[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is Brett Wooden, the SVP of Innovation for FTSI. Now, you may have heard me say in the past that I'm drunk on the credit union Kool-Aid, and I love to give that Kool-Aid out to others. Brett is one of those folks who needs no Kool-Aid from me 'cause trust me, he has got plenty of his own.
[00:01:54] He's got a really long-standing passion for the community FI space and a super cool background of things in this space to back it up. Brett's one of those folks who's always building and creating, whether it's working on a new Lego set, building up his kids to be amazing athletes and humans, or building tech for credit unions, innovation is kind of in his blood.
[00:02:17] Josh DeTar: And today's episode is focused on hearing about some of the crazy future Brett sees for our space. Hint, prepare for the AI Meta VR robot digital buzzword world. Brett, thanks for joining me.
[00:02:31] Brett Wooden: Thank you for having me.
[00:02:33] Josh DeTar: You know, it's funny, before we actually hit record, we were talking about kind of a totally separate topic that we'd never even really intended to discuss on the podcast, and then both of us were like, "Wait, we should stop talking about this and we should talk about it on the podcast."
[00:02:48] And so, for our listeners, you know, we are talking about, just the other day, Apple did, you know, the new iOS 16 release and we were talking about the updates that came with that, and Brett and I are both total Apple junkies, we both have a bunch of things in our house set up on, like, the Apple HomeKit.
[00:03:07] And we were just talking about some of the different updates and things that we could do, but also some of the things that we were really wishing for. And what I thought was really interesting was the comment that you made about Amazon purchasing Roomba, and what they purchased the Roomba iRobot company for was for their data of the mapping of everybody's houses
[00:03:30] because those Roombas are going around mapping all the rooms so they know where a wall is and where they need to clean and all of that. So, now Amazon's got all this rich data on what Brett's house layout is like. And he was like, "Yeah, but this is awesome because now maybe they can get to the point where that data can be shared with Apple so that Apple knows that I am in my kitchen based on the map from Roomba and my watch telling it where my geolocation is.
[00:03:57] So, now I don't even have to ask Siri to turn on my lights, she just does it automatically because of my geolocation." And, and kind of my thought process was like, "Oh, that's awesome. I am so willing to give up all of my creepy data so that I don't even have to turn on a light switch anymore."
[00:04:13] Brett Wooden: Yeah, it's serious, and that's, I, I'm sure, and I'm sure Amazon, in their press release of buying Roomba probably didn't say we bought it for the data of your house, you know, they kind of come out and say, "We're trying to get it more into the home automation, home, but the underlying thing is, is, I mean, I can't imagine the hundreds of thousands of customers they have sharing their home mapping and all that fun stuff.
[00:04:37] So, yeah, it's pretty crazy, I mean, I, I am definitely an Apple fanboy. So, I just got my iPhone 14 pro, I got the Apple Watch Ultra, which if you're not familiar with that, you know, anytime Apple calls something ultra, you know you gotta get it, but it's the, you can dive under water, you can, it's, you know, 48 hours of battery life, you know, and not to plug Apple right now, but it is pretty phenomenal,
[00:05:03] the watch itself, there's actually a YouTube video out there of someone using a sledge hammer on it, and they break the table before they actually break the watch, you legit gotta watch it, it's pretty, it's pretty, no, I don't know why there's these people out here that buy, like, in a thousand dollars Apple Watch and then snatch it just to put it on a YouTube video that.
[00:05:25] Josh DeTar: They probably profit on the YouTube video.
[00:05:25] Brett Wooden: Yes, seriously, they probably could buy whatever they want after that, but, but no, and I, I think, you know, what's funny is I literally was just at a conference presenting and they, we talked about the data side of things and AI and, and one of the things that we talked about was, you know, there was a couple CEOs at Razor Hand.
[00:05:43] I was like, "Hey, this data thing is getting outta control, right?" And I just said, "Yeah, but when you get sick, what's the first thing you do?" And a majority of the room, I would say, almost all the room googles, what's wrong with them? I got a cold, I have this weird rash on my arm, right? But so what's happening is they google that I got a rash on my arm,
[00:06:01] they get back all these results. Well, now Google knows that you have a rash or you're sick. And so, it's collecting that data. So, there's really no difference between us telling the truth to Google than it knowing our house. So, you know, for the individuals that are really nervous about all the data that's out there, it's already out there.
[00:06:22] I think that Google gathers any searches we have, it knows, you know, there's just some awesome books out there about all that, but I really feel like that's where it's gonna go where that data from Google, all of our searches, anything we purchase, all that's gonna start funneling into AI, and, you know, AI's gonna know us better than we know ourselves.
[00:06:43] In fact, I would even claim it already does know us better than we know ourselves. And so, when we talked about, earlier, walking into that room and it turns on the lights, it's gonna not only know that, but it's gonna know if I've had a stressful day based on my blood pressure or, you know, heart rate level.
[00:07:01] So, it's gonna put on some soothing music for when I walk into that room after work, you know, it's really, you know, and I, and I feel like the more we spend time at home, the more we automate things, the more we search, the more that artificial intelligence in these things are gonna help us with our mental health and, you know, just making it day to day, so.
[00:07:22] Josh DeTar: You know what's interesting? I feel like we are in an interesting time and bubble where at the same time, I'll make a statement like, you know, "I don't know how I feel about them having all of this data on me and blah, blah, blah," and then in the same turn I'll say, you know, "They have so much data on me.
[00:07:42] Why do I even have to turn on my light? Like, they should know. They should have turned that on for me by now." You know, it's this weird, like, we, we kind of have this expectation that we still wanna maintain some levels of privacy, but we also have these crazy outlandish expectations for convenience now.
[00:08:00] And what's interesting is how those expectations for convenience percolate into so many areas of our lives. And, and, and our world's really interesting, right? Because it's the world of financial institutions and money. And so, that's a really interesting world when you're talking about this balance of security and privacy and convenience.
[00:08:23] Brett Wooden: Yeah, and I think that's what's fascinating to me, like, where I get anxious when you have the, you know, big tech like Google, Apple, Amazon, looking at it, getting into the financial space. I think a lot of it is looking at, you know, like, "Oh, they're gonna have these awesome platforms that, you know, they're gonna know the user experience, the journeys, all that stuff."
[00:08:45] But I think what scares me more is, like, they know our habits so we can sit down and have these amazing financial wellbeing sessions, financial coaches, you know, I mean, the certified financial coaches going through that CUNA program, but somebody can tell you, they're gonna look at you in the face and say, "Oh, I've got a budget, or help me create a budget and I'm gonna stick to it."
[00:09:09] But then, they go to Amazon and they buy like a thousand dollars’ worth of things, where if an Amazon was saying, "Hey, here's your monthly budget, put your paycheck here and we're gonna limit you to what you can purchase based on the budget you want to create, or we'll find you things on your grocery list or these things that match your budget so you can stick to it."
[00:09:29] And all of that is automated, that's not me having to create a budget, go through online or mobile banking, that's Amazon saying, "Brett, your grocery budget is $250 every week, let us do that for you, and it'll show up at your front door and you won't even have to budget anything. We just know that's your budget."
[00:09:48] And I think that's where, like, I think people, we don't see it coming as institutions. Like, we are more in the sense of thinking like, "Oh, it's gonna be on the phone, it's gonna be this." But I think that data piece, they're already using the data to understand our purchasing habits, where we at the institution really, we're like, I feel like financial institutions, you know, like, credit unions in general,
[00:10:10] and I love them to death, like I said, I, I will drink the credit union Kool-Aid, my wife works for a credit union, my daughter works for a credit union, I mean, like, it is in my fam, that's our pillow talk, but I think we are such in a reactive state, like, a great example, if you and I were to go to websites right now of credit unions, you know what we'd be promoting is CDs because we all need deposits and we're all having meetings about how can we market?
[00:10:34] Brett Wooden: It's just reactive. We need deposits. And then, you know, maybe a couple years from now, it's like, "Oh, we need loans, so let's flip all of it." And I think it's like, when are we gonna, as an industry, get into a proactive state where we look at our data, we spend one year of our strategic plan doing nothing other than getting our house in order,
[00:10:53] and getting our data in order, and then starting targeting based on how our members are purchasing and their habits, I think if we did that, the things that we could create and we could do, we could compete, which know that, we are competing, it's just there's gotta be a different mindset. And, you know, one of the things that I've been toying with is writing a book around the mindset of, there's two type of institutions out there right now.
