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The pain of a particularly difficult presentation fades away as South Station gives way to Back Bay and then Route 128 and I, for the rest of the day at least, get to leave the experience behind.

The thing is, it’s not the Michael Scott-esque way I made the crowd look anxiously at the screen, their notebooks, the wall, anything instead of me…craning their necks and cocking their heads when they did make eye contact as they attempted to understand just exactly the hell it was that I was talking about. What bothers me most is that I didn’t communicate the value of social media. Peer-to-peer lending looms large. Advertising is largely ineffective for small credit unions. This is important stuff.

Here is my presentation. I tried to wedge disruptive technologies and credit unions and social media into a 45-minute presentation. That doesn’t work. Not that they aren’t disruptive and shouldn’t actually be presented concurrently ‚Äì they should ‚Äì you need a whole day to explain it. And a couple of people.

Or one blog post. If I failed at wow-ing them in the presentation, then so much the better. I’m giving you, gentle reader, my treatise on disruptive innovation, credit unions and social media. I’ll spare you the gory details about the hard drive industry and what makes disruptive actors what they are and get right to the point (that’s good advice).

Social Media, by its nature, is a disruptive actor. It brings people together and when people get together, they do things. Sometimes productive things. Sometimes destructive things. But never no things.

Social media will do to the financial industry what the iPod did to the music industry. It won’t sink it, but it will shakes its foundations. Credit unions are one of the few financial services industries with a real opportunity to ride the wave and not get caught in the undertow. Wade Lagrone of Zopa.com agrees.

As internet people, we’re here to say that the basic credit union idea – people helping people – isn’t just friendly, or humane, or even a way to get good rates on financial products. No, it’s that we think credit unions are cool. And we think credit unions could be the first choice of an entire new generation of American consumers.

Now all that sounds hard. And we know that the industry is getting older. And we know that banks keep getting bigger and spending more. But credit unions have something those guys don’t. They’ve got a soul. Only maybe in the race to match banks on features and rates, maybe that soul’s gotten a little lost. So our hope in 2007 is that credit unions can double down on what makes them special, what makes them cool.

Credit unions are posed to take advantage of social media in ways no other sector of the financial services industry. The structure of individual credit unions allows it to make decisions to affect its membership. Although artificially limited, each credit union DOES have a limited market. In many ways this is a good thing. This small market, be it a SEG or a community, gives each CU a common vernacular with its membership that large banks do not have with their customers. Communicating about these issues via blog or podcast is pinpoint marketing. It’s relevant communication.

A current example of who could use it is Continental Federal Credit Union. Trey has mentioned this on OpenSourceCU.com, but it bears repeating. The CU has a relevant message to communicate to a narrow segment of the financial services market (Continental FCU members). Using a blog – and it’s not too late to start one – to communicate the issues and solicit relevant feedback is an incredibly valuable way to help make members feel like Members, not just customers.

With the flurry of activity on OpenSourceCU.com (the hottest topic to date with 38 comments and a huge traffic spike), just imagine if Continental had an active blog.

In a sense, the entire open source movement parallels the credit union movement. It’s groups of concerned people that have banded together to take control of their environment, be it financial or computing. They’ve not just complained about it, they’ve done something. Credit unions are doers.

I need a white steed and a three-point hat on my charge through the streets of credit union land:

“Wesabe is here doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“Social Media allows you to communicate relevantly.”
“Zopa is coming.”
“Zopa is coming.”
“Zopa is coming.”

Paul Revere would’ve been proud. Then again, he knew how to speak to Bostonians.

Brent and I have been discussing expanding the scope of the post content on this site. Trabian’s interests, after all, are legion and sometimes we want to share interesting things with you that may not have an immediate relationship with advertising, design, marketing, CUs, the web. Jack Marie Trabian is not a dull boy (How could he be with a middle name like Marie?).

That said (And this does have something to to with technology, so it’s not a total departure.) I scored a free copy of this month’s National Geographic on the plane-ride back to Texas. Someone left it in the seat pouch and I took it and was making my way through it over a cup of coffee this morning when I found an interesting article about Supernovas (exploding stars).

I’ll note here that earlier in the article it was stated that they figured out that stars burst out more gamma rays minutes before getting all Supernova up in it.

::holds envelope up to forehead in Carnacian fashion:: Gamma-rays, Satellites, Supernovas and text messages.

Answer:

“For astronomers, there’s usually no rush to study something before it vanishes. ‘The Universe usually evolves as slowly as watching paint dry,’ says one. But these days, hundreds of astronomers keep cell phones and beepers close by so they can rush to work like doctors on call. They’re waiting for word from a spacecraft called Swift.

