Today, we are all adapting to the constraints of COVID culture, reinterpreting our work and work relationships, and somehow, simultaneously addressing the changing needs of our communities. The competitive landscape is a blur. Bringing it back into focus will require creative responses to three core questions:

• What are relevant credit union experiences in the COVID or post-COVID world? Must relevant experiences be limited to traditional financial products and services?
• How will you recreate a sense of place, belonging and community – the character and qualities that have always distinguished credit unions from their bank rivals?
• How will your organization use the data you possess to drive community-wide economic health, making your institution the gravitational center of a vibrant economic and social future?

In another place and time, Kurt Vonnegut, author of "Slaughterhouse-Five" and several plays and works of non-fiction, described relevant experiences and community within his economic routine. In an interview with Vonnegut published in the November 1995 issue of Inc. Technology, he recounted small details and thoughts about people he encountered while completing the mundane task of buying an envelope from a newsstand and mailing a set of marked-up manuscript pages to a woman in Woodstock, N.Y. "I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home," he said in concluding his story. "And I've had a hell of a good time. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different."