[00:11:17] There's the futuristic where they, there's so much coming at 'em, the data, all the tech, they're embracing it, researching it, and looking at how can we evolve this. And then, you've got the future shock organizations and that's where all this stuff is moving faster than they can process, so they start going into this reactive, defensive
[00:11:43] "We're gonna still keep building branches as many as we can, as fast as we can." And so, I think you've gotta find, like, we talked about, is that balance between the two, but, you know, having individuals in your organization that are futuristic, but then also have a couple that might be in that future shock mindset just to keep, you know, things grounded a little bit, but.
[00:12:04] Josh DeTar: Yeah, you know, you, you bring up two topics that have been discussed quite a bit on the podcast, and I think it's, it is because like you say, it's, it's really quintessential to the pivot that our industry, I think, personally needs to make, right? And it's around data and it's around marketing. We've had lots of conversations with folks who are like, "Man, same thing,
[00:12:24] community FI space, love you to death." Gosh dang, you gotta get your marketing house in order, like, you guys can't just keep going, "Hey, we have credit cards. Do you know we have credit cards? We have credit cards." And, you know, it's, you look at, when I go shopping on Amazon, Amazon tells me, you know, "People like you also purchase this.
[00:12:45] People who bought this also bought this. Hey, here's another way to buy this." And they're doing all of that based on data, right? But if you look at, I don't know, you know, pick a, a small credit union in the Midwest as 7,000 members, I'm sorry, but you don't have enough data to do that. You don't have a big enough pool, right?
[00:13:10] So, being able to make those really intelligent decisions based on data is hard when your sample size of data is extremely small. So, how does our industry start to get better about understanding how to use data, use the data they have, get other data to be able to act like these big tech companies?
[00:13:31] Brett Wooden: Yeah, I think it's hiring highly intelligent humans, I mean, that's the, what I've seen is you've got these individuals that just think differently, but I think even starting on simple things that would differentiate you. So, I mean, looking, you know, looking at a transaction server within a credit union, looking at what are your categories of purchases by your members and, you know, seeing, okay, groceries will probably be up there, gas will probably be up there.
[00:14:00] But then, seeing what are the other ones, is it McDonald's, is it Amazon? Like, thinking, like, even one little task of like, how many of these dividend credit cards are linked to Amazon, Apple, right? I mean, like, think of the amount of money, I mean, I can tell you just in my household alone, we're probably spending right around 500 bucks a month just in, like, Apple purchases and Amazon purchases. I would even venture to say more, I just, that's more for myself, you know?
[00:14:29] Josh DeTar: So, the guy wearing the Apple Watch Ultra.
[00:14:31] Brett Wooden: Right, exactly, yeah. So, that was actually, yeah, that was my monthly budget for two months. But, but I think, like, that's, it's just knowing your data. I think also looking at things, like, one of my passions lately has really been in the, the CDFI space, the on and under bank space for credit unions and their communities,
[00:14:50] and gosh, there's a gentleman, his name is MJ, he no longer works in the financial space, but one of the things that they did at their credit union, they did two things. One, they looked at the data of their highest overdraft offenders, and then they took that, and then they took the top 15, and then they went, reached out to those members, and said, "We will give you half of your money back in a CD if you go through our financial wellbeing program."
[00:15:16] Brett Wooden: And one of 'em had $15,000 in one year in over drafting, I mean, that's a car for an, an individual that's, yeah. And so, but something that genius. Then he also created a program that they would refinance any payday loans that members had for their lower rate, no questions asked, they wouldn't pull credit, they wouldn't do any of that stuff.
[00:15:40] They would refinance it, and then every financial wellbeing class they took, whether it's with their credit union or any out, outside one, they would knock off 0.25 off their interest rate. And so, I mean, it's just like they're utilizing their data to create these unique products, and I really think that that's what that big tech does.
[00:16:01] They look at, like, the Apple Watch was created because of the iPod Nano that they found that all these people were buying the iPod Nano, and then buying those watch bands and hooking the Nano to that. And then, someone created a watch face for the iPod Nano, well, they, you know, it was like, "Whoa, our, you know, consumers are doing this."
[00:16:19] Brett Wooden: And I think it's the same thing, it's like, looking what are our members doing? They do really, it's like our internal staff, too. I always found that, you know a process is broken when you have staff members that have created this amazing, unique way of doing it. There's a lot of examples to that, but it's, like, they've got seven different screens and they're finding unique ways of copying and pasting from Excel Spreadsheets and all that.
[00:16:45] So, I think, you know, again, my recommendation was is how is part of your strategic plan, whether it's, you know, three years, five years, ten years, is having one of those years where you only focus internal, it's really tough because there's all these new shiny objects, you know, and features and things that you can offer your members,
[00:17:05] but I think we've gotta get our data and our processes and procedures in order for us to compete 'cause if we don't, we're gonna get in that reactive state of, "Oh my gosh, we need to do this and it's too late." And, I mean, there's a lot of industries out there that we could give examples of, like the music industry is a prime example.
[00:17:25] I always point to Toys "R" Us, like Toys "R" Us has this really cool webpage that shows the rise and fall of Toys "R" Us, and you see their timeline and you can literally look at moments in that of, go, "Oh my gosh, that's the credit union industry." And so, I'm not saying it's going away, but you just gotta, like, know our patterns of what happens before the fall.
[00:17:45] And I think that, you know, again, the credit unions are gonna do really well, the ones that know their members truly and how they interact, and like you said, they're using other members to promote their products, you know, there's just some really cool stuff I've seen by credit unions out there that do that, but, yeah, I could, we could spend all day on that, the data.
[00:18:07] Josh DeTar: Well, you, you made an interesting comment that I want to go back to, which is that, you know, yeah, you may have a small subset of data, right? But you still have a lot of data and you still have a lot of valuable insights, and what ultimately will be the, the difference maker is the person who actually has the business case sense or the logic behind what are we actually looking for in the data, right? Because at the end of the day, the program that is created, the technology that's created, the algorithm that is written is only as good as the human behind it, right? And so, if you've got somebody on staff who has the wherewithal to think, "Hey, you know what? One of the things we could look for in our data is let's go look at our top over drafters." But somebody has to start that conversation.
[00:19:00] Brett Wooden: Correct. Yeah. Yeah. You've gotta have somebody, you know, that, having time to think outside the box and the challenge, so, I guess this can kind of pivot to the whole AI conversation too, is that, right now we're the great reset, the great resignation, quiet quitting, you know, all of these things,
[00:19:20] like I, I've read articles where people, you know, are like going against quiet quitting, they're going against the great resignation and, you know, there's positive, negative articles you hear, but I think within the financial space, if you were to, just from what, I've done research so my search, I always do Google keyword searches,
[00:19:37] I always like to see, I'm pulling about 400 credit unions now on their, their job postings, and I'm not looking for a job, I'm literally just, I wanna see trends of what are the positions that are open, how many per credit union. So, the average credit union has 16 open FTE in their retail space. So, that's all, I mean, that's a lot.
[00:20:00] Like, so if you think about the stress level that your call centers are experiencing, your retail branches, if you have those, there's just this huge onset. So, one of the beliefs is, is that AI will be able to help this problem, the great resignation, where if you create automations, if you look at your data, if you create proactive products, like, someone calls into the call center and wants to, to talk with somebody about an auto loan, having an appointment scheduling system, having, when the appointment is scheduled, having it prompt for that newer employee procedures on how to do a loan through their LOS system, you know, so they're not reaching and calling their coworker and saying, "Can you come over and help here and help me?"
[00:20:45] Or what happens is they call their manager for support, their manager's slammed and busy, so then they start trashing their manager because their manager's not available and busy, they're never around, right, we know the story. And so, I think with the AI, if you can create it internally where it's showing the individual as they search in their internet, "Here's how you open accounts.
[00:21:06] Here's a step by step. Here's a video." So, when they're on the phone with that member, they can be proactive or at even stages appointments that says, "Hey, me, Mr. or Mrs. member, when you come to this appointment, here's what we need, your VIN number, we need these things." So, that way when they get on the call, they're being proactive.
[00:21:23] It's just a better all around, which will shorten the time that's needing to spend them more on the transaction. And then, after the calls, then they have that free time, like you said, to go and do these really cool things of looking at overdrafts and looking at, you know, what's the average remote deposit capture that the organization is taking,
[00:21:45] you know, just really cool stuff, but I think AI can really help with that, it's, I don't think AI is a scary thing, I think when we talk about AI, everybody thinks chatbots, but I think we can create some really cool stuff internally that frees up our employees’ time and reduces a lot of that stress level from being shorts staffed.
[00:22:03] Josh DeTar: I, as you're talking about that, I sing it back. I remember a couple of years ago, it was when we first launched voice banking on Amazon Smart Speakers as a part of digital banking. And I remember walking into, I won't name any names, but you know who they are, a fairly large credit union in our area, to do a demo that I had scheduled with them.
