um, does uh chats back and forth rather effectively. And uh we've been able to uh to increase the amount of knowledge on the frontline by giving them quick access, easy access to Watson and his ability to gather information from all of our archives, from our from our data, from our information that we have in our data pool, and to to communicate that back to our frontline employees in a way that's easily understood, that is, you know, encapsulates what they actually need, that has just revolutionized our ability to serve our membership. And a lot of credit unions are you know are jumping on this this bandwagon. It's more available now than it ever has been. Um we were able to take our history working with uh a local company here in St. Louis, actually, capacity. They're based here in St. Louis, but they're they're they're worldwide. And and uh uh utilizing their skills and their their product, um, their chatbot products to really give our our uh frontline and even even back office, you know, just a really fantastic tool. We're also using it for uh for IT. So uh IT queries, if you have a question about the network about, you know, if you need help with something, you can jump on there as well. And Watson does a really good job at at responding to those and giving you the information that you need. Uh really basic stuff. Of course, you can always contact the IT department through the ticketing system. But it just gives another layer of information that's easily digestible to our frontline so we can effectively serve our members and serve one another.
SPEAKER_01:So give me a scenario where an employee uses this. What's the setting? Where are they? And what do they ask what?
SPEAKER_02:And sure. It's as simple as something like rates. So traditionally, credit union tellers would have a rate sheet, right? And every time the rate changes, you here's a rate sheet, everyone, shred, destroy the old one, and then put this where you can have easily where you can easily access it. Or um, you know, that was the old school way of doing things. And it went to, of course, you know, we have an intranet, you can get rates there. Uh, we have our website, you can go out there and get that information. It's it's posted in different places. I remember the binders we used to have at a at the old teller line, right? You have to flip through all the binders and the plastic sheets. I hated those things. And they were, you know, they gave our members uh a little bit of reason to question if we really knew what we were doing. So pulling out a binder every time. Of course, not everybody had to do that. But say somebody comes up and just wants to wants to get information about a specific CD, the rate, the term, the all the all that information. All the employee has to do is pull up Watson, which is on every page of our internet and available with every time we're open. It's a little chat button on the bottom right-hand side of the page. They pull it up and say, and just ask a question like you would ask any LLM, which most people are accustomed to doing that now, like ChatGPT or any of the others. You know, can you give me information about our six-month CD or three three-year CD and the details about it? Boom, it's got all that information immediately. They can relay that, relay that to the member. And and then, you know, if they want information, additional that or printing information, they'll obviously have resources to do that as well. Um, but and that's just a really simple example of like a CD, but anything that we have in a policy or that we have in a procedure has been entered into Watson and can easily, in a conversational style, give that information to men to a frontline employees so they can then relay that and serve our members.
SPEAKER_01:Now I know the root of Censo did a project like that for one Navano.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And one of the things they discovered in that process was that oftentimes there were documents that contradicted each other. Did you run into any of that?
SPEAKER_02:That is that is an ongoing uh um issue. Uh yes, that's so that's that is a problem. You've got to have proper documentation in your data pool, and it has to be kept up to date. So even though AI is fantastic and and can grab that information, it it's only as good as it's the data that you have. And that's something that Robert, we're looking at on a much wider lens now, or much you know, a bigger scope than just generative AI as far as an a chat bot for our front line, is if we're going to dive into um artificial intelligence, generative AI, using bots, using automation in in different areas of the credit union, which we are currently exploring and actively moving in that direction, what we have to make sure first is that our data is good. And this was something that Anlig talked about um, you know, in Oregon in September at the conference that we both attended, is the the AI or the bot is only going to be as good as the data that it's researching. We see the same thing online with Chat GPT or any of the others, right? There's a little disclaimer at the bottom of those results that says this information may not be 100% correct. Why? Because it's pulling from the the wealth of knowledge of the internet, and we both know not everything on the internet is correct. So the uh the key is having and updating that information correctly um in your individual data pool with something like you know, a gender of AI internal chat bot. That is a problem. And so I know that specifically Sarup is is is doing some really cool things as to having that data, cleaning up that data, and making sure that the bot is pointed in the right direction and not you know towards two different documents that are um that are with conflicting information.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, it's not like documents issued on the same day are contradictory, it's one from 1995, one from 2025. Well, that's how they contradict each other. It's understandable, but it's a real bother for the the credit union employee who's trying to answer a member's simple question. And you're you're getting two contradictory things from the machine. Just talk to me, man. Just tell me what's true.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. So that's that's not so different of a problem as the old binder and printed out PDFs, right? Well, my binder says this. Well, the teller next to me's binder says something different. So it's kind of the same thing of getting correct information in the area where it needs to be. You know, they they didn't shred their rate sheet from last week, and now suddenly we've got two different rates up at the front line. Oh, that's a problem. Well, it's just a a high-tech, you know, problem all over a high-tech uh uh uh rebirth of a of an old tech problem.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's it's what I've been working with computers since the early 1980s, and back then the matter was garbage in, garbage out. It's still a pace.
