Doonesbury, Gen Y'ers and Banking

I've really been enjoying the recent Doonesbury comic strip this week. For those of you who don't follow it, here's the one for today.

The basic premise is two twenty-somethings meet for lunch and spend the entire time on their mobile devices. Anyone who has kids or young adults knows that this isn't that far fetched.

So what does that have to do with banking? These are the current/future banking customer's of today. How can you hope to engage them in something as mundane as banking if you aren't meeting them in the social media space? Let's face it: if they aren't talking to each other face to face, how will you ever get them to talk to you?

Ravens Football and Social Media

This past weekend marked the end of the 2010 football season for me. My local team, the Baltimore Ravens couldn't get past their rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the 2nd round of the AFC Playoffs. I still feel an emptiness.

As I reflected on the season, I realized how much social media played into it. In addition to generating my own tweets from our tailgate or during the game, I had just as much fun following other Twitter users. Whether it was other local fans, local sports writers like @mattvensel, @jamisonhensley, or @wbalpete, or even Ravens players like @rayrice27 and @WillisMcGahee. I even had the chance to interact with out of state friends as our teams clashed on the gridiron. It truly made it a more rich and enjoyable experience. Now if we had only beaten the damn Steelers......