[00:22:26] And I was carrying an Amazon Alexa, and as I was just sitting in the lobby waiting to be, you know, taken back into the meeting room, one of the tellers came up to me and was asking me about this Amazon Alexa. And so, I was telling him about it and what we do, and I watched the look come over his face and he just kind of went pale, and he looks at me and he goes, "So, that thing's gonna take my job, huh?"
[00:22:53] Josh DeTar: And I was like, "No." I was like, "Hang on, let me ask you a question." I was like, "How many times a day do you have a conversation with a member where they just want to know what their checking account balance is?" And he goes, "Oh my gosh, so much."
[00:23:06] I was like, "Okay, cool. Do you enjoy having that conversation?" He's like, "No, it's so annoying. There's so many ways that they could check their balance." He's like, "I'd rather have other conversations with them." And I was like, "Bingo." That's what tech is trying to solve, like tech's trying to get rid of the annoying stuff, the simple stuff, like how cool would it be if that member was just cooking dinner in their kitchen and asked Alexa, "Hey, what's my checking account balance?"
[00:23:32] "Oh, cool. Gotcha." Huh. Well, that's good to know, you know, we were thinking about remodeling this kitchen, I don't know if we can afford that, you know, thanks, thanks, Alexa. And then, Alexa passes that back to you and you get to call that member, and be like, "Hey, you know, we can actually approve you for a HELOCK and we can help you,
[00:23:52] let's get that kitchen remodeled asap." And would that be a way more fun conversation? And he was like, "Yeah." I was like, "Cool." That's what we're trying to solve here.
[00:24:02] Brett Wooden: Yeah, and there is key moments, like, I think in our industry, I think Covid, it's, it's really funny. So, this is, I'll tell you my firm belief of, like, like the whole, really, we look at the Covid, my family. So, we always ask people when we kind of get together with them now that, you know, we're, you know, kind of getting through the Covid stuff, and we always ask them, "What is the best thing that you took away from Covid,
[00:24:26] the whole, when we lock down?" We never go through the negative of being stuck at home with two kids and all that, we say, "What did, how, what did you do to grow during that period?" And typically, it was just a family time that we had, you know, bike rides, walking outside, like, I mean, it was just kind of crazy that, like, it took us for, it took us a year of shutdown for us to dust off our bikes and go on a bike ride as a family.
[00:24:49] But I think Covid for a lot of businesses was the opportunity to start integrating some of this stuff was people, it's kind of like that adapt and cope philosophy that you had to adapt and cope, right? You had to shut down branches, you had to go to drive-thru, you had to up your mobile bank, you had to get your employees remote,
[00:25:13] and I think we all survived, but I think keep riding that wave, people are a, are used to adapting and coping now with all, everything happening. And so, I think now, really looking at, like, the AI that you're talking about and these things, humans are used to it now, they're adapting to it, they pull up in a driving spot and they
[00:25:34] Brett Wooden: talk to their phone and the groceries come out and, you know, they get 'em delivered to their home, I mean, in, then, I would've, you know, it's crazy, you think about someone will order McDonald's on Uber Eats, a 6,99 or 8,99 meal, and have that delivered to their house. The fee is more than the food. And then, how is that cost effective for somebody to drive when gas prices are $5 a, you know, a gallon,
[00:26:00] it's just, but the convenience, like you said, people want that digital experience, and if they, like, I literally, that the enemy was the scariest thing in my, as I was doing a planning session last Friday and I had to take a Uber from Oakland Airport to Walnut Creek, California, and the driver and I were talking, I always love to talk to drivers and ask them their story,
[00:26:24] like, what's the worst driver you've ever had? What's the best one? And then, so I asked him about what's your favorite sport team? And he couldn't remember the quarterback's name. So, we're literally driving and he picks up his phone and he says, "Google, tell me the starting quarterback for the Colts, Indianapolis Colts."
[00:26:43] And he's driving like 80 miles an hour, you know, on the freeway, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, like, if people are doing that, like, trust me, they're gonna have no problem asking what their balance is to Alexa, right?" If they're gonna be asking, and I've literally had every Uber driver do this, they ask directions that way,
[00:27:01] they don't plug it in anymore, they ask Google, and I really think that's where it's, AI will evolve and I, you know, going future, way down in the future, and I don't, when I say future, I mean, I have to think five years or less, but there is gonna come a point where you're gonna call into a call center and you won't know if you're talking to an AI or a human.
[00:27:21] And then, where it's gonna get interesting, where the future shot comes into play is if that member has a bad experience, who do you hold accountable for that? And that's no different, like, future shock is when, you know, tech is moving faster than government or policies and procedures or compliance. So, that's where it's gonna be really fascinating
[00:27:40] where if, you know, let's say they, AI misheard the member, or the member was going against AI, who's gonna, who's gonna own that, you know? So, I think you'll see even, like, you'll have to have, like, you know, miscellaneous budget for mistakes of essentially AI. It's kinda like the whole Tesla thing, and, but I think the thing that's really cool with AI is this,
[00:28:05] now AI can self, it can learn and then relearn. And so, like a Tesla, I mean I thought this was the coolest thing. So, someone was driving a Tesla to our house and they did the self-drive mode and I have a really nasty turn, like, right by my house, and they went too fast and almost peeled out, um, and then they pulled, it was pretty crazy, and almost went in the ditch.
[00:28:27] But then they pulled up in front of my house, and they were saying, "Oh yeah, you know what's so cool, Brett? Is the system, I was watching it update itself. And so, it updates that in the future it'll go around that corner 10 miles an hour slower, but it only, not only is it programming itself, but it's programming all the other Teslas that will ever take that road." And so, think about, like, if someone created just this amazing AI software for a call center that's like almost like a human. If it didn't know something or it had to be corrected, it would correct the software at all the call centers and all the credit unions if they were using that, I mean, that's what's so cool to me as like this, you know, essentially relearning, recoding itself, which, you know, essentially is long term, is Skynet Terminator stuff, but I do. No, that's what's so crazy about all of this, right? Is like when we talk about these types of topics, it's both exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time, I'm like, oh my gosh, that is so amazing that this, you know, Tesla is getting so good at understanding your road, and then, you know, sending that out to all the other Teslas, eventually that Tesla is gonna be better at going around that corner than I could.
[00:29:43] Josh DeTar: And I'm a car guy and I love bracing cars, and so that's gonna really torque me when Tesla is able to use software to figure out how to go around that corner faster and safer than I can, and I'm like, "Man, got beat by the AI." You know, but we're gonna get to the point, we're already to that point in a lot of places.
[00:30:03] Brett Wooden: Okay. So, this is one of my favorite topics. So, I have a group of individuals, so we kind of have our, like it's just my friend group, we all went to school together, we've been friends forever. So, two of 'em are developers, one's a designer, and we always like, just try new things, it's kind of like our side hobby of just, like, what's the cool thing?
[00:30:22] Like, how can we create the shovel and the pan in the gold rush? And one of the things we really are diving into is this AI art, I don't know if you're familiar with all the stuff happening with AI art, but my friend created a computer, it's like a, I mean, I don't even know how much he spent, probably, like, 20, 25,000 on it, but it, it literally, you can type in.
[00:30:43] So, Midjourney is another form of software that's out there, but you can type in information. So, like, I want a sunset, a vibrant sunset at, on the Oregon Coast, and then I want it to look like a Vincent Van Gogh painting, and you hit enter and in eight seconds it gives you 1000 variants of what you said,
[00:31:02] and it's pulling all of these images. So, if you haven't looked at this, it is phenomenal. So, it's Midjourney as for those out there, Midjourney, check it out, it is epic, it is all AI art, it is not humans, we're just telling the AI what to create for us. So, an individual went to a state fair, and of course, you know, state fairs are really well known for their art, you know, shows and that.
[00:31:29] And then they give first prize, first prize at this one art fair, it's, it's made national press. One first prized with AI. So, the gentleman submitted what he created with AI and now the art community is up in arms, and it's like, "What's gonna happen to the art industry with this?" Like, if you think about, I could literally go to Midjourney and say something I want created, and it would paint it or do it in eight seconds, where if I were to go to an artist or a graphic designer, I mean, it could take them, like, you know, a week in some instances, or more.
[00:31:59] And so, that's been stuff we've been playing with is, like, where is this gonna go? What is it gonna do? A lot of it relates to the Metaverse. So, you're creating digital art that can be displayed and made into NFTs, you know, put in art galleries in the Metaverse, but how is that going to grow? So, you look at, okay, that's just art.
