PALM DESERT, Calif.–Ken Rutkowski has a few questions for credit unions that he often poses to media companies. What is your product? Who is your member?
When he asks those questions of media companies, Rutkowski said almost always respond “our content” and “our audience,” respectively.
“But if I go to a new media company and ask those same questions, they answer totally differently,” he reported. “They answer ‘Our customer is the advertiser. Our product is you.’ ”
Credit unions need to rethink whether they are giving old economy answers to new economy questions, according to Rutkowski, the president and co-founder at Business Rockstars.
In far-ranging comments at the California and Nevada leagues’ REACH Conference here Rutkowski spoke to how technology is changing not just the landscape but perceptions in ways that go far beyond the hardware and software solutions on which CUs are often most focused.
“There are 172 free tools you can use from Google for free. Why? Because YOU are the product. They need to give you as much free stuff as they can so you use it all the time,” explained Rutkowski. “Your phone battery on your Android sucks for a reason. Every 30 seconds your phone checks call volume, your latitude and longitude. It asks ‘is there open Wifi? Is Bluetooth on? The camera checks to see if you are inside or outside? All of that is being uploaded to Google, because you are the product. This is what you buy when you say ‘Accept’ terms and conditions. You are accepting Big Brother.”
Rutkowski suggested that all of that voluminous data, including photos with embedded metatag information, is creating a “digital FICO score” for everyone.
The 'Father of the Podcast' Offers Other Observations
Rutkowski, who is considered the “father of the podcast” because he was the first person to take a radio show and stream it online, also offered these observations to the meeting:
* The four smartest people on the planet either work for academia, or for NASA. One of them is Paul Allen, who considered the smartest billionaire in the world with an IQ of 170 and net worth of almost $18-billion. “It’s a rarity to see anyone with a super high IQ with a lot of money,” he said, noting IQ isn’t a predictor of business success. “Highly intelligent people often fear risk. It’s that old saying that ‘the A’s and B’s will work for the C’s and D’s.’”
People with high IQs often don’t have a high EQ, or emotional quotient. They are not reflective and self aware or good at relationship management. Other components include MQ, or moral quotient, and BQ, body intelligence. “If you apply all four and are conscious of these, you will hack your way to the top,” said Rutkowski.
* Rutkowski said that companies started in 1920s had an average life of 67 years. Today it’s 15 years. “The rule is if you do not disrupt yourself, someone else will. Someone in a garage is forging a bullet that will kill your business.”
* Rutkowski said he despises a word frequently heard at credit union gatherings. “I hate the word networking, because I don’t think it’s about networking. In about eight seconds when you look at a person and you are asking self are they trustworthy, are they high-status, are they straight or gay, are they smart, are they promiscuous, are they dominant, are they successful, are they on their way up, are they adventurous. In eight seconds your brain does this. This is why I think networking sucks. You should be connecting. You should be the epicenter of opportunity. Bring people together. If you want your business to die, do what you are doing. If you want it to survive you have to connect. Create consistent meet-ups.”
* Rutkowski attracted some national attention a few years ago when he predicted that Facebook would be one of the world’s largest banks by 2015. While that has not come true, especially in the U.S., consumers can now send money back and forth on Facebook for free. “In other parts of the world there are phones that are Facebook phones. That’s all they do. It doesn’t make calls. People buy these phones like mad. They transfer all their money through Facebook. They may not be the biggest bank in the world yet, but they are working with some of the biggest banks.”
* He offered one more observation on Facebook: “If you’re not watching Facebook, it’s watching you.”