3. Your aren’t special. No matter what your grades were or how intelligent you are. Special is a function of what people think of you, especially your manager. To be special, you have to be above average at something the company needs. Doesn’t matter what, but something.

...

17. Break a little rule every so often. But first get a bit of wisdom about what rules you can actually break and get away with it. And when you do, make sure the outcome reflects well on your manager.

—From Advice for newbies starting their careers in large companies on BankerVision by James Gardner

I thought I’d try every Friday to add some fun snippets from this week in the Banking world. I think this is a great start. Head over to BankerVision and give the whole list a look.

To continue in the spirit of openness that we’ve always shared with our community, I wanted to be the first one to tell you the most recent news from The Garland Group. As of today, Lisa Randolph is no longer working with The Garland Group and for Banktastic.com. In consideration of her privacy, I will just say that we decided to part ways and we wish her the absolute best of luck.

Fantastic news this morning coming from SmartyPig! Red McCombs, the co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, has invested in SmartyPig, a community focused on helping its members save for specific purchases, large or small. Specific terms of the deal were not released, but the agreement is announced at a time when the national personal savings rate has reached an almost 15-year high.

Brad takes a minute to update you all on our decisions regarding The State of Banktastic. We appreciate all of the feedback that we received from our community from our last post, so thank you for sharing your thoughts and comments with us. Check out Brad’s new video and let us know if you have any additional feedback regarding our community or its features. Have a great day, everybody!

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The Garland Group’s very own Courtney Treadaway sits down for a moment to help you out with our own version of a bailout. He discusses different tips for software that will cost nothing for your IT department, but provide some big help for your FI. Check out some of the software, and let us know what you think about it!

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Good morning, Banktastic! Brad brings you a video today in hopes that you will help us make a decision about where to next take Banktastic. We’ve got a couple of options in front of us, and we really want to hear from the community.

We’re needing to shift the focus of our developers onto other projects from The Garland Group, thus prompting us to make some big decisions for Banktastic. One option we’re considering is moving Banktastic to another platform, which may result in changes to which features or sections we’re able to provide. Here are some of our questions for you:

Brad grabbed an interview at FinovateStartup 2009 with Kim Muhota, CEO at Pertuity Direct. Pertuity Direct is an online consumer financial services company that connects borrowers with great rates and lenders with responsible borrowers. It makes the application and approval process much easier, and eliminates bidding on loans and the sharing of borrowers personal credit information. Check out the interview and let us know what you think!

We had a blast covering FinovateStartup 2009 this year, but we want to know what you think! Let us know what you thought about our coverage of the event by commenting below!

A quick update to share a video with one of the potential presenters for FinovateStartup 2009, ValueCruncher. If you’re not at FinovateStartup this year, you can watch our live coverage as it happens on Banktastic live.

Keep your eyes on Banktastic for more coverage today!

FinovateStartup 2009 is finally here, and to help bring you all of our coverage, we’ve launched Banktastic Live! We’re going to be streaming Finovate discussions on Twitter, adding exclusive videos and pictures on this section of Banktastic all day Tuesday, so be sure to watch.

Remember to tag all pictures, videos, or blog posts with “finovate,” and use the hashtag #finovate on Twitter to get in on the conversation and have it broadcast live on Banktastic. Brad posted a little instructional video on the Live section of our site, so check that out if you need any help.

Brad’s FinovateStartup interview series continues on today with Nicolas Perkin of The Receivables Exchange. The Receivables Exchange allows businesses to sell their receivables to a global network of institutional investors and access working capital in as little as three days. Check out this presenter’s interview, and let us know what you think!

FinovateStartup 2009 is coming up on Tuesday, April 28, so be sure to watch Banktastic all day for live coverage. More news on how to follow our coverage and get in on the conversation coming soon. Have a good weekend, everybody!

Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interviews continue on this morning with Gabriel Griego of Wesabe. Wesabe is a personal finance management suite that uses the power of a community to help clear its members of financial debt and helps them make better monetary decisions. They’ve also recently launched Wesabe Springboard, a web services platform that allows banks, credit unions, and other institutions to integrate Wesabe’s consumer financial management tools directly into their web sites. Check out this presenter, and let us know what you think!

We’re getting close to FinovateStartup 2009, but it’s not too late to use Banktastic’s special discount code for registration! Just use “banktastic150” to receive $150 off the cost of registration for FinovateStartup 2009. Keep your eyes on Banktastic for more great Finovate coverage!