[00:32:17] Brett Wooden: What would happen if we used that same algorithm and said, "Okay, we're gonna start writing articles for people, so all Brett has to do is just say a couple ideas that he has for an article, and then AI's gonna pull all from all the stuff on the web, and make an, a unique article." And going back to the AI art, none of those variants are ever the same.
[00:32:38] They're all different. You could literally copy and paste my same, like, content and it will produce a random different image. And so, you look at, like, other fields, like writing, video, movies, like you could do the same thing with AI and it could make a movie, it could make articles. And so, how, where I think financial institutions for this is gonna impact is I could literally go into mobile or online banking and say, "This is what I want.
[00:33:07] My, my dream is, is to have a hundred thousand dollars by the time that I'm 40." And then the AI, the algorithms will take all of my data within online and mobile banking, my transactions, you can link your Amazon, any purchase history that you have, and then it's gonna spit out and say, "Okay, Brett, here's what we put in place for you.
[00:33:29] You'll have a hundred thousand dollars by your 40 in a savings account because we're going to automatically do that for you." I mean, that's where it's just like using, I think that's what scary is you're seeing all these algorithms being created with AI that in our industry, you, they can be huge disruptors because they can, they can make advice for, I need a financial planner,
[00:33:49] when you could have AI do it for you, which will probably be more accurate 'cause it can look farther back. The more data it has, the smarter it is. And so, that's really where, you know, if we talk about five years from now, that's really where you're, I, you know, I just believe that's where you're gonna see, you know, people are gonna be typing what they're feeling.
[00:34:09] 'Cause the other thing is, like, people won't, don't, people don't, there's a book out there that I like always reference, but it's "Everybody Lies" and people lie, like if you ask somebody, when I was a loan officer, one of my favorite things is you ask what, what do you think your credit score is? And they'll always be like, "Oh, it's 800, it's 800.
[00:34:28] I have great." And then, of course, we all know, people are like, "It's 650, 700." Oh, did you not, did you know you charged, lost your track, right? Where they don't lie to AI, they don't, it's like you, you get up in the middle of the night, you feel that a stiff neck, you're gonna Google search it, and you've got to tell Google exactly what you're looking for over your symptoms.
[00:34:49] But if you go into your doctor, and they say, "How did you get this?" You're not gonna say, "Hey, the reason why I got a stiff neck is because I'm playing basketball when I'm not supposed to." You're gonna say, "I don't know, I just woke up with it." You know, it's, the other, my friends and I always joke, when you go in for your physical, I'm in my forties.
[00:35:06] So, when you go in for your physical, they ask you all the questions, like, "Do you smoke? Do you drink? How much do you drink?" All that, and all our friends are like, "Do you ever tell your doctor how many alcoholic beverages you have a week? Do you? Do you really tell them like, 'Oh yeah, I, I'm an occasional drinker,
[00:35:22] I have one.'" You know, it's like, I have friends that, you know, they go to duck games and, you know, they partake in, but they'll tell their doctor, "Oh no, I probably have like one a week." You know, so it's like, but they'll search it, "Is drinking eight alcoholic beverages a week bad for you?" They tell, you know what I mean? So, that's where I really believe.
[00:35:40] Josh DeTar: I definitely don't tell my doctor how much coffee I really drink.
[00:35:42] Brett Wooden: The coffee is, yeah, so.
[00:35:44] Josh DeTar: Oh, yeah.
[00:35:44] Brett Wooden: I should have used.
[00:35:45] Josh DeTar: You have a cup a day? Absolutely. I have a cup a day. The cup is a gallon, but I have.
[00:35:50] Brett Wooden: Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's funny 'cause it's, it's just the whole, you know, in this book, I, you know, for those of you that you are interested in kind of that whole study, there's a gentleman that wrote a book about that study, it is very, I, you know, disclaimer, there are some risqué things in there of Google searches,
[00:36:08] so I do apologize if you get offended by any of it 'cause it's, it's just data that they pull, and he got access to a lot of data at specific companies, to prove proof points, so, but yeah, it's.
[00:36:23] Josh DeTar: I mean, that kind of goes back to what we started with talking about, right? Is that it's interesting this, you know, we are our generation and by our generation, I mean, kind of anybody alive right now, right, is in a very different world than years past where we didn't have these dilemmas before, and now we're in this world where there is so much access to data and our private
[00:36:49] thoughts and searches and conversations and, but we really want the convenience that's coming out of it, and it's really this back-and-forth tug in so many different areas of our lives. I don't know, it's an interesting one.
[00:37:04] Brett Wooden: Yeah, I think that's scary, like, the one thing that you always kind of think about, it's like, what would happen if there was like the big hack and everybody's data was published, their searches, what they buy on Amazon, what they search on Google, how they use, you know, like, their phones, how they, you know, like, what would happen,
[00:37:28] like, I, I mean I know it's a, such a scary thought, but I, I think it was like, would people be okay with that or would there be like a, this big panic or, you know, that's what's interesting it's, I don't know, 'cause there is a lot out there.
[00:37:44] Josh DeTar: Yeah. I think there's a lot to the human element of that in that, like you were saying, like, you know, people don't lie to Google, right? They type in exactly what they're gonna say. We have this weird comfort level of sharing those kinds of things when we think that what's on the other end is a computer, right?
[00:38:01] Because the computer, in a sense, is judging us, right? And it's creating its profile of who we are, based on what we're searching, but it's not judging us, like, you know, if I told you I spend a thousand dollars a month on unique crocs or something, right? You'd probably judge me and be like, really, dude?
[00:38:24] Brett Wooden: Right, yeah, I know, it's,
[00:38:25] Josh DeTar: Here at Cole, yeah, like, we may never talk again, but that's cool, you know, but I would be totally fine sharing that with Google, I'd be, like, googling more crocs,
[00:38:33] baby, like, hit me up. You know, and so, it's, it's kind of the same thing with when, you know, going back to just like the voice banking example, right?
[00:38:43] Like, people seem to be fine with when they were thinking, "Okay, I'm sharing my data with just, you know, my digital banking provider." But as soon as they were like, "Wait, is Jeff Bezos gonna hear what I'm asking her? My account balances?" Like, I mean, probably, you know what? If he really wanted to, he probably could.
[00:39:02] Yes. But does he really care? But it was as soon as it was a human that was gonna hear it, that people got concerned, when it's just a machine they're like, ah, it's just a machine, it is what it is.
[00:39:14] Brett Wooden: Well, yeah, and gosh, it's just fascinating stuff and I think, you know, one, here's my, I, I'll tell you, here's my hope is that as credit unions we figure out the data thing, we figure out the AI thing, and there'll be a credit union in the next year that announces that, then there might have been this already,
[00:39:34] I don't, I haven't heard it, but I mean, I can tell you, if, let's say that I just, figuratively speaking, became a CEO at a credit union, my first goal would be to create, create the four-hour work week. I mean, I just literally, 'cause you have a war on talent, you have all the great resignation, the quiet quitting, is create this unique
[00:39:54] credit union where you have a four-hour work week and the other three days are the, really looking at the, you know, digital side of things that AI can manage the three days, and then you've got, like, this really happy employee set, you know, that, you know, they're, they're working for four days, they can, you know, take their mental health, you know, 'cause I don't know, I just feel like since Covid you've got this big stress on this reactive and constantly in this state of mind where it's like, we've gotta get all these projects done, we've gotta get this, we've gotta get caught up and I don't know, or even you take that Friday and just make it a creative day where you can do things, you know, within your organization that move it forward.
[00:40:39] Josh DeTar: Yeah. I don't think this is any shock to anybody, right, but, I mean, Covid really, I mean, it changed a lot of things, it really did, it had major impacts that I think are gonna be forever impacts, and to your exact point, you know, I see that in my own life, right? I feel like I'm busier than I've ever been.
[00:40:56] I feel like I'm more stressed out about getting things done than I've ever been because there's this push to make sure we're on top of things and, you know, uncertainty of life and job security and yada yada yada. But also, it made me realize how much I wanna step away from those things and how much dusting the bikes off and just getting out and spending time with family, and those things were important.
[00:41:22] So, it's this weird balancing act between those two, as well. And, you know, I think you also see that, you know, there were a lot of shifts that happened during that time period and, you know, when you were talking about it earlier, I, I know I've used this reference before, but, you know, my neighbor works for Rivermark Credit Union.
[00:41:41] Brett Wooden: Oh, yeah.
[00:41:41] Josh DeTar: And I remember talking to one of their folks early in the pandemic and he made a comment to me, and he goes, "Yeah, we had this digital initiative that had been on our strategic vision for like the last two years or something," and he said, "Every time we got around to doing it, well, HR won't allow it.
