Category Archives: History of Co-Operative Movements

History of Co-Ops and Credit Unions. How they evolved and how they operate. Why you can be a part of them.

Domain Name Games Part 3 Just Published

Part 3 of Domain Name Games has now been published.  Go to Domain Name Games on the Main Menu bar, and select Part 3.

Or click here:

The California Credit Union Domain Story Unfolds Into The Internet Void.