The Burst is back! For episode 40, Brad talks about some great articles discussing FDIC Takeovers, important FinovateStartup 2009 information, and a brand-new document feature that’s been added to Banktastic! He also wraps up the show with a great clip from The Daily Show featuring Elizabeth Warren, the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP. Check out the episode, and share your comments with us below!

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Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interviews continue on this morning withMike Ferrari of SmartyPig.com. SmartyPig is a unique savings program that was designed to help you save for specific savings goals. Goals are funded with a required monthly recurring contribution from your existing checking or savings account. You can also make additional one time adds of money to your goals and receive contributions from your friends and family members. This is a great site – check it out and let us know what you think!

We’re getting close to FinovateStartup 2009, but it’s not too late to use Banktastic’s special discount code for registration! Just use “banktastic150” to receive $150 off the cost of registration for FinovateStartup 2009. Keep your eyes on Banktastic for more great Finovate coverage!

Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interview series continues with Sherrick Murdoff of Silver Tail Systems. Silver Tail Systems provides 3rd generation fraud prevention to defend your website against business logic abuse. Silver Tail Forensics and Mitigation products use a new generation of behavior detection, efficient investigation and real-time disruption to track suspicious behavior and divert the bad actors, leaving legitimate users unaffected. Check out this interview from Silver Tail Systems and let us know what you think by commenting!

It’s not too late to register for FinovateStartup 2009 and receive our special Banktastic discount! Just enter the discount code “banktastic150” when registering, and save $150 off the cost of registration. Keep watching Banktastic.com for more great FinovateStartup 2009 coverage!

Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interview series continues with Kenneth Lim of Credit Karma. Credit Karma provides consumers with the ability to see and monitor their credit scores at any time for free. They provide a wealth of credit based tools and information to help educate their members on how credit scores and credit reports work. Check out this interview from Credit Karma and let us know what you think by commenting!

It’s not too late to register for FinovateStartup 2009 and receive our special Banktastic discount! Just enter the discount code “banktastic150” when registering, and save $150 off the cost of registration. Keep watching Banktastic.com for more great FinovateStartup 2009 coverage!

As part of Brad’s FinovateStartup interview series, he meets up with Kyle Kirman of BudgetTracker.com. BudgetTracker started off as a budgeting tool, but has developed into an all-in-one tool that manages your bills, income, transactions, budget and calendar. BudgetTracker sends you reminders of everything through email or straight to your cell phone. We recommend checking them out, and be sure to let us know what you think by watching this video and commenting below!

Don’t forget to save some cash on your FinovateStartup registration! Enter the code “banktastic150” to take off $150 of the cost. Keep your eyes on Banktastic.com for more great Finovate coverage!

Brad meets up with another great FinovateStartup 2009 presenter, LooniesDesk. Brad talks with Elias Chelidonis, Co-Founder, about their open source financial platform to help people manage their money. Take a look at this video and let us know what you think of this presenter!

If you’re interested in attending Finovate and want to save some cash on your registration, watch this video announcement from Lisa to get Banktastic’s special discount code! More videos on the way. Stay tuned!

It’s time for another video from Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interviews! This interview is with Nick and Alex of NCore Systems. NCore Systems provides enterprise class delivery channel solutions to Banks within the ASEAN region fusing applications, innovative security and middleware technology into a single integrated platform. The company builds complete virtual financial destinations that empower Financial Institutions to ‘reach out and touch’ their customers through the innovative use of web based and mobile technology. Check out NCore Systems and let us know what you think about this FinovateStartup presenter!

If you’re interested in attending Finovate and want to save some cash on your registration, watch this video announcement from Lisa to get Banktastic’s special discount code! More videos on the way. Stay tuned!

It’s time for another video from Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interview series! This interview is with Steven Rabago, ZEO of ZimpleMoney. ZimpleMoney is a social finance community that connects people with common financial interests, and provides online tools for managing financial relationships in a socially networked environment. Check out ZimpleMoney and let us know what you think about this FinovateStartup presenter!

If you’re interested in attending Finovate and want to save some cash on your registration, watch this video announcement from Lisa to get Banktastic’s special discount code! More videos on the way. Stay tuned!

Eric, Heath & Juston of The Garland Group, the parent company of Banktastic, got together to talk about their favorite social engineering stories while working with banks. The stories are light-hearted, but we do provide you some tips at the end of this video to prevent being socially engineered!

To learn more about The Garland Group and our services, just click here!

It’s time for another video from Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interviews! This interview is with Peter Pham, CEO of BillShrink. BillShrink is a free, personalized savings service for everyday services like wireless and credit cards. They help analyze your personal usage of both cell phones & credit cards to help save you time and money on choosing the deal that’s right for you. Check out BillShrink and let us know what you think about this FinovateStartup presenter!