[00:42:03] Okay, well finally HR's on board. Oh, well, now IT won't. Okay, well, now IT's on board. Well, now operations is saying it'll take six months." And he said, "It just took forever." Covid hit, and they all said, "Oh my gosh, we need this thing." And they did it in a week.
[00:42:19] Brett Wooden: Right. Yeah. That's like, the remote work.
[00:42:20] Josh DeTar: And he was like, "So, a lot of us sat around and we were like, 'Ah, crud.' So, that thing we dragged out for two years, we could have been done with two years ago, and done it in a week, two years ago." And he said, "You know, they really took that as a learning to say, 'How can we make sure that we apply that learning like the Tesla, how can we apply that to other things and later down the road, so that we don't hit that corner too fast again, right?
[00:42:46] Or we don't take too long next time and we actually just jump in and get it done.'" And so, I think there's gonna be a lot of changes in how businesses do things and look at, you know, can this be done faster? Does this even need to be done? But it's also coupled with these new expectations that consumers have.
[00:43:06] And this again kind of goes back to this whole theme we've been talking about is, you know, like you're saying, like, I have the expectation now that if I really don't want to get my butt off my couch, I can use Uber Eats to go get me some McDonald's, you know? And, and we're like, how did, okay, so my wife and I just got back from vacation.
[00:43:25] We got home, we were supposed to come home Saturday, and we just couldn't bear to be done with vacation, so we extended it one more day. And so, we came home on Sunday knowing fully well what we were doing to ourselves, right? It meant that we were gonna get home at 11:30 at night, Sunday night, and then have to start the work week on Monday, and all the things that come with it.
[00:43:45] So, Monday, you know, comes, hits us like a truck, and we're like, "Oh gosh, all the things we need, we needed to unpack, we need to go grocery shopping." So, what did my wife do? She Instacarted Costco.
[00:43:57] Brett Wooden: Yep. Oh, yeah.
[00:43:58] Josh DeTar: Costco just shows up on our front door, and I, I'm, remember making the, I was like, "How did we live before Instacarting Costco?
[00:44:05] Like, this is awesome." So, but my point with all of that is that's my expectation, right? If you go back five years ago, I'm sure no one at Costco would've said, "Hey, we're gonna allow a, you know, gig economy to do delivery of Costco orders direct to people's homes." But now, that's my expectation.
[00:44:28] Like, I will forever expect that I can Instacart a Costco order, and now I'm even wondering, you know, how can it get even better? How could Costco have known that I needed a bag of frozen chicken,
[00:44:39] Brett Wooden: Yeah.
[00:44:40] Josh DeTar: and had it for me when I got home Sunday night? So, I didn't even have to place the order Monday morning and be stressed about it.
[00:44:46] Like, that's this weird world of evolution of expectations that then are met by delivery of those expectations by businesses and then sets the new standard for what my new expectation is gonna be, and it's just this ever-evolving cycle.
[00:45:01] Brett Wooden: Well, again, why not? Like, okay, so going, like, piggybacking right on that, so how can that correlate to a credit union, you know, your members' habits of how often they, like, we have a neighbor, like, every six months they get a new car, they're not leasing it, they just kind of, I don't know what it is,
[00:45:21] we kind of make fun of 'em a little bit, and they, so long story short, so it's like, if you know that habit, why not every six months hit them with a, like, text message or something, and they log into mobile saying, tap here, we know you typically get a new vehicle during this phase, here is six vehicles that match your profile
[00:45:43] Brett Wooden: and because of this, we've looked at all individuals that are your same demographic, all that stuff, and here's the typical vehicles they purchase to. I mean, like, it would be so easy to do that, and that's just like the
[00:45:56] Josh DeTar: Well, and even, like, and here we've looked at the national averages, here's what people have been paying, we've found six local dealers that'd be willing to match that, and we've already got a pre-approval letter for you, literally just tell us which one of these dealerships you want it from, and we'll get it coming and we'll pay 'em. Like, I don't know, I mean, but how far do we really wanna take on this.
[00:46:17] Brett Wooden: Right. But I, but I said, I think that you, we've gotta think differently, I, I think it's amazing, like, like in, you know, like, we all experience these institutions the same pain, right? I mean, we need something like growth in loans or growth in deposits. And so, we do the same, we'll get together, we'll have our IT team, or if we're lucky enough to have an analyst, we'll have them pull a lead list for us, and then we do an email blast,
[00:46:46] or we do the banner ad front and center. Like, there's nothing like, I mean, like, I really want to see just this evolve, you know, utilizing different tact, I mean, this, anybody, you know, If you're listening to this, one of, one of the favorite things I always love to ask people is if you have an iPhone, you can also do this on your Google Pixel or your Samsung, but go into settings and click on screen time, or tap on screen time, and really look at your, like, how often do you spend on your phone?
[00:47:17] Brett Wooden: Like, at a conference I was at, I did this when I was speaking, and the average was like six hours a day people are spending on their phone, right? I mean, like, that's a good chunk of time that they're spending on their phone. Why are we not marketing on this? Like, why are we not taking advantage of all, like, the cool stuff that Apple offers in the app stores and then, you know, searches within that platform and stuff?
[00:47:40] I mean, that's where people are at, like, I mean, yeah, they go to your websites and stuff, but, you know, go to where people are at. That's, I just, I'm really excited this stuff is going to evolve and there's gonna be some really cool stuff we're gonna be reading and seeing that credit unions are doing, and you're like, "Yes, that's exactly what we were talking about,
[00:47:58] go down that path, spend money there." You know, you have these amazing marketing budgets and try things and, you know, one of my favorite ones I got, I got in a conversation with somebody, and they said, "What would be a unique marketing tactic that you would try and do?" And back in my banker days, I'm not gonna say when I worked what bank I worked at, but I was a personal banker,
[00:48:22] and I remember we were really spec, specific on cross sale, you're gonna guess really which financial institution this is, and we had to do a certain amount of core solutions per day, and when a couple would come in and say they were getting a divorce, it's horrible, right? But for me as a banker, I'm like, this is amazing,
[00:48:41] they're gonna close their joint account, and then they're gonna open two separate ones. So, I'm gonna get all this core, I'm gonna get a new auto loan for each of 'em, like, it's like, we used to talk about it privately, like, this is just awesome for us, you know? And so, what I would do is look at Facebook, and we know trends on Facebook.
[00:49:00] So, Facebook is definitely, photos are a false sense of reality, but you do can see trends that if all of a sudden you see that a significant other disappears on Facebook, you know, there's, you can actually do ads around that, you can do ads if kids start showing up more in the photos, there's the likelihood, there's like highly percentages that are getting divorced.
[00:49:21] So, if you were a financial institution, you could start marketing to those individual specific products based on when couples divorce what they get, this is pretty extreme, but it's like an example of what, what these social media and things can do. You can literally go in there and do ads for this specific stuff.
[00:49:40] Josh DeTar: In Gmail you can look for keywords in people's gmails and put ads or emails within that. It's just crazy, so. Well, and going back, I mean, there's kind of this mild to wild, right, of, you know, we've been talking about some of the crazy future leaning stuff and you know, you've referenced Metaverse a few times. So, what we're not necessarily telling, you know, credit unions is, you know, you need to go build a branch in the Metaverse, and you need to staff the Metaverse and you need to use, you know, AI to create artwork that incentivizes better financial management and reward them with NFTs.
[00:50:23] Like, insert all butters, where it's like, you don't need to do all of that, right? We can still crawl, walk, run. And I think a lot of times we see our industry gets like what you were talking about earlier, right? It's kind of that future shock and they get paralyzed by the fear of, oh gosh, the Metaverse.
[00:50:39] Like, is that just a gimmick? Do we need to do anything? And you're like, "Hey, yes, we should be talking about that. Yes, we should be thinking about that." But also, there's a ton of low hanging fruit that you're just not doing today, right? I mean, again, you were just talking about it, right? Facebook, do you know why Facebook is worth so much money? Advertising. Because they have a phenomenal advertising program where you can go in and you can be ridiculously selective about who you market to. So, you can be very, very precise in putting the right messaging in front of the right people, but this goes all the way back to what we were talking about of you gotta have somebody on staff to say, "Hey, you know what?
[00:51:27] We have this product or this business case, if we do this type of filtering and mining and this type of messaging to this group of people, we can continue to be who we say we are, which is a community financial institution rooted in the financial health and wellness and wellbeing of our community."
[00:51:48] Right. And I don't know, you know, again, this is one of those things that I feel like I, I probably talk about too much on this podcast, but it's like, who would I rather have being creepy about my data? Apple or my credit union?
[00:52:03] Brett Wooden: Right. Yeah.
[00:52:06] Josh DeTar: One of those wants to make a ton of money, and one of those wants to see me make a ton of money.
