brad garland

I was watching a documentary the other night about Ralph Nader called ‘An Unreasonable Man’. Despite the fact that Nader was never elected a politician, he has been incredibly effective in implementing policy. Some of his efforts include:

- Mandatory seat belts in all vehicles

- Airbags

- Warning labels on cigarettes

- The Clean Air Act

- The Freedom of Information Act

Regardless of your political stance, we can all recognize that Nader has done a lot for our country. The movie got me thinking about how our community needs a well defined purpose and direction. We need to believe in principles and work together to achieve them. I thought about it for a while and in what could only be described as an epiphany, it hit me. I was suddenly exhilarated! I leaned over to my wife, Jenny and asked her if she would indulge me for a second to see if my idea sounded remotely sane. Here’s my challenge for us:

The financial industry is in a sad state after the massive bailouts, layoffs, and bankruptcies across the country. What can we do to pull ourselves out this hole? I believe we need a retooling of our belief system.

This industry, very simply, needs three things:

1) Transparency - At the heart of this crisis is the fact that we haven’t held an open and honest discussion with ourselves or our customers. Transparency is an absolute requirement to ensure we never have a situation like this again. You should be credited for the willingness of your institution to share and contribute. This sharing can be done from the bottom to the top of the organization. Anyone has the right to help carry this movement forward and your voice is needed to do it.

2) Innovation - Innovation is something that gets a lot of talk but not a lot of action. Part of this is due to constraints put on the institutions by regulators but also by the organization itself. Innovation is only passively talked about and not made a priority within the organization. I suggest a mandate encouraging innovative practices for banks and credit unions. One way to do this is to have something similar to the R&D tax credit allotted to small businesses. Allow financial institutions, large and small, to get credit for taking a chance. If banks aren’t allow to think and play creatively, a stagnant environment will continue to exist. Innovation can root from an individual or an organization. The question is what are you going to do to improve things?

3) Education - Ultimately, consumers are getting the short end of the stick. Consumers assume they can’t get sound financial advice from financial organizations and in current times are timid to leave their money in the bank. It’s a travesty. We need educational reform that allows, no requires, bankers to provide a certain level of financial advise to their customers.

Individually, each step is crucial., But only when the three ideas are ‘tied’ together, do we attain transformational change.

This is how the TIE principles were born. This idea isn’t about me, The Garland Group, or Banktastic.com. It’s about making a difference and taking a stance against complacency. What changes can you and your institution make to encourage these principles? How about becoming a little more open to sharing ideas with others? Or testing a new marketing initiative toward a particular demographic? Are you willing to host financial literacy classes at your local schools? The power is in your hands.

Brad Garland is the CEO of The Garland Group and founder of the banker community Banktastic.com. He speaks across the country about opportunities in this Web-enabled world and how to succeed by understanding them.

The stars aligned, it was a ‘God thing’, or maybe I just got damn lucky but no matter what way you call it, I have rock stars as a development team. Mark, Dave, and Lisa each work their tails off for our company and each bring their own unique perspectives to make Banktastic and this platform great.

As we began building out Banktastic we began, unintentionally, building towards ideals or principles that we believe in. Those principles are still what guide us today and anytime their is a argument discussion about doing something we lean on them to make the final decision. If I’ve mentioned them to you before, please proceed past but if not here they are with some detail attached to each:

1) People are inherently good

As we build this platform, we assume people are going to use it with good intentions and not to hurt other people. Do we therefore think the world is always smelling rosy? Of course not, but we are willing to trust peoples good nature first and learn from our mistakes along the way. This has already paid off as people with the expertise to hurt have helped make our system more secure. People are inherently good if you are open and trust in them.

2) Openness wins

Nothing frustrates us more than services that require you to register to read the entire article or be behind the ‘walled garden’ to even see what’s going on. So Banktastic wasn’t going to be that way. You would be able to see all sections, without registration, only when you wanted to be apart of the conversation would you have to register. Why? We wanted to make sure your efforts were recorded and you got credited for that. You deserve to be recognized for your expertise!

3) Community is king

Maybe it’s the Gen Y in us but we don’t like to party alone. The more the merrier we say. People are smart and we want to show that off. So if it means friending up, ‘banking’ things, thumbs up, policing the system, etc. We want the community to be considered in every feature we create. The community is greater than the sum of its parts.

These are our principles as we continue to build this platform. They are probably not perfect but its what guides each new addition into our system. I would encourage every new start-up to have a set of principles that they believe in and to let those principles guide them as they build their product.

What are your principles as you build your products? I love to learn about yours. Have a great long Labor Day weekend everybody!