about me
Hi, I'm William and I head up the WEB Team (Web Engagement & Banking) at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union.

My opinions and views are just that, and don't reflect the views of my employer (or, perhaps, anyone else).

I can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.

my peers
:.BankerVision
:.Banking Kismet
:.Banktastic
:.The Bankwatch
:.Benry
:.The Boardcast
:.Buzz Canuck
:.ChangeEverything.ca
:.The Client Side
:.The Credit Union Warrior
:.CU Communicator
:.CU Employee
:.CU Hype
:.The CU Loop
:.Currency Marketing
:.Denise Wymore
:.Doug True
:.EverythingCU
:.The Financial Brand
:.Jeremy Osborn
:.Marketing ROI
:.NetBanker
:.Nexus Connection
:.Noise to Signal
:.Open Source CU
:.ShoreBank Voices
:.Social Signal
:.The Story
:.Tinfoiling
:.Trey Reeme
:.Verity's Our Voices

Seven years and still going...

Today marks the beginning of my eighth year of blogging. And I wanted you to know.

That is all.

Labels: azaroff, blogging

posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010

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Join me on Monday for a Liquid Lunch...

On Monday, January 4th at 10am PT (1pm ET) I'll be hosting the CU Water Cooler Liquid Lunch program. This is a free show with a rotating host, and I'm up next.

My guest will be Ed Brett, who is the Manager, Ecommerce Channel at Westminster Savings Credit Union here in the Metro Vancouver area. We'll be talking about 2010, the opportunities, the challenges, the things we're happy to leave behind and the things we're excited to dig into.

You can call us at 917-889-7767 and join the conversation once the show begins. Talk to you then...

UPDATE: You can listen to the archive of episode #6 here:

Labels: credit union, cuwatercooler

posted on Saturday, January 02, 2010

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Reflecting on the last decade.

Ten years ago, my wife and I left a party to celebrate the rushing in of the year 2000 early so we could be alone together. It felt like a reflective, personal time and we wanted to spend it quietly.

At the time, we were living in Seattle, and I had completed a feature film several months earlier. By December 31st I knew I had not gotten into Sundance and was starting to grapple with questions about whether I would make it as a filmmaker. I was leaving my twenties behind, and sensed that major changes were coming.

I was filled with optimism about the changing of the millennium.

Now, ten years later, my life is very different: I moved deeper into web work, left filmmaking behind, moved to LA, did some extremely interesting work and met some amazing people, decided to move back home to Vancouver, had a son, and landed at Vancity where I found a new home for myself professionally.

Now, as we are about to enter the Twenty-Teens, my wife and I are once again in a reflective frame of mind, thinking about the last ten years and what our forties will have in store for us. We will spend a quiet New Year's in our new home with our son, looking out from an entirely different vantage point.

And I'm thinking a lot about goals. When the next ten years have come and gone, what do I want to have accomplished? What will our life look like?

I'm not a long term planner. I believe in having a sense of what I want to do in the long run, having some good short term goals and letting the chips fall where they may. I never would have predicted where I would be at 39 when, ten years ago, we were watching the fireworks over Lake Union from our kitchen window, and yet I'm happy and satisfied with where I am. I don't want to make some huge long-term plan, but it's a good time to reset my thinking, validate my assumptions, and put some energy into where I'd like to be when I'm watching the fireworks ushering in 2020 and thinking about turning the big Five-Oh.

So this isn't a post with any answers, or any deep thoughts, just a small piece of reflection on a process of making sure I'm on the right path. I'm still optimistic, but a little more cautious, a little more skeptical perhaps than I was at 29, but with a sense of real purpose and place now that I didn't have then. So bring on 2010, and all that will follow. Thanks for reading, and joining me on this journey. It means a lot to me.

Labels: azaroff

posted on Thursday, December 31, 2009

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Supporting not for profits this holiday.

A few days ago, I wrote about my growing fondness for the Vancity Community Foundation. Well, today we get to share that love with our members and staff with the launch of our Vancity Holiday eCards.

Each one sent adds $1 to a donation pool at the Foundation, and senders can decide whether they want to support enterprising nonprofits, housing and homelessness or food security. It's all contained here on a description page on ChangeEverything.ca.

I hope it'll be an engaging way for people to connect over the holidays while supporting local issues.

Selfishly, it's nice to see our main website and ChangeEverything.ca work together. For me, it's putting together the pieces we already have to work harder together.

Props to
Mary-Jo Dionne and Currency Marketing for helping to make this happen.

So check out the eCards. Any guesses as to how many days it will take to hit $10,000?

Labels: credit union, marketing, vancity

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009

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Supporting the Vancity Community Foundation.

One area of Vancity that I'm excited to get more involved with is the Vancity Community Foundation. I didn't have much to do with the Foundation until fairly recently when I chose them to receive the donation made in my name when I was named GonzoBanker of the Month back in March.

And then recently, I went to their 20th anniversary celebration, and was in awe of what they accomplish in our communities every day. Brave, inspiring work that reminded me of all the reasons I work at Vancity.

Here are those videos, and I urge you to check them out.

Community Stories

History

Donor Stories

I have written before that one of the main things I love about doing what I do at Vancity is that it is an organization whose presence would be sorely missed by many in our area if it were to disappear. It is an organization that matters, which is not a sense I've ever had about the companies I've ever worked for before. It is a profound thing.

I'll be writing more about the Vancity Community Foundation soon, we're about to launch a very cool way to support their work.

Labels: corporate responsibility, credit union, social economy, vancity, vancouver

posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009

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Honoured and amazed...

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I looked at my computer a little bleary-eyed and saw this tweet from Jeff Stephens. It was a nice way to start the day.

A few weeks back, Bank Technology News told me I had been named one of the top 10 innovators of 2009. I was humbled, kind of in disbelief, honoured and thrilled.

Today, they published The Top 10 People of 2009. I netted out in the coveted number 2-3-4 spot, along with Aaron Patzer of mint.com and Jeff Carter, CEO of azigo.com and co-founder of the Center for Future Banking at MIT's Media Lab.

Bank Technology News wrangled us together on a conference call and published this story: Where Innovation Is, and Isn't, in Retail Banking.

So, I guess this constitutes a good day...

Labels: azaroff, banking, credit union, innovation, online banking

posted on Tuesday, December 01, 2009

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See what's bubbling up on the CU Water Cooler.

One of my fellow credit union bloggers, Matt Davis (otherwise known as the Credit Union Warrior) recently approached me with the idea of a site where 12 credit union champions would surface relevant, inspiring and forward-looking online content for the rest of the CU world. It was an intriguing concept and I was truly honoured to be among the initial people he approached.

Well give the guy like 10 days and he's gone from running the idea past us to launching the damn thing.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CU Water Cooler, bubbling up the best credit union content.

The site is simple. The 12 editors each tag content on delicious, and the site aggregates it all together. There will also be blog posts and radio shows, where we touch on issues affecting credit unions. Matt's initial post sums it all up way better than I ever could.

Major kudos to Matt for making this happen. I can see this is the start of amazing things Matt will do now that he's
joined Filene to help credit unions across the globe learn about, implement, and create financial services innovations. Pretty cool stuff.

Check it out, bookmark it, follow it on Twitter, subscribe to the feed and join in the conversation.

PS: Sorry it's been two whopping months since my last post. I blame it on lots of activity, both professional and personal. Leave a comment to let me know you're still reading...

Labels: credit union, social media

posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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