We really are fortunate to be working in an industry where collaboration and sharing of ideas are still prevalent. During the first part of my career in the brokerage world, it seemed like collaboration was the negotiation of a settlement after one firm pirated another’s top producer or back office personnel. In that business of a zero-sum day where one person’s success was another’s loss, the idea of collaborating with your competitor was just unheard of.

Imagine how surprising it was the first time I attended a credit union chapter meeting on a cold winter night in Chicago when the issue of the evening was the free exchange of ideas around dinner and a few drinks! It was truly an eye-opening evening, and I believe that the expansion of CUSO’s have become a direct extension of this philosophy and possibly the avenue for many credit unions and CUSO’s to thrive in the new financial climate that has engulfed the world.

Go to http://www.cutimes.com/Issues/2009/March%2011%202009/Pages/CUSOs-Move-From-Collaborations-to-Collaborating-.aspx# to read the entire article.