What Are the New Routines of 2019?

We all have our habits and routines. We take comfort in them and, at some point, we become frustrated by them because of how much we rely on those patterns. We need our morning coffee. We need the kids to be out the door and ready by a certain time. We need to let the dog out. We need to make sure the trash is by the curb on Wednesday mornings. We need our second pot of coffee! And that combination of comfort and irritation tend to live together because well, it’s what we do as normal people just trying to live and work and function. Breaking our routines has the potential of truly messing up our day – until the new routine replaces the old.

2018 was a year of intentionally and unintentionally exploding a lot of old routines for us at CU Times. The year began with an announcement that our website would be radically changed. We had to learn an entirely new publishing platform and figure out how this would change our pattern of publishing daily website and weekly print stories, and figuring out all of those other boring behind-the-scenes details. It was a month of keeping an old habit, while learning a new one. It felt like showering and changing a flat tire at the same time.

We received a lot of positive and negative feedback from those changes to help us create our new habits and routines, and I really appreciated that from our readers.

From those responses, combined with the trends we pay very close attention to, we dropped some long-time CU Times news/special coverage items and we also added new ones – some of which you will find out about very soon. Here’s a hint: Earth, Wind and Fire.

With our editorial team, I look at patterns and routines almost daily to ask the question: Does it still work to keep doing things this way? If so, why? If not, why?

It’s a journalistic way of looking at things, I suppose. Which is why we reach out to so many credit unions asking those types of questions.

One great example of ripping up the old routines and venturing out into a new pattern space in 2018 came from Kane County Teachers Credit Union in Elgin, Ill. It was one of my favorite feature stories from last year. You might recall that KCT Credit Union decided to abandon the normal routine of strategizing branch locations and opened up a new branch inside the Gail Bordon Public Library. According to Peter Strozniak’s reporting, “This partnership is expected to benefit both organizations giving the library opportunities to reach more than 18,000 credit union members while opening KCT Credit Union to a new market of the 2,000 to 2,500 people, including millennial parents and their children, who visit the library every day.”

We are planning a follow-up story in the next few months to see how this new routine is working for the credit union and the local community.

There are several new routines we are keeping an eye out for in this brand new year, but these routines are a bit more complicated when it comes to the direct and indirect impact on our credit union audience.

Take the NCUA, for instance. As you probably saw from David Baumann’s reporting, Rodney Hood’s nomination to the NCUA board expired. President Trump nominated Hood to replace Rick Metsger, who has continued to serve until a successor is confirmed. Will Hood be re-nominated? Some sources believe it’s basically a coin toss if that will happen or not.

The CFPB and the House Financial Services Committee have a new pattern and relationship to figure out this year. The CFPB’s new director, Kathy Kraninger, and the House Financial Services Committee’s new chair, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), have some regulatory issues to iron out. New leaders and new-ish objectives can lead to a lot of chaos and stress for those directly (and again, indirectly) involved. What will be accomplished and/or what will be the impact on credit unions by these two leaders? We will establish those new patterns as the year goes on and David has created his new habits of how to find those stories for you.

The CU Times TechCenter is a space to definitely watch this year. Old habits definitely do die hard and our readers can see that happen almost in real time in the TechCenter. Since the launch of this site just over a year ago, we’ve received a lot of excellent feedback. From that feedback (again, thank you to our readers) we have refocused our habits and patterns to better reflect the information needs of the credit union executives. Cybersecurity and Mobile Banking are two very important issues. Natasha and I have been working with Tina Orem and Roy Urrico to create a steady stream and flow of relevant information. For instance, Tina files the latest mobile banking news on Mondays (we call it Mobile Monday). Roy files the cybersecurity and fintech news as it happens on a daily basis. We don’t have a catchy name for Roy’s stories yet. But, the point is that we must and do adjust and break old patterns all the time while trying to keep a consistent and reliable news stream coming to your eyes and brain every single day.

When the calendar switches over to a new year, I don’t see it as chance to start over or as a reset on what we’ve been doing. I see 2019 in more realistic terms for me and the team – let’s keep doing what we do well, let’s get better to build up our weaker areas and let’s adjust as the news and our audience changes; because it’s always changing.

I’m always interested to hear from credit unions when it comes to how you’re trying to break old habits and why. If you have something to share, from a new take on member services to lending practices to staff changes to a new coffee machine, let me know. Because the more you break old habits and create new ones, the more newsworthy that will be and credit unions around the country will learn from you.

Michael Ogden is executive editor for CU Times. He can be reached at mogden@cutimes.com.