If you’re interested in attending Finovate and want to save some cash on your registration, watch this video announcement from Lisa to get Banktastic’s special discount code! More videos on the way. Stay tuned!

Banktastic has signed up to be a media partner this year with Finovate, and along with that comes a special kickback for you! Watch the video to find out how our partnership will help you get to FinovateStartup & Finovate 2009 a little cheaper this year. :)

Once you watch the video, feel free to help us spread the word! We look forward to bringing you guys some great Finovate coverage this year, so keep your eyes on Banktastic for more great videos!

Brad came across this great video online of President Obama discussing how community banks are going to help small businesses grow. This video also features Cynthia Blankenship of ICBA on stage with President Obama. Thoughts on the video? Add your comments below!

It’s time for another video from Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interviews! This interview is with Scott Klososky, CEO of iThryv. iThryv provides a customizable online banking platform that helps its users set goals, track and categorize spending, and learn how to spend more wisely. They also created weProsper, which is an online community focused on teaching financial literacy to younger generations. Check out iThryv & weProsper and let us know what you think about this FinovateStartup presenter!

More videos on the way. Stay tuned!

We hope you’re enjoying Brad’s FinovateStartup 2009 interview series so far! Brad’s second interview is with DebtGoal.com, a debt management service that helps its members plan to get out of debt and save thousands of dollars in interest. Check out the interview with Steve Richmond, Founder of DebtGoal, and let us know what you think about this presenter!

More FinovateStartup 2009 interviews are on their way, so keep watching Banktastic!

This is the first video in Brad’s series of interviews with FinovateStartup presenters. First up to bat: CalendarBudget.com, a personal finance management tool that tracks your daily spending as opposed to weekly or monthly, and helps you plan for future spending. Check out the interview with Eric Poulin, Co-Founder of Calendar Budget, and let us know what you think about this presenter!

Keep your eyes on Banktastic for more interviews!

Brad takes a few minutes to update you on some of the cool stuff coming up on Banktastic. We’ll be bringing you some great pre-FinovateStartup 2009 coverage featuring one-on-one interviews with several of the presenters. We’re also working really hard to get back to bringing you new episodes of “The Burst” and “The CU Scoop” on a regular basis. We’re also open to ideas for things to cover in our shows, so email us with any suggestions – brad@banktastic.com. See ya around!

In the name of transparency, Mark takes a few minutes to discuss what caused the hiccups on Banktastic last week. We worked really hard to get the site back up and running, and even improved on Banktastic. We’re continuously working to make this place better for everybody, and we thank you for being a part of our community.

If you ever have any suggestions or feedback for us, just click the feedback icon to the left and let us know what’s on your mind. Thanks for your patience!

Courtney Treadaway and Heath Stanley, two of The Garland Group’s security consultants, put together this video discussing remote deposit capture exclusively for our Garland Group Clients Network. However, we really wanted to share this one with the Banktastic community since remote deposit capture is something we think many banks should look into using.

Look for more educational videos from The Garland Group on our blog!

At Banktastic we are well aware of the economic crisis our nation is in and how it directly affects the banking industry. For 2009 and beyond our goal is to spread our vision that we call the TIE principles. We want you and your institution to use Transparency, Innovation and Education to help the banking industry in this trying time. We’re wanting you to share stories with us of people or companies that are using the TIE principles, and be inspired by other’s efforts to be more transparent, innovative and educational. Leave a comment to let us know what you think about the TIE principles, and help us spread the word throughout the industry.

Tell us your TIE story!

Becoming Customer-Centric This week, Sherman and Jesse from Creative Brand Communications gets together to discuss how marketing and banking practices need to change in order for financial institutions to truly put the customer first. They give examples of “company-first” behavior that’s simply accepted in banking due to tradition, but needs to change. They also discuss how banks should analyze their own actions carefully and look to other industries for ideas and examples of customer-centric behavior. Check out the episode above, and be sure to comment below with your thoughts on becoming customer-centric!

Email Us! Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “Blow Up Your Marketing” to blowitup@creative-brand.com.

We need your help! As the video above says, we just renovated our work space, and now have lots of white space on the walls to fill. So what we’re wanting you to do is submit photos that you’ve taken or that you have rights to that you think would be a great addition to our office! The size that we’re printing the photos at is 16×20, so no camera phone pictures, please. Just comment below and link us to your favorite shot. If you can’t link us to a photo, you can email them to brad@banktastic.com. We look forward to featuring your favorite shots in our office!

