Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA

Recently I was invited, along with a number of other progressive bloggers, to a meeting with Wainwright Bank president Robert Glassman, to discuss how the bank could engage the progressive blogosphere. As an avid customer since around 2000 or so, I was excited to attend. The meeting was yesterday afternoon, and I think it was fascinating and, I hope, the beginning of a wonderful relationship.

One idea which was tossed out (and accepted, it seems) early on was the concept of Wainwright advertising on local progressive blogs. This seems like a no-brainer to me - why not advertise to a receptive audience? - and I said as much. It sounds like the bank will start that up relatively soon.

Most of the meeting focused on how Wainwright could establish its own blog, and what the ramifications of that would be. Because banking is a heavily regulated industry, the bank apparently must be very careful in its public positions, and that was a recurring theme throughout the meeting. I'm not sure what the regulatory restrictions are, but I imagine there are some which are obvious (for example, the bank may not give out account numbers and social security numbers), others less obvious (the bank probably has some information on stock trading and things like that which it can't reveal), and others which I have no idea whatsoever about.

Nevertheless, I think the group came up with some good ideas for the kinds of content which could appear on the blog. In no particular order:

• Financial and money management tips
• Highlights of the bank's services or its practices in supporting progressive causes
• Guest posts from non-profit clients of the bank or from bank employees and customers
• Commentary on news in the financial sector, or news which relies on a lot of banking jargon (e.g. the sub-prime lending scandal, the bankruptcy reform bill)
• Commentary on political issues generally, like the war in Iraq or environmental issues (it sounded to me like a lot of people thought this might backfire, and I agree)
• The "inside scoop" on the bank, including things like the bank's history and how it got to the place it is today, and brief views into a small part of the bank's board meetings.
• Discussion of recent customer complaints, and what is being done to address them.

There are probably some other ideas I'm missing, but those were the highlights.

There was a bit of discussion on whether the blog would have comments. I certainly hope so; a blog is all about conversation, and without comments, you have no conversation. It's almost not worth the trouble. Of course, there's a danger that the comments could get ugly. But I think that danger can easily be mitigated in several ways:

• Avoid posting on things which aren't really related to the bank, e.g. posts on political issues which are not financial in nature, or which are not guest posts from non-profit clients.
• Treat commenters with respect. If someone has a beef with the bank, don't delete the comment or denigrate the commenter. Treat the commenter the same way you would a customer who is standing at a teller station.

And really, that's about it. The big bad blogosphere really isn't so bad, and in practice it's usually quite easy to satisfy fellow bloggers and commenters.

There was also a discussion of who should write the blog. I think many people assumed that Mr. Glassman would write it himself, but I disagree. I think it should be edited chiefly by a paid staffer, with Mr. Glassman and others guest posting from time to time. I know that would seem perhaps more condescending to some in the blogosphere, but it wouldn't seem that way to me personally. I don't have much time for blogging, and all I do is run a very small web development shop. I can't imagine I'd have much more time if I was president of the seven-hundredth-largest-bank in the country (or president of the 8000th largest bank, for that matter.) Not only that, but a chief blogger is going to have a lot more time to be able to really understand the blogosphere and have a proper conversation with them. Finally and perhaps most importantly, a chief blogger would probably not receive the same degree of scrutiny from regulators that a bank president would.

I certainly hope Wainwright will eventually establish its own blog, as I think that'll be an exciting development in the world of our local progressive blogosphere. It's exciting to have a bona fide institution as a partner, and there are a lot of interesting things you can do with such a relationship.

Along these lines, I mentioned briefly an idea I had about how the bank could really work together with the progressive blogosphere. The idea is to have the bank offer a turnkey business-creation package for progressive bloggers. Using this service, a blogger could have a legal entity created, proper paperwork filed with the state and federal government, and a business account (established at Wainwright, of course), all in a matter of a few hours, just by walking into a branch, filling out some simple paperwork, and maybe paying a small fee. I'd imagine not all bloggers would want to use such a service, but it could be really useful for those who really want to try and make some money from their blogs.

For those who have heard me go on and on about my pie-in-the-sky ideas for my business, this idea will sound familiar. I'd one day love to create an incubator for progressive businesses; if Wainwright were to offer such a service, it would be a great first step in that direction!

Also, I should mention that there's been some hesitation from other bloggers in attending the meeting, because they felt that they were just helping Wainwright figure out their marketing strategy for free, and/or are being asked to provide free advertising. I had some worries about that before the meeting, but they are pretty well allayed by now. As liberals, we are all very suspicious of being manipulated by corporations, and corporations with a progressive image are sometimes the worst offenders. That skepticism is healthy, but it should not be so strong as to wall us off from bona fide allies. If we are going to build a lasting movement for real progressive change, then we are going to have to build (or work with) institutions to keep the momentum going. Just as the union movement in the 1930's needed newspapers, union halls, solidarity committees, and all sorts of other supporting institutions, so will we need think tanks, media outlets, and yes, banks, to aggregate political and financial capital to support our causes. We should not hesitate to establish those institutions when we need to, but we certainly shouldn't re-invent the wheel when we have a perfectly solid ally, as we do with Wainwright.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.