CUBI.Pro

By Michael Cochrum In the world of credit unions, as with banks, the larger shops tend to garner more attention from industry insiders.   However, it may be that smaller, small-market credit unions are garnering more attention from the members they serve.   CUBI.Pro recently used its national CU Peer Data Application   to research how credit union assets were distributed by state and   by individuals in each state.   The research demonstrates that credit unions in the most populous states garner the largest concentrations of assets but do not necessarily impact individuals in those states as much as credit unions in states where the population is less dense. Obviously, large credit unions are often able to offer more services and access points to their members than smaller credit unions, due to scale, but the question that arises is whether these services are what members and potential members are seeking in every area the credit union serves? ...

by Michael Cochrum When I was five years old, I was out playing in the yard with my brother and cousins after an afternoon thunderstorm in Western Kentucky.  We were playing near the creek that flowed behind our house that had swollen, from the spring rains, to twice its normal size.  What happened next is unclear based on individual testimony, but the consensus is that I ‘fell’ into the muddy creek and had to be ‘rescued’.  I swear that I felt a nudge before falling in and swallowing a mouth full of water, but no one else seems to remember that as clearly as I.  After being rescued, I rushed into the house, probably crying, to dry off and get fresh clothes.  The only problem is, my mom was inside and once she got wind of what happened, she made us all come in for the rest of the afternoon.  Not only had I ‘almost died’ but now I was the ‘reason’ why everyone else had to spend the afternoon inside.  I was the one who spoiled it for everyone e...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro Recently, I was speaking with a good friend of mine who is a leader in his business.   He was telling me about a decision he was about to make to hire a new employee.   “This hire is critical”, he said, because the organization has had a series of bad separations which has left his team reeling by the disruption.   My advice to him was that he didn’t need to hire a ‘project’, because it was obvious, from recent history, that his organization didn’t do a real good job coaching its team members.   My friend bristled a bit at my comment and, in defense, responded, “I think I’ve been doing a good job helping my team get along with one another and settle disputes.” “But, are you a coach or a referee?”, I challenged.   Both are essential to the game but allow me to explain the difference. A referee’s role in a game is to, first and foremost, know the rules.   They also assume that everyone else knows the rules and, there...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro When I was a junior in high school, my school’s marching banding, The O’Fallon Township Marching Panthers, was invited to march in the Orange Bowl Parade.   Band geeks around the world, like me, understand what a prestigious honor an invitation like this is.   It is equivalent, or more, to a state championship for an athletic team.   It’s a really big deal.   I have no real memory of most of the parade, however there are two things that do stand out in my recollection of this trip.   First, I remember being behind the Budweiser Clydesdale horses in the parade, which adds a level of complexity to making it through the parade with clean shoes.   Second, I remember our backstage tour of Walt Disney World on our trip back home to Illinois. Few visitors to Walt Disney World ever have the opportunity to go ‘behind the wall’ and learn how Disney manages to make a family’s trip to their park so seemingly miraculous.   W...

On the morning of January 19 th , 2009, 150 passengers boarded a routine flight from New York La Guardia airport headed to Charlotte, NC.  As the plane climbed from the runway it collided with a flock of geese near the airport, critically damaging both of the airplane’s engines.  Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger applied over 19,000 hours experience to safely land the A320 aircraft on the surface of the Hudson.  The tenth anniversary of what has now become known as “The Miracle on the Hudson” was just observed a week ago, celebrating the heroism of the crew and the fact that all 155 passengers and crew survived what should have been a catastrophe.  We call it a miracle because we all know that outcomes, like the one above, are rare to say the least. Typically, when any decision maker is faced with a number of simultaneous system failures, it represents a crisis.  The success of any business rises and falls on the ability of leadership to manage crise...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro Recently, my wife and I successfully launched our last child into adulthood.  I’m proud to say that all five or our children are college educated and gainfully employed in professional jobs, four are home-owners two are married, and they all own their own vehicles.  Anecdotally, I would say they have cracked the mold of how many researchers would categorize ‘millennials’.  This is one reason why I hesitate to generalize in this sense, but one thing that has stood out among my millennials is an extremely minimal understanding of personal finance and how to interact with a financial institution.  Perhaps, this is our fault as parents, but who’s to know whether they would have listened to us in the first place.  This lack of awareness makes it difficult to differentiate a credit union from any other financial institution.  But, if I’m right, this creates a unique opportunity for credit unions to build a high-level of trust w...

By Michael Cochrum, CUBI.Pro I’ve worked with dozens, if not hundreds, of organizations on data analytics projects.   Most often, I encounter my clients at a point of heightened frustration, having spent weeks or months and thousands of dollars to solve what they perceive should be a simple analytics problem.   Unfortunately, some organizations simply give up and retreat to an intuitive decision-making process that is irritatingly slow and notoriously inaccurate.   If I had the opportunity to consult with your organization before you embark on your data journey, here are four questions that I would ask about your organization before proceeding on a journey to data-driven decision making. Does Your Leadership Support Data-Driven Decision-Making? Data Analytics and Business Intelligence has become a bit of a fad to talk about, especially since Harvard Business Review named Data Scientist the Most Sexiest Job of the 21 st Century in 2012 [i] .   Who doesn...