SPEAKER_02:It's still the same. Right. So the the importance of that data cleanup, that's and like I said, that's what we're looking at on a larger scope. If we're gonna implement you know different areas of automation into the credit union, if we're gonna take another big look at, you know, using bots, and this is something that we've done. Um, even if we're gonna do this inside of our core, you know, is our database clean enough, quote unquote clean enough? Is it is it slick enough to be able to uh have the this technology run inside of our systems, or is it just gonna put out a bunch of garbage and be more confusing than it was in you know, anyway? So that's where we have to take a look at is is uh data cleanup, we have unnecessary fields out there, you know, all these different things. We have to make sure that we're giving these new emerging systems good in data to to to uh to read from, otherwise it's just gonna be more more frustrating.
SPEAKER_01:Last question, and this again is from that document you circulated and organ. Question What current industry opportunity are you trying to seize your answer, and I quote effectively telling the CU my story. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02:So I think that's a little bit of a typo. It's supposed to just say effectively telling the credit union story.
SPEAKER_01:I think Alrighty. West community is confused about Josh Rodriguez. And you're gonna go in there and say, hey, no, here's who Josh is. Okay, good.
SPEAKER_02:I'll we could do that. I we could talk about my story, but it I don't know. I think I'd rather talk about the credit union story and members' stories. No, this just jumped out of me and I said, This is getting very existential.
SPEAKER_01:What the hell is he trying to say here?
SPEAKER_02:I scratched out my on my my copy of the book because I yeah, I'm pretty sure that was a typo. Or I I left it in when I was, you know, maybe I went to do something else and came back to finish the question.
SPEAKER_01:You might have just I I typed mine out in like five minutes or at the maximum. I and I don't know that I even proofread it before I said. I mean, it's it's uh no, yeah. This was the most existential thing I read in this book. I'm saying, wow.
SPEAKER_02:Not nearly so deep. Actually, pretty simple. The credit union story, let's tell everybody about the great things that we do, and let's do it in a in a in a in a great way. Tell great stories about some some uh incredible individuals and some incredible, you know, our members.
SPEAKER_01:And and remember, yeah, a large credit trade association, I will not mention the name of, has spent millions of dollars telling the credit union story to no effect than I'm aware of.
SPEAKER_02:They're telling it incorrectly. Exactly. They're telling it incorrectly. Let's go back to the uh to the model of the reluctant hero, right? Let's tell let's make our members the hero and not the credit union. You know, we do some great stuff, but let's talk about how these individuals have overcome. Yes, we were there, we were the Obi-Wan that led them through that. But let's let's highlight these individuals, these members as the hero, as the Luke Skywalker, as the overcomers.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, who are the original heroes in the credit union movement? It's those French-speaking guys in New England who who are annoyed because the community doesn't recognize them, the bank won't deal with them because the bank's in English and they're French speaking. And they say, Let's start a credit union. And the original documents, most of them were in black, French. I mean, these are the heroes.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they were the heroes. They were, but people don't care about them anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I I hear you that. I'm concurring with you that this is the kind of story. And this was member activity, it was not a credit union staff activity because there was no credit union staff. Right. Right. These are the the stories that that empower the credit unions and tell people how credit unions are different from a bank, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:It's uh, you know, if you just cite a chapter and verse from some NCUA document, which no one decides you with thread, not you, but no one's telling me this. It's uh I don't care. I really just don't care. I'm gonna fall asleep.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. So what about me right now in the in the financial situation I'm in? How can you help me get to the next the next level? Right? How can you help me correct my mistakes? I've done, you know, that that uh the consumers do a good job of of uh jumbling up their finances, but we we can be there and we can show them and tell them exactly how we've helped others and they can identify with that story. And before you know it, we're doing it for them, and then we've got a member for life.
SPEAKER_01:So it's important to Yeah, well, right now I'm seeing a lot of credit unions saying we're going to help our members who are directly impacted by the federal shutdown and the lack of paychecks. Wonderful, wonderful. Why doesn't a member tell me this? I'm delighted to hear that you you say you're going to do this, but I don't know that you've done it. So whereas if the member says, hey, this is how I'd want groceries for my kids this week, uh, blah, blah, blah. Now you got my attention. It's uh right.
SPEAKER_02:And I think I think I think as an industry we're coming alive to that. I think we're getting there. There's some really great um testimonial video videos. Uh credit union up in Montana um has done some really, really amazing stuff. Um, more of a documentary-style videos are very short. I think they're like 10, 12 minutes long, but just and you know, using the backdrop of Montana and the mountains and the forest, just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful short films, and really uh do a great job of having the members tell how the credit union had had you know helped them mostly in small businesses, I believe. But they're there they're more and more, we're seeing some some really good stuff out there um as far as mostly in video. And um most credit unions don't have the budget to do video and uh can't do it well on their own. But I think that we could all at least dip our toe into audio, and that's where a lot of people are, anyhow. And so this is this is I'm hoping others will you know uh uh catch some inspiration from what we're doing on with Banking on You and begin to tell great member stories through audio.
SPEAKER_01:Before we go, think hard about how you can help support this podcast so we can do more interviews with more thoughtful leaders in the credit union world. What we're trying to figure out here in these podcasts is what's next for credit unions. What can they do to really, really, really make a difference in the financial scene? Can't all be mega banks, can't it? It's my hope it won't all be mega banks. It'll always be a place for credit unions. That's what we're discussing here. So figure out how you can help. Get in touch with me. This is rjmeggarvey at gmail.com. Robert McGarvey again. That's rjmcarvey at gmail.com. Get in touch, we'll figure out a way that you can help. We need your support, we want your support, we thank you for your support. The C U2Domino Podcast.