Hey guys,

Sorry for the delayed post. We have busy bees working on features and a new post coming in the next few days. Stay with me, we hope it’s going to be big and get everybody involved.

Andy LaFlamme, Marketing Specialist for Maine State Credit Union and creator of The CU Loop has created a guest post for Banktastic entitled “The Dynamic Discussion,” which looks into the relationship between your credit union and its members when developing marketing plans.

Since the advent of advertising (whenever that was), marketers have gone about the task by creating products and accompanying ads that they hope resonate with their target audience and by pushing those ads out hoping people will see them. Sure, if you’re a good marketer and do your research you can create something that gets the attention of some of the people in your target, but in my opinion there is a better way.

All of The Garland Group (the parent company of Banktastic) came together to create our own take of the “12 Days of Christmas,” banking-style! We hope you enjoy the video we put together, and be sure to watch the blooper reel at the end. :) Happy Holidays from all of us at The Garland Group!

Have you noticed the new “Feedback” tab on the left part of the dashboard? We added this to make it easy for you to report a problem or let us know what you love/hate about Banktastic. So if you ever need to sound off to us, take a second to send us some feedback!

We’ll be rolling out some more new features for you in the coming days and weeks, so keep an eye on the dashboard for our additions to Banktastic. Have a great weekend, everybody!

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Interview with Obopay
This week features an interview that Brad conducted with Michael Diamond, the SVP of Business Development with Obopay, a comprehensive mobile payment service. Brad chatted with Michael about what Obopay is, it’s recent partnerships, and how this service can be beneficial for community banks. The conversation is great, so check out the whole interview. And a huge thanks to Michael Diamond for taking the time to meet with us – we greatly appreciate it!

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

<center><iframe src=”http://mashable.polldaddy.com/widget/?f=f&#38;c=26&#38;cn=http://www.Banktastic.com” height=”330” width=”350”></iframe> <noscript>Mashable Open Web Awards</noscript></center>

Mashable is holding it’s second annual Open Web Awards, and we’re writing this in hopes that you’ll nominate Banktastic in the Niche and Misc. Social Networks category. If you want to vote for us, just use the widget above to submit your nomination! Please spread the word and nominate Banktastic! If you want the html code to input the widget on your own blog, please shoot me an email at lisa@banktastic.com. Nominations end at midnight on Sunday, Nov. 16, so help us get the word out while you can! Thanks for your support!

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Hey, everybody! You might have noticed a decrease in activity on the Banktastic Blog lately, so I wanted to touch on that. We’re aiming to do things a little differently here at Banktastic and The Garland Group, which includes us moving to a ROWE mindset.

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “Blow Up Your Marketing.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

We’ve made a lot of really cool changes to Banktastic over the past year, and today we’re releasing a complete makeover of our site with the coolest feature yet – the user-centric pane, located at the top of all pages on Banktastic. This new addition will help centralize a lot of the information that you want to see when logging into our site. View profiles, send messages, check out recent activity and easily switch between different networks all within the pane! Check it out and let us know what you think!

We’ve also launched a network posts section onto the Banktastic dashboard. This gives our network administrators the chance to share announcements, videos and more directly to their members as soon as they login. That pertains mostly to our private networks, but our public members will now see all of our Banktastic Blog content featured directly on our homepage. This should make it a bit easier to check out what’s new on our shows and any major announcements we need to share without having you split to another site!

We have spent the past two days doing all things Finovate 2008 in New York City! Mark and I had a blast meeting with the presenters and getting some great video interviews. Here’s a list of all the content we’ve gotten at Finovate so far:

Company Reviews: First 6 | Second 6 | Third 6 | Last 6

We sat down with John & Matt of Boulevard R at Finovate 2008 today. Check out the video above!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our day-long coverage of Finovate 2008 live from New York City today. Here are some quick links to connect you with other Finovate content from today:

We snagged an interview with Jennifer of WeSeed at Finovate 2008 today. Check out the video above! And thanks to the WeSeed team for the great dinner event tonight!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our day-long coverage of Finovate 2008 live from New York City today. Here are some quick links to connect you with other Finovate content from today:

We snagged an interview with Mitchell of Vidoop at Finovate 2008 today. Check out the video above!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our day-long coverage of Finovate 2008 live from New York City today. Here are some quick links to connect you with other Finovate content from today:

We took a few minutes to catch a great interview with Mukesh Chatter of MoneyAisle at Finovate 2008 today. Check out the video above!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our day-long coverage of Finovate 2008 live from New York City today. Here are some quick links to connect you with other Finovate content from today:

