VISA SVP, Head of US Regional Financial Institution Sales Doug Leighton joins us to discuss his company's recent commitments/sponsorships to Filene's Center for Excellence, The Cooperative Trust, and CUES CEO Institute programs. Doug share details of each partnership including benefits and goals for each. Check it out and let us know your thoughts.

Summit Credit Union President/CEO Kim Sponem joined us in our virtual studios to discuss her credit union's really cool Global Good Card and how it benefits the World Council of Credit Unions. Really fantastic idea. Check it out and let us know your thoughts.

Futurist Heather McGowan gave the ECUC Conference audience a glimpse into the future of how humans and machines will be working and learning from each other -- not too far off, either. Absolutely loved this talk.

Heather started off her presentatioon asking everybody why we're so tired lately? It's because we are being inundated by more and more information today than ever before -- and it's killing our attention span. In fact, she says a goldfish's attention span is now lasts longer than a human's: 9 seconds for the fish vs. 8 seconds for us. Personally, I blame it all on MTV. (And I'm still wondering how one measures the attention span of a goldfish, but that's another show.)

So we invited Heather into our Studio Lounge to discuss a few of her talk's compelling  and daunting points. For instance, she says that 47% of today's work will be gone in 15 years, today's young generation will be the last to learn how to drive (self-driving cars taking over), the human/machine inflection point will occur in 10 years, and Amazon's five paradigm shifts in 20 years. Then we connect the dots to see how it all affects financial institutions.

What Heather is talking about is mind-blowing -- especially the machines becoming smarter than humans stuff. And what's even more mind blowing is that it's all happening right before our eyes. Check out our chat and let us know your thoughts.

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Holy smokes, USC Credit Union President/CEO Gary Perez just lit a fire under the feet of the entire audience at the ECUC Conference from his presentation: "Virtual is Vital." Gary explained and proved how important a virtual/digital/mobile presence is in today's consumer financial marketplace, sharing a number of telling examples his credit union has experienced the last few years.

One example he provided was his credit union spending $14 million on a shiny new headquarters/branch that 1,000 members use each day but only spending $3 million on a virtual branch that serves 70,000 members. Don't get him wrong -- branches still work, but virtual serves a vastly larger audience and should require a more significant investment to remain relevant in today's changing world of financial services.

But his virtual branch investment has certainly paid off, as 67% of all the credit union's lending is conducted through digital platform. He has even created a unique org chart just for the credit union's virtual branch operations. Thus, proving that "virtual is not our future; it's our present."

Other topics discussed with Gary include:

• Banking disruptor that looks much like a credit union you need to watch -- SoFi ($16 billion in loans funded in last five years)
• Your CIO is now your CLO -- or even your CEO
• Monetizing credit union data

Simply a fantastic talk with Gary -- one you have to watch because change is now and USC Credit Union gets it. If he's speaking anywhere on this topic, go see him. Enjoy -- and let us know your thoughts.

North Jersey Federal Credit Union President/CEO Lourdes Cortez stopped by our Studio Lounge to discuss how the ECUC Conference content has helped her take new ideas back to her credit union to better serve her education industry members. A wonderfully, candid chat from the front lines with Lourdes you have to watch. Enjoy!

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