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(FTC disclosure: I have a financial relationship with USAA. They?d like to start one with you, too.)
This is the end of a series of posts on USAA?s blogger conference. I?ve linked the earlier posts below, and I?ve e-mailed their community outreach staff with a few final queries. If you still have questions for USAA after reading this post, please let me know.
USAA invited over 25 bloggers, publishers, innovation writers, editors, reporters, and a noteworthy enthusiast. I met some of the attendees at last year?s USAA conference and I met some of them again at FINCON12 in September. Many of us keep in touch on social media so it?s been an ongoing conversation? and (for me, at least) a chance to get free coaching. I wrote about eight of the bloggers last week, and in this post I?ll mention a few more.
First up is Dale Kissinger of Military Avenue. He?s co-founder and chairman of what has grown into a family business of supporting the American military family. Military Avenue offers one-stop shopping of resources for the military family lifestyle and information on transfers. It includes reviews of over 200 military installations & communities as well as a large database of providers and public services. The site helps families get ready for their move, and it helps them settle in once they?ve arrived.
I follow @MilitaryAvenue on Twitter and I?ve referred to the site many times over the last couple years of blogging. Dale?s daughter Leanne (who I met at USAA last year) publishes both the ?Military Avenue? and ?The Military Spouse? online newspapers from @MilAve_Leanne. But most of all, I tremendously enjoyed meeting another ?extensively experienced? Cold War veteran who?s shared the lifestyle and the duty stations. Dale and I represent the USAA demographic who has raised a family, achieved financial independence, thrived in life after the military, and is ready to plan their retirement. There will probably be a Kissinger at USAA conferences for years.
Chrisi West represents the Military Officers Association of America, which works closely with USAA. (They?ve had an affinity partnership for two years.) She manages MOAA?s website content and social media, including their Facebook and Twitter pages. Much of MOAA?s content is free (like their financial blog), but if you?re a member then you have greater access to their career-transition services and their publications.
Chris Pape started Macho Spouse, the Internet?s premier site for male military spouses. (I take this subject personally because I was a member of many fine Officer?s Wives Clubs in the 1980s and ?90s.) Even today, ?spouse clubs? and ?family readiness groups? could still use the help. Women still make up less than 20% of the military (although that number is rising) and 187,000 male military spouses are an even smaller demographic. All military spouses (both men and women) have to put their own careers in a very distant second place to their servicemember spouse?s transfers and deployments. They also end up in charge of the family care, the family household, the family finances, and just about every other aspect of spouse life. It can get awfully lonely for the guy military spouses out there, and Chris is bringing the guy?s community to us. He?s collected guides, handbooks, and videos to help decrypt the military lifestyle, customs, and acronyms. He?s also set up a forum for us to network our questions and our careers and to blog about our concerns. We don?t have to do this alone. I could blather on and on about all the good things Macho Spouse is doing for male military spouses, but Dale Kissinger?s interview of Chris Pape does a much better job than me.
I first met Andrew Schrage and Gyutae Park a few months ago at FINCON12. These two run a Godzilla website of personal finance: MoneyCrashers, a place for people to crash and talk about money. After four years of hard work (and while holding down day jobs), they?ve grown their blog to a top-10 personal-finance site with over 800,000 monthly visitors. Andrew brings an economics & finance background to the site, and Gyutae has the tech engineering skills. Both were frustrated that college had provided little information on basic personal-finance skills, and they decided to create a site which could do just that. Over the years they?ve built up a staff of writers who generate daily content, and their editorial effort keeps the quality high and on reader interests. They review a tremendous number of financial products to help you sort through credit cards, banking, stockbrokers, and software. Their ranking of personal-finance websites lists over 600 blogs for you to choose the categories you want to read about. They also cover an occasional military topic? take a look at their comprehensive overview of investing strategies for active-duty servicemembers.
Curtez Riggs started Life After The Army to help soldiers (and other servicemembers) with the transition to a civilian bridge career. The services teach the basics but Curtez helps with the job hunt, Internet entrepreneurship, and personal branding. Personal branding is not a power suit and a pink necktie: you have a unique set of skills, and it?s your challenge to show an employer how your assets will solve their problems. Even before you?re hired, you?re a sales consultant? the company needs what you have, and you can show how you?ll help them achieve a goal. Curtez? contributors are also servicemembers, veterans, or professional educators. He sees a ?growth industry? as the military downsizes so he?s also writing about the drawdown, professional development, retirement, military spouses, and recruiting. (It may be the largest drawdown since WWII, but the services still need recruits.) It?s not just a ?get a job? site? he and his team write about military benefits, volunteering, social work, and retirement. You may also enjoy the two-minute video ?Stuff people say to veterans?.
Bryan Sproles is described as a ?USAA enthusiast?. He spends a lot of time on USAA?s Facebook page answering member questions and helping with problems. He also knows where to find almost everything on USAA?s website, and their social media team noticed that he was helping members solve problems at least as fast as they were. (He also has tremendous computer skills to help with their apps and other services.) All of us bloggers have spent a little time on USAA?s website learning about something, but Bryan has spent a tremendous amount of time there learning about everything they offer. Talk about personal branding: by the end of the conference, USAA had asked for his r?sum?, and I?m looking forward to hearing what Bryan decides to do next.
This post focused on the bloggers at USAA?s conference but they also invited people from the Better Business Bureau, the finance industry, military foundations & support organizations, and Innovation Excellence. I?ve only mentioned a fraction of the execs & staff that we spent time with at USAA. We bloggers exchanged many business cards, visited a lot of websites, and started following a bunch of new Twitter accounts. I?ve linked all of my posts from this conference down below. If you have a question about something or someone at USAA, post it in the comments or contact me.
I?ve been putting up a USAA post every week for over a month, but that?s going to slow down for a few weeks. I have plenty of military topics to catch up on, and a post or two about taking the blog to Bluehost and starting up a revenue stream. I should have a sales report on the book in another month, too, so that means another royalty check going to military charities!
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Related articles:
Bloggers from the USAA conference?(part 1)
USAA: Military Transitions, Home Circle, Auto Circle
USAA blogger conference topics
Reader feedback on USAA interest rates and blog advertising
USAA blogger conference: initial report
On the way to USAA
I?m goin? to USAA? again!
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Source: http://the-military-guide.com/2012/12/17/bloggers-at-the-usaa-conference-part-2-of-2/
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