Change: Stop the Presses
by. Anthony Demangone
As Brett King quickly signed books, one attendee leaned in for a bit of privacy.
“Brett, I’m retiring in a year or two,” he said. “I thank God, I don’t have to deal with all of this change.”
King had just given the key-note address at the NAFCU CEOs and Senior Executives Conference. His message was clear: change is coming like an avalanche down a mountain to financial services. The branch of the future may very well be a smart phone.
The message was a bit unsettling to many.
Often, it seems that all the change in the world is focused directly at you. Or your credit union. Or our industry. But then I read this article from the Washington Post on the sale of the Post to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. For anyone in our industry, it is essential reading. Here are some highlights.
continue reading »I started working at The Washington Post on June 5, 2000. It was in the same building we work in now, but it was very much a different place.
We were just on the cusp between one media age and another, even if not everybody understood that yet. One particularly vivid symbol of the earlier era was this: Every day, sitting in the cafeteria, there was a table of middle-aged deaf men. They sat there all day playing cards, drinking coffee and speaking in sign language.