[00:52:13] Brett Wooden: I know, that's what's so fascinating. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. I recently did the 23andMe thing. I don't know if you've ever done the ancestry.com or any of
[00:52:23] Josh DeTar: My wife has been begging me to do it. I haven't done it.
[00:52:25] Brett Wooden: Oh man, it is like mind blowing. I, I think the thing, and it, you know, you, you can't get any creepier than, like, it, it literally came back and tells me everything, like, the health side of, like, likelihood of having x you know, dementia, balding, back hair, dimples, like, and it's spot on.
[00:52:47] It is so trippy, and I, you know, the thing that I started thinking about is like, how cool would it be if we, I don't, see, this is where I'm a credit union nerd. I literally look at an app like that and go, "Oh my gosh, how can I take something like this and make it into financial wellbeing where someone gives you their, all their data and then you can come back and make all these predictions based on what you're getting,
[00:53:11] I mean, it's not as intense as your DNA, but which I might add that it came back and said that my muscular build is that of a, a power athlete, which I was like, I showed my wife immediately after that, I was like, "You're married to a power athlete." So, it's like, which pretty much consists of me like, I don't know, shooting outside basketball, you know, shooting hoops,
[00:53:35] but that's about it. But, but I think, like, you know, kinda just getting back to that, I, I just feel like there's some really, like, if we started looking at other apps out there that, and what other companies are doing, we could create, we can, let's be the music artists that are copying the eighties music and bringing it in today.
[00:53:54] You know, like, there's a really cool song out there right now that Elton John and, I can't remember the other artist, but she like remixed his album, or one of his songs, and I think, like, that's what we should do, we should look at the some of the top apps that are making, you know, getting a lot of, like, publicity and users and say, "How can we make this into our space?"
[00:54:13] So, that I, you know, that piece, you mentioned the Metaverse. I am big on, you know, I would love someday to be a part of something where we're creating financial education for kids in the Metaverse, I mean, Covid co, I mean, they already were playing in the Metaverse, but you look at Minecraft roadblocks, 40% of all users in
[00:54:37] roadblocks are between the ages of 13 and 16. And then, there also is, I mean, I think there's, what, it was like, 487,000 users logged into roadblocks, at any given time, you know, there's, I, gosh, there's just so many amazing numbers when it comes to this, and it's like, if we create it in these environments, these are digital worlds where kids create their avatars,
[00:55:01] they job interview, they build houses, they learn, but there's no financial institution, there's no one giving them, they get a paycheck, but it goes in this upper account, but it would be so cool, they could be a teller in this world, they could be a call center agent, they could, you know, go into a credit union.
[00:55:18] There's just so many cool things you could do in, like, roadblocks, or even in Minecraft, you know, I would just love, like, that's like a, a bucket lit, list item is, you know, 'cause that's where our kids are at, honestly, and that's what's coming. I think what's scary is you look at that 40%, they're doing that every day.
[00:55:36] They're accustomed to that as that's their play dates. Now, they FaceTime with their friends and they do that. That's what our future members are gonna expect, so.
[00:55:47] Josh DeTar: Yep. A hundred percent. Well, and that brings up a good point too, that, you know, we don't necessarily have to invent the idea, right? We can piggyback off of, okay, there's these super successful tech companies that are doing these things, people are responding really well to that. So, why don't I just
[00:56:08] replicate some of that at our credit union or partner with it. And I think that goes back to just being open and receptive to technology, you know, I, I recently had somebody on the podcast, and I'm just kicking myself, like, I'm so terrible, I cannot remember who made this comment, but they were just talking about, well, it was George Estrada from AWS actually,
[00:56:31] Brett Wooden: Oh, nice, nice.
[00:56:32] Josh DeTar: and he was talking about one of the things he talks to credit unions about is, like, raising your executive teams technology IQ, and just making them aware of what is out there, what's available, what's risky, what's not, and, you know, doing the same with your executive team and your board and educating them on that so that they're not shooting down these, you know,
[00:56:57] tech advancements that we really need to be exploring and leveraging and either copying, doing ourselves, coming up with something new ourselves, or partnering with somebody to offer.
[00:57:08] Brett Wooden: Yeah. Be fast followers. That's the, I mean, Apple is phenomenal at that, like, I have a friend that's a big Samsung, Google person, and he is always like, when iOS 16 came out, he is like, "Well, we've already had that for years." And it's like, "Yeah, but ours is better 'cause we're fast followers." You know? I mean, and that
[00:57:25] Josh DeTar: Yes. How well does yours work?
[00:57:27] Brett Wooden: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So, I, I think that's, like, there's nothing wrong, like, you know, I've done some strategic planning sessions in my past and that, the question that typically gets asked is, should we be the first to market? Should we be the person that's, you know, the, gosh, what do they say?
[00:57:45] Leading the charge or whatever. And there's nothing wrong with writing coattails and being fast follower, you know, I, I think that's a, that's an awesome strategy because you're letting somebody else work out the bugs, and then you can launch it better.
[00:58:00] Josh DeTar: You know, so, I think that's a really interesting topic though because I want to challenge that slightly because, you know, if everybody in our industry is just a fast follower, then who's leading? And if, who's leading, right, again, so you look at, let's use phones as the example, right? And, and again, I'm taking this to the extreme, so bear with me, but, you know, if we look at the mobile phone space, right?
[00:58:26] Really, you have Apple and you have Android, and with a Android, you really only have a couple, right? So, you really have two major platforms. You either have iOS or you have Android. There's no room for a third at this point, right? So, if you're the fast follower behind iOS and Android, wow, you're screwed.
[00:58:46] Brett Wooden: Yeah. You're done. Yeah. You're not...
[00:58:48] Josh DeTar: Like, you, you guys all remember the Amazon fire phone, right? Like, we all have one, right? No. No one has one, too late to the game.
[00:58:55] Brett Wooden: Or what was Microsoft's? They had one too. Was Windows phone? It was the Windows phone.
[00:59:00] Josh DeTar: The Windows phone. Yeah. So, you know, you, there is a finite level of, okay, so if we want to fast follow, and who leads the charges of FinTech with the objective of disrupting the community financial institution space, and there's not enough room for multiple players and they do it first and they do it best, you're done.
[00:59:26] Brett Wooden: Do you think, like, so I think with that, like, where I always, it's really fascinating, like I always love to ask the why are there certain FIs, I mean, like, I think there is, it's funny 'cause I, I, the whole, the FinTech thing versus the financial institution where the financial institution is regulated,
[00:59:50] they've got compliance, they've got all that fun stuff, and then more FinTech's like yeah, they can, pretty much get away with a lot. So, I think that's the where you're seeing the struggle a little bit is that, you know, like, when I'll go with other idea, like you talk about, okay, let's build a kid's app.
[01:00:09] Let's go into roadblocks and build a financial institution, let's teach them how to save, let's teach them these things. I mean, Chipotle did it, Chipotle built in roadblocks, you can make burritos, you can work there, you can make them, you can eat them, and then you can get rewards to go into Chipotle in the real world, if we were to go to a credit union and say, "Hey, let's do this.
[01:00:31] It's gonna cost you $400,000 to develop this." Right, there, there's gonna be a lot of that compliance conversation, how is this relevant? Why is this going to make money? Or how is this gonna make money? Those things, but if I were to go to a FinTechs and say the same exact thing, "Hey, let's create something like this."
[01:00:51] I could, it could happen so much faster, you know, and, and I think that's, I guess that's just trying to, you know, that's where the fast follower thing, I think trying to be that leader, if they're gonna be there, they've gotta be okay challenging the regular, you know, regular, you know, their examiners, their, you gotta be creative, live in the gray, you've gotta find the gray area.
[01:01:17] So, but I agree with you, I mean, we need the people that are the forward thinkers that live in the gray, you know, and then are leading, 'cause if not, there's, you know, I mean that first person that did online banking, and then mobile banking and, you know, that, but yeah.
[01:01:34] Josh DeTar: Yeah, I mean, I, again, I get that it's a tough balance, right? Because not everybody is gonna be the first to do something, not everybody is comfortable with that, nobody ever has a culture of doing that, and a lot more are gonna be comfortable with being fast followers, or in our industry even more so slow followers,
[01:01:53] Brett Wooden: Yeah, yeah.
[01:01:54] Josh DeTar: unfortunately, but,
[01:01:56] Brett Wooden: Yeah.
[01:01:56] Josh DeTar: you know, if, if at least, you know, each institution does something first, and then collectively we work as a whole to then follow what works, you know, you're gonna have some swing and misses and you're gonna have some successes, you know, I had another guest from a while back, Tracey Miller, from Pioneer Federal Credit Union.