Swift, launched in 2004, scans the skies for gamma rays. When it detects a burst, it swivels its telescopes toward the source to get a good fix and detect the afterglow—the lingering point of light that marks the spot where a burst originated. It also sends an alert to earthbound astronomers, who can take a closer look with bigger telescopes.

Early on February 18, 2006, Swift reported an outpouring of gamma rays from somewhere toward the constellation Aries. Within three minutes, the satellite determined the position of the burst and broadcast an alert. Two days later, astronomers at a telescope in Arizona reported that the burst came from a small, nearby galaxy, only a fraction as far away as usual.

Astronomers had already traced a connection between bursts and supernovas. But this burst was so close, and Swift had spotted it so quickly, that scientists hoped it would help confirm what they suspected: A gamma-ray burst is an exploding star’s opening act.”

We live in the future. Spaceships send us text messages (OMG a star is about to go off near Pluto’s Dippin’ Dots kiosk! LOLZ!!!) minutes before stars explode. If those scientists knew what was good for them, they’d register Suprnovr.com this minute and go the extra step to make it IM you as well. And allowing you to customize your suprnovr.com/chaztoo page sure would appeal to today’s surfer.

The excerpt was written by Ron Cowen of National Geographic in the March, 2007 issue. Go buy it to see how it ends!

There really is nothing like flying into New York City. Particularly La Guardia where, if you’re lucky enough to have a window seat on the correct side, it’s a veritable Where’s Waldo, but with buildings and landmarks and certain green statues carrying gilded torches.

As I was returning home from an eventful move of my new company, Trabian, from Dallas to Indianapolis, it made me a little nostalgic about where the company has come from. I don’t normally traffic nostalgia, it’s self-indulgent, but this little company has grown spectacularly, but steadily, since I first fielded a call from Trey at Trabian. A pair of apartments connected by a very long network cable (literally running out of Matt’s door across a landing and into Trey’s front door) has given way to offices in three different cities and a new home base in the same building as some of the most progressive minds in the credit union movement.

Although it wasn’t the Donner family making its way out west, it definitely wasn’t the easiest move I’ve made. Trey and Jenn fought stoically through a miserable virus. It wasn’t pretty. Within the first week of arrival, both Matt and Kelly were down. The good news is that this transplanted, subway-riding New Yorker ‚Äì who vividly remembers as a high point in his life the day he got his drivers license ‚Äì got to drive the whole way. I’m satiated for another few months.

The final tally:
934 Miles
4 Mattresses
4 Box Springs
8 Chairs
3 Boxes of tissues, large
2 Vials Airborne, Pink Grapefruit flavor
23 Cups of coffee, cream no sugar
1 Case, Red Bull
3 Televisions
1 Super heavy giant entertainment center
1 Amazingly big cross in Illinois
82,976 Boxes of stuff
2 red Dachsunds

We made it. Knowing where Trabian has come from, seeing where it is and its potential made picking out the Woolworth, Chrysler, and Empire State Buildings a little sweeter this time. That, and at least MY city was open when I arrived.

Hi Indianapolis, we’re here. We rolled in last night and passed out at Trey and Jenny’s amazing new home. There’s not a lot of time for details right now , but we’ve been documenting the trip as much as our driving hands have allowed. In-depth coverage is forth-coming.

Bits of quick news:

Matt and Kelly – Closed on their first house about ten minutes ago. Congratulations, Deans!

Trey and Jenny – They have been sick, and I mean sick sick, for the entire moving and traveling experience. Even so, Trey worked his tail off as we loaded up furniture. Trey found out last night he has the beginnings of pneumonia. Pray for them and send them flowers and “Get well soons.” They’re spending the day recovering.

Charlie, Doug, and me – We’ve been working at Starbucks this morning, and are heading out to help unpack into the Deans’ new home.

Pictures are coming soon. Gotta run.

From our new Open Source CU projects page:

We first started Open Source CU as an idea exchange. Now we think it’s ready to become a code exchange as well.

Over the next few weeks we’ll start releasing our Content Management System as an open source project. This CMS is the tool we developed to allow non-technical staff at a credit union to keep their website updated. We hope that other credit unions can use it to keep their sites fresh and relevant.

We’ll also be looking for other projects that are either currently open source or are willing to become open source. If you have a project that you would like to share, please let us know.

As Trey pointed out in the OSCU post, the CMS is Rails-based.

Jesse Robbins was alo cool enough to post the story on Digg (thanks, Jesse!). To digg it, click here.

...On an entirely different note, our office is completely boxed up. We’re shipping out for the cross-country drive in two days. It’s very surreal.