We snagged an interview with Digital Insight at Finovate 2008 today. Check out the video above!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our day-long coverage of Finovate 2008 live from New York City today. Here are some quick links to connect you with other Finovate content from today:

We snagged an interview with George Favvas of Smart Hippo at Finovate 2008 today. Check out the video above!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our day-long coverage of Finovate 2008 live from New York City today. Here are some quick links to connect you with other Finovate content from today:

<font>mShift</font> Mark’s Review: A mobile solution that has the most deployments worldwide. Their latest offering targeted at business banking, ‘CFO on the Go’ moves business financial reports, transfers, ACH, and other operations through an application on a mobile phone. Also has a ‘push’ component for alerts via email, sms, voice, and fax. I think this addresses a space (business banking) that has been under served by mobile banking and the MShift offering looks to be a good first step to bridge that gap. UI still is very mobile looking, but the functionality is really strong. I missed this presentation as I was working on getting stuff on the blog. Sorry, everybody.

<font>SmartHippo</font> Mark’s Review: An online community built to help increase simplicity and transparency in the mortgage lending process. Includes community ratings. Rate search engine that pulls from several sources, including other members. Lenders can feed their rates into SmartHippo for FREE, which can help smaller FIs (especially credit unions) get more exposure for their great rates. I think your FI needs to be feeding your rates into SmartHippo if you are in their market. A community-driven site geared toward helping its members save money and find the best interest rates. Members can rate different lenders in several different areas. You can give your specific information on what you’re looking for in a borrower, and the site will show you the best rates with different lenders. It’s free for lenders to show their rates on SmartHippo. The site looks great and easy to use. Community members share information on rates and FIs, but SmartHippo also goes and searches for rates to aggregate it all on their site. I’m loving this!

We’re bringing you live coverage of Finovate 2008 from NYC today! Here’s a quick video interview with Quicken Online and their presentation here at Finovate today. The big news with Quicken was that it’s going free!

Keep watching the Banktastic Blog to get your Finovate fix all day long!

We’re bringing you live coverage of Finovate 2008 from NYC today! Here’s a quick video interview with FiServ about MyMoney and their presentation here at Finovate today. They presented this morning, and it was great to watch them!

Keep watching the Banktastic Blog to get your Finovate fix all day long!

<font>Vidoop</font> Mark’s Review: Vidoop is trying to break the mold of high security leading to poor usability. The offer secury login alternatives for banks and credit unions. Several new login verification offering. A ‘verify by phone’ offering will call you and ask for a ‘pound’ or a pin when you are trying to login. The ‘image sheild’ shows you images that guides you to a login code. This one can be provided for free to banks because the images you see will be ad sponsored. Another offering involved SMS, but I’m so doped out by the image shield that I’m missing pieces. Your bank or credit union NEEDS to look into this. This is pretty cool. Looking around, I see people nodding their heads. They’re seeing the value in this. Unique password authenitcation techniques. Different companies can pay to be put into the picture authorization – that was awesome. Ready for mobile – the demo was on a iPhone. :) Looks great even on the phone. I liked the verifying techniques they implemented. Super userful.

<font>Intuit – Quicken Online</font> Mark’s Review: Rearview mirror + Binnoculars for your financial life. They are really looking to target and help the 70% of American that are current living paycheck to paycheck. Quicken Online is now a FREE offering. In addition to tracking, also includes a ‘spending money outlook’ shows where you are, what you’ll probably be spending in the future, and when your next paycheck is coming. Also now includes a mobile component. The sleeping giant of PFMs is awake and l think their latest offering is right on! Quicken went free! Helping people manage their finances for the future – great ideas for a PFM. Available Oct. 30 on their website. I wonder how it compares to the other free online PFMs here today (Wesabe, Mint, etc). Mobile-ready with daily stats that texts you to tell you if you have enough money to pay upcoming bills. I’ll definitely be trying this out later.

A quick note to let everyone know what to expect from our coverage today: (All times eastern.)

• We will release our knee jerk reaction reviews in groups of 6 at 10am, 11am, 2:30pm, and 3:30pm.
• We are planning to release some raw video around 1:30pm. (Not of the presentations, but of attendees and maybe some presenters.)
• We will also release our raw roundtable recap tonight by 8pm

We’ll also be doing some longer interviews that we will polish up and deliver sometime in the near future, but this should hold you over til then. Enjoy!

We are in the process of moving the archives of our blog from our old Wordpress blog over to the super fancy digs of Banktastic.

This is a pretty tedious process, so we ask (we’ll even beg) for your patience as we try to get every link and comment migrated over. Thanks!