By Frank J. Diekmann
Lisa Critchfield of Upworthy.com recently told CO-OP’s THINK Conference that when it comes to social media, the biggest misunderstanding is that it isn’t about the media, it’s about the social. Or, at the very least, the desire to be social.
She’s right. I thought of that recently while walking back to my hotel in New York and passing through Times Square. I had planned to work from my hotel room, but when I saw one of those red tables was open in the electric heart of midtown, I took it and set up shop there. You can see a picture of my temporary office, at right, below.
People are like crows: they tend to squawk a lot, and they like shiny things, which explains a lot about the attraction of Times Square. The fact is there isn’t actually much at Times Square that you couldn’t find in the average suburban shopping mall, with the exception of a few Broadway theaters and the Las Vegas-like light show. (OK, there are a couple of other differences, such as the two nude women standing nearby covered only in body paint (pics could be taken with them for $5), and a guy in a filthy Elmo costume (or maybe it was his relative Dirty Uncle Elmo), for which I think you can pay $5 to NOT have your picture taken with him.
But beyond that, Times Square features an Olive Garden, a TGI Friday’s, a McDonald's, a Sunglass Hut and a Foot Locker, amidst the assorted souvenir shops and a few TV studios where you can stand in the background like some kind of perv stalker for your 15 seconds of fame.
But none of that is the real attraction to the millions of people who come to Times Square. Not the lights. Not the signs. Not the media. It’s the social.
Be a 'Knowledge Hug'
- On the subject of crowds and New York, one person told PSCU’s recent MoPRO meeting at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square that what credit unions should really strive to be is a “knowledge hub,” not just a financial hub. “You have a real opportunity to serve in your community as a place where people can come to share life-event knowledge,” CUs were advised. “So can the credit union serve as a hub where members can gather? It doesn’t have to be in a branch. It could be virtual. That is something Bank of America would never do.”
You Won't Be Able to Testify
- Speaking of New York, while lurching over the potholes along West 46th street in the back of a Yellow Cab I realized the pedestrians were the dots and we were Pacman. But the dots were hard to see from the backseat, as it difficult not to notice Yellow Cab had placed that video screen (that plays the same video over and over and over) directly in front of your field of vision. I can only assume this placement is strategic, so you can’t contradict the cabbie’s version of what happened in the event of a vehicular homicide investigation.
The Soft, Funny Side of a Shark
- If you’re a Shark Tank fan, and many of you are, hearing Barbara Corcoran speak in person can offer a much broader, more human insight into her as a person. Corcoran, who gained Shark status by taking $1,000 and building a small real estate company into a $2 billion empire (you can read her whole story here), can come across on TV like a school principal, humorless and dry. But in person she’s a whole different character, judging from her recent remarks before PSCU’s MoPro Conference at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square in New York.
Among her observations and exchanges with the audience:
- Upon seeing the credit union people who were there to hear her, Corcoran ad libbed, “I thought everyone in this room was going to be a 55-year-old white guy. Don’t surprise me like that.”
- Growing up in a family of 10 kids in a two-bedroom house in New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan (which she never visited until she was in her late teens), Corcoran observed that her “mother and father were devout Catholics, and produced everyone of those kids from the living room couch.”
- Corcoran spared little detail in how her life changed one day while working in a diner in Fort Lee, N.J., when a handsome man named Ramone Simone, who was 10 years her elder, walked in. “I knew I was going to lose my virginity within a month,” she said.
- Corcoran said she was introduced to the Internet by her husband, Bill, a Navy captain. She registered a URL for her own company—and then the URLs/domain names for all of her competitors, too, who had yet to discover this World Wide Web thing. She said she discovered something interesting in that process. “I wanted to know when they would wake up,” said Corcoran of her competitors. “The most successful companies woke up the latest. It was the little scrappy companies that called first (to get the URLs for themselves). I discovered these things because I was good at failure.”
- During the Q&A, when a man in the audience told Corcoran, “I’m really digging you,” Corcoran had the lights brought up. “I’m really digging you,” she answered, “but I’m going to have to have a look at you before we go all the way." At the end of her remarks she called the man up on stage and walked off stage-right with him.
Applauded in Absentia
- When NCUA board members make appearances at credit union events, typically the applause heard when they are announced is of the polite variety. Not so with NCUA Board Member Mark McWatters, who is usually the “1” in 2-1 votes on the NCUA board. McWatters has been outspoken against the agency’s risk-based capital proposal (and even the agency’s authority to issue it), among other regulations. How popular has he become? McWatters wasn’t in attendance at the recent Ohio league meeting in Columbus, but when one speaker mentioned his name, it got a spontaneous round of applause from the audience.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator-in-Chief of CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info.