[01:02:19] Brett Wooden: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Very familiar with Tracey.
[01:02:20] Josh DeTar: That was, yeah, I mean, and so, you, you're gonna know exactly what I'm about to say, like, you know, Tracy's whole episode, we talked about kind of punching above her weight class, and she was like, "Hey, look, I'm a small credit union in Mountain Home, Idaho, like, I don't have a giant budget, I don't have a giant resources team,
[01:02:38] I cannot go out and buy, you know, the biggest, latest, greatest whatever." She's like, "But we've been really successful at finding startups, and being willing to be their first customer." And she's like, "You know what? I got burned on a few of 'em." She's like, "But some of 'em, like, they were one of the first credit unions with video banking."
[01:03:00] Josh DeTar: Why? Because she was like, "Hey, I'll take a risk on you guys, you're gonna gimme a price break, I'll put a video on your website of a customer testimonial when it goes live." And guess what? She gets a product that much larger institutions didn't have, right? 'Cause she was willing to take a risk. And again, I'm not saying that everybody is gonna do that, but, you know, another topic that comes up a lot on this podcast is the world is built on disruption.
[01:03:29] Brett Wooden: Right.
[01:03:30] Josh DeTar: Somebody is going to disrupt.
[01:03:32] Brett Wooden: Yes. Oh, it's, definitely.
[01:03:33] Josh DeTar: Look at any industry. If there's money to be made, someone will come disrupted. So, who's gonna do this disruption? Are you gonna disrupt yourselves to stay relevant post disruption, or is somebody else gonna disrupt you and you become irrelevant?
[01:03:49] Brett Wooden: Right. And I think, yeah, and that's, that goes along the whole strategy of looking at the adjacent marketplaces too 'cause I think you look at Uber, they're very good at that. Uber, you know, they, their original right was transportation of humans from point A to point B through an app, and then they realized, they looked at the adjacent marketplace, and they were like, "Ooh, food delivery, pizza delivery, those things.
[01:04:14] Let's do Uber Eats." And I, I think as an industry, that's one area we could really play in as adjacent, like, okay, just, just getting crazy thoughts, like, if I had Scrooge McDuck money bin dollars, one of, one of the things would be creating a credit union wireless, I know there's, like, I, I can't remember the wireless, but you create your own wireless, like T-Mobile where you partner with Verizon, Sprint, or I don't even know if Sprint exists anymore.
[01:04:41] I think they got bought, but Verizon, T-Mobile, and you partner with them and then you start selling cell phones in your branch. And so, you make part of the experience when they come in to buy a cell phone, they're also opening an account with you that the money for their cell phone plan is coming out of.
[01:05:01] Brett Wooden: And then, you're on, your mobile banking app is on that phone, so now they're getting something tangible, you're getting a cut from the cell phone, so you're getting additional revenue, you know, I mean, just like, that's like such a, any reason that someone would come into your, you know, or creating a position within your credit union that calls the gym to cancel your gym membership. I mean, like, there is, create
[01:05:25] Josh DeTar: You don't have to have the, I've been paying for this for six months. I haven't stepped foot in this place.
[01:05:29] Brett Wooden: Right, yeah. Having, like, the, I, you know, one of the jokes probably would, I guess you'd call it your, your passive aggressive, like, I, like, person that would call on your behalf to cancel all the accounts that you've been, like, not wanting to cancel 'cause you're afraid, you know, just like thinking different,
[01:05:44] like, I mean, I think that's what would be fun is like just trying to see, like, we know all the pain points, like, you know, working for credit unions for 25 years, I mean, I could literally list off, like, all these pain points that are happening in the organization, it's like, let's create, let's have some fun and create some cool things that will help fix those pain points, you know, and, um.
[01:06:08] Josh DeTar: You know, it's funny you mention that because if you look at like the, your Uber, Uber Eats example, right? Like, Uber's adjacent business is a lot smaller than a credit union's
[01:06:19] Brett Wooden: Yeah, yeah.
[01:06:20] Josh DeTar: because my credit union basically touches every single facet of my life, if money is involved in that part of my life, which, let's face it, today basically money is involved in everything, my credit union's a part of it.
[01:06:34] Brett Wooden: Right.
[01:06:35] Josh DeTar: So, there's literally nothing that I do that you're not in some way a part of. So, your adjacent business is essentially infinite.
[01:06:45] Brett Wooden: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's why you're starting to see more CUSOs, which the credit union service organizations that are getting created is because I think there's that, as an industry, we're starting to see more of a, like, "Oh wow, this is an adjacent marketplace that we can serve." You know, I've seen some pretty cool ones, like, I, I forgot her name, but from Lone Star, I think they've got that IT solution
[01:07:09] that's a CUSO and there's just some really cool ones out there you've seen, but I think that's kind of another thing really to look at. Yeah, it's, I'm just excited, I think this is like a really exciting time because you're, you've got this futuristic future shock, you know, you just have so much happening.
[01:07:25] Brett Wooden: I think now is the time to strike while it's, it's hot, like why people are in this adapt and cope phase, you know, um, yeah 'cause we're like
[01:07:38] Josh DeTar: You, you made the comment earlier that, you know, people are trying things that they never would've tried right? Like, the person who pre-pandemic was like, "Oh, I hate cell phones. I don't wanna be on a cell phone." Now they're Uber eating McDonald's from their couch, right?
[01:07:55] So, like, in that short time period they were forced to adapt and then they got their smartphone. Now, they're like, "Oh, this is awesome. I can get a milkshake, you know, without having to go anywhere. This is so cool." So, there, I think there is a lot more receptiveness for adoption, from, you know, consumer behavior standpoint, too.
[01:08:14] Brett Wooden: Yeah. And the one that I saw, I forgot, I should have mentioned this when we were talking about Amazon stuff, but one of the ones that blew me away was my daughter is really into the Amazing Spiderman, so Andrew Garfield. So, she watches the, on Amazon Prime they've got those. So, literally she ordered all of the outfits that he wore in
[01:08:37] the Amazing Spider-Man series, like his casual wear, and it was all displaying, like, she clicked a button and it displayed the outfits within Amazon that she could buy that he was wearing in the movie. It was the trippy, I'm like, "Oh my gosh," like, I get going back to that, like, you know, I mean, I, this is where, like, could, like, imagine if we're watching a movie and we're like, "Man, I really like that car."
[01:09:03] And then, on the side it says, you know, X credit union, get a loan and we can have that car sent to your house tomorrow. I mean, it's like you could do that, you know, in this whole buy now, pay later thing, I mean, that's another movement thing that, I don't know, I have thoughts on.
[01:09:19] Josh DeTar: Yeah, that’s an interesting, you know, I, well, yeah, let's, let's talk about that. So, um, you know, I think, you have a lot of retailers are trying to push into the payments space, as well, right? And owning a lot of, you know, I mean, you look at, like, Starbucks really encourages you to put your money in your Starbucks, and then pay with your Starbucks app, right?
[01:09:44] And I had a, a super trippy first experience, I'm sure others have had it before me, but I was in San Francisco the other day, for work, and I wanted to grab a quick snack and I was in this huge office park, and they had one of the Amazon Gos
[01:10:00] Brett Wooden: Oh, yeah.
[01:10:02] Josh DeTar: and I walk in and I was like, "What is this?" I was like, I had not experienced this yet." And for those of you who also have not experienced this yet, so it's a completely unstaffed store. You walk in and there's a gate to get in, and you go to your Amazon app, pull up a QR code, scan the QR code. So, that tells them that it's Josh, linked to this Amazon account, you go in, you grab all the things you want, there is no checkout, you do not scan barcodes, you just grab the things you want and leave.
[01:10:35] And I was like flabbergasted by this. And so, then I'm like watching my Amazon ho, you know, account like a hawk to see what did they actually charge me for. So, when it comes to my Amazon account, I went and audited it all and it was perfect. It was absolutely spot on. And, you know, they just charged my Amazon account.
[01:10:54] And so, obviously, that led me to the next iteration of that is, is like, okay, when we get to the point where so many of the different goods and services I buy through Amazon and if my shopping experience both digitally and physically is so seamless with Amazon in that sense, why wouldn't I just keep all my money in Amazon in the first place, and it can just shuffle around in there.
[01:11:15] So, we're starting to see, you know, those types of things. And then, these retailers are even playing in the buy now pay later space, and I was in Vegas not too long ago, and this one like cracked me up, and I was like, man, Vegas of all places to see this, and I mean it was like literally just one of the little convenience stores, tech things in the lobby of one of the hotels, had buy now pay leader option.
[01:11:43] And I was like, you mean to tell me, like, if I'm drunk as a skunk and just lost a bunch of money on a slot machine, but I really wanna Snickers, I can do BNPL for this Snickers at this convenience store, like that's nuts.
