By Lisa Hochgraf

This  week at CUES Nexus Conference, CUES staff members kept telling me how excited they were about the Fairmont Dallas' turn-down service.

Now this got my attention because most of the time turn-down service, where the housekeeper comes in and folds back your sheet and puts a chocolate on your pillow, isn't really the kind of thing that seasoned traveling staff jump up and down about. They've seen it a thousand times before.

By Lisa Hochgraf

Picture a bald guy holding a hair dryer next to his head. The caption reads: "He doesn't buy it."

Mark DeBellis shared this image and anecdote yesterday at CUES Nexus Conference during his session, "How to Steal From the Post Office ... Legally!" in which he outlined strategies for reducing costs on direct mailings.

By Suzanne Boniface

The weather today in Baku, Azerbaijan was about 50 degrees with light wind. But five credit union CEOs and the chairman of the Azerbaijan Credit Union Association and the deputy director missed that cool damp weather. They were here, in the United States, enjoying 70 degrees, party sunny. More exactly, they were sitting in sessions at the UMass Five Credit Union in Amherst, Mass., learning about the operations of U.S. credit unions.

By Lisa Hochgraf

I was in a cab this morning en route to The Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, and tomorrow's launch of CUES Nexus Conference, when I saw this notice, a sticker on the window next to me:

"The method used to authenticate credit card transactions for approval is not secure and personal information is subject to being intercepted by unauthorized personnel."

Huh? Was this some wireless system with no security?

By Mary Auestad Arnold

With margins tight, growth slow and competition mounting, credit unions are surely at a crossroads. Maybe the most critical intersection since the '70s when deregulation plunged S&Ls and credit unions into direct competition with banks. I wasn't yet in the movement to witness it, but it's obvious that a great many CUs were up to the challenge. As a group, credit unions have experienced enormous success during this period, while the savings and loan industry has virtually vanished.

By Doug True

By Lisa Hochgraf

By Constance Anderson

Everywhere I go, there are concerns that credit unions as a group are hardly growing. Despite expanding their membership bases to entire communities, adding underserved areas in some cases and signing up innumerable borrowers via indirect lending, the movement saw 2006 membership growth of just over one percent.

By Mary Auestad Arnold

When you hear the words "marketing impact," does your mind summon Super Bowl ads, award-winning campaigns and media blitzes? Or do you think of "marketing impact" in terms of building a successful brand, developing innovative products, even driving a company's priorities?