[01:11:55] Brett Wooden: I know. Yeah, it is that, well that was even, I think, what was Apple's example when they were launching their buy now pay later. I think they did a bagel. They showed a bagel like being broken into payments, and I'm like, man, that's a whole 'nother, that's a whole 'nother podcast of financial wellness and, you know, financial wellbeing of, like, if you, like, if you need to buy now and pay later food, there's gotta be some other conversation, you need, like, let's create a different movement for that help or something.
[01:12:27] But yeah, it is definitely crazy. I, I think there's a lot of, but I think, again, going back to, I think now is the time to take advantage of this stuff, I think in a year from now, you're gonna struggle if you're toying with the notion of, you know, should you eliminate your branches, should you, you know, add in more automated, you know, chat bots and those things, I think, you know, it'll, it'll keep evolving, but I think now people are more able to adapt and cope with it then, because of just everything happening, so.
[01:13:00] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, I don't know if I'd actually really thought about it this way until you said that, but I feel like one of the things that we found through Covid was doing major releases, UI refreshes, full conversions. People were way quicker to be mean.
[01:13:19] Brett Wooden: Yeah.
[01:13:19] Josh DeTar: Like, just the things that you'd see in, you know, reviews and app store reviews, and like, people were just, they lost some of their humanity almost, it felt like
[01:13:32] Brett Wooden: Yeah.
[01:13:32] Josh DeTar: But you know what I didn't actually really think about until you just said, is that what I also feel like just my anecdotal evidence in my head is telling me is that they also got over it faster
[01:13:43] Brett Wooden: Yeah. Oh yeah 'cause they're
[01:13:44] Josh DeTar: and they just moved on, and they were like, "Oh, I hate this new interface. And then, two days later they're like, "Oh, actually, sure. It's really good. So, we're good. I moved on."
[01:13:53] Brett Wooden: Yeah. My favorite is my daughter went to Taco Bell. And she took a picture of the sign out front of the Taco Bell for me 'cause she knows, like, again, we're like, my wife and I are really, we talk about service and credit union, all that stuff, yeah, I mean, we know the routine. And so, she goes, "What do you guys think of this?"
[01:14:14] And it's literally, if I found the picture, I could send it to you so you could see it. It's legitimately printed out eight and a half by eleven, and it says, "We're really short staffed, please being sweet to, or please be nice to us." And so, like, my wife and I are laughing, it's like, literally they're saying, "You're gonna get crappy service.
[01:14:33] Adjust." I mean, that's what the side says, it's like, we're short staffed, and like, you're seeing that more, it's like, I think, like, with the airlines too, it's like, my dad called me, and he is like, "I'm really freaked out with the airlines because I called to change my flight and it says, 'We're experiencing high call volume, call back later,'
[01:14:52] and it just disconnects." Right. So, there's this new, like, evolution of like, hey, you know, there's short staff, you know, staff everywhere. And so, I mean, like, kind of using that of, like, people are more like, "Oh, we know it's, you know, you're short staffed, that's why the wait times are so long, that's why this, you know, that."
[01:15:13] So, kind of embracing that if you're gonna be launching new things or doing things, you know, now is the time to like, you know, like I think getting Verizon, they eliminated their phone number off their website. So, now you either have to like do it all yourself online or you have to go in their chat feature, which I will say their chat feature is phenomenal.
[01:15:30] Brett Wooden: Like, I've ordered all, I ordered my iPhone 14 that way, activated it that way, ordered my Apple watch that way, like, and it, and quite honestly, it's literally just me copying and pasting all this stuff that I want. So, it's not like I'm not dealing with that, "Hey, can you hold on one second?" It's like, I see the chat bubble, you know, we're very accustomed to that's our world, you know, chat and all that stuff, so.
[01:15:56] Josh DeTar: Yeah, it is, is gonna be interesting to see how, like you said, like the service side of things evolves, right? And both how businesses approach that and how consumers approach it, and just with this whole last hour plus we've talked about of,
[01:16:14] Brett Wooden: Oh, yeah.
[01:16:14] Josh DeTar: You know, changing expectations, how technology is gonna augment those things, you know, where people are even shifting to, like, like you were saying, like what, what is my expectation and who's held accountable when my avatar is in the Metaverse and gets bad service from an AI?
[01:16:31] Brett Wooden: Yeah, I know.
[01:16:34] Josh DeTar: I don't, I, I don't know.
[01:16:35] Brett Wooden: Yeah, or a chat bot gives you wrong advice 'cause, you know, I mean, it's like, gives you the wrong rate, you know, those type of things. Yeah, it's, it's gonna be an interesting world we live in. Actually, I can't say interesting, I can't say interesting because I learned in Paris when you say that's interesting, that means you say you think it's stupid.
[01:16:56] And I did not think it's stupid. So, I think it's gonna be cool. I think there's gonna be some amazing humans that come out of all of this with ideas and things they're doing and it makes things fun.
[01:17:09] I love that as kind of a cap off to this. It's, there is an incredible amount of opportunity, and if the right human sees that, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
[01:17:20] Brett Wooden: Yeah, exactly.
[01:17:20] Josh DeTar: But it's gonna take the human side, it's gonna take somebody at a credit union saying, "Hey, you know what? AI is gonna have this conversation in the future. I wanna make sure it's programmed." So, it just gives the most amazing credit union core service ever.
[01:17:37] Brett Wooden: Yeah, exactly.
[01:17:39] Josh DeTar: But if somebody comes in and says, "AI's gonna service this, how efficient can we make it? I don't care if it's rude." It's a very different story.
[01:17:45] Brett Wooden: Right, right.
[01:17:46] It's really gonna come down to the people.
[01:17:48] Brett Wooden: Right, right. Yeah.
[01:17:50] Josh DeTar: That's cool, Brett, I mean, I could literally talk to you for days on end, and that's why we just get together for coffee so I can drink another gallon of coffee that we talked about earlier on.
[01:17:59] Brett Wooden: Yes. Yeah.
[01:17:59] Josh DeTar: Had a cup.
[01:18:00] Brett Wooden: Right.
[01:18:01] Josh DeTar: But hey, before I let you go, I got two final questions for you. So, first up, I, again, this is gonna be very obvious, but you're paying attention to all things, both current and future.
[01:18:13] So, where do you go to stay up to date on what's happening? What are some good resources that you'd like to share with our guests.
[01:18:19] Brett Wooden: So, I do Cult of Mac, Cult of Android, you know, just like all the, you know, all the FinTech, you know, I'm not gonna say Fast Company 'cause they got hacked yesterday. So, I used to go there, but the other one that I do that's very unique is just observations. So, I love to go, my daughter has an innovation lab at her school, so I love just going and observe, like, what are they working on,
[01:18:41] what are they building, you know, the, the younger kids, I think seeing how they're interacting, what they're doing, what they expect, it's amazing where you can get a lot of ideas from that. And so, and then shaking your head on some of the stuff, like, how they went viral on a one second video, you know, but, but I think observing there, so that's where a lot of, LinkedIn is another one, but the last thing I'd recommend to is doing Google Alerts.
[01:19:09] So, if there are things you're interested in, like I do a lot on credit union positions, you know, if there's a cool credit unit out there that's doing really unique stuff, I just do Google Alert on them and it'll show up in a feed I have. So, that's a really cool way to get information is you kind of like being proactive about what you're looking for. So, using Google Alerts is a really cool way to do these searches.
[01:19:29] Josh DeTar: Yeah, that's a great tip.
[01:19:31] Brett Wooden: Yeah. And then, that's how I know when the new Apple products are coming out too. So, that's the, yeah.
[01:19:35] Well, last but not least, if, if folks want to connect with you, learn a little bit more about what kind of things get you excited or if they wanna learn a little bit more about your day job and FTSI, how do they do that?
[01:19:46] Brett Wooden: Yeah. So, the LinkedIn is a great, just search me on LinkedIn, Brett Wooden, and then, you can visit our website, ftsius.com. There is a, gosh, there's a consulting tab where you can see like conferences, like, presented at articles, those type of things, it's kind of a really cool, like, highlighting page. We got a really awesome content team, so they make me look really good, So, that's nice. So, yeah.
[01:20:12] Josh DeTar: Now, well, I, I don't think that's very hard given the, you know, conversation we've had today, you're a really, really fun personality to talk to, and just a wealth of knowledge, so this was a blast.
[01:20:23] Brett Wooden: Yeah, I had a great time too. Thank you so much for inviting me.
[01:20:27] Josh DeTar: Yeah, of course. Thanks for being a guest on the Digital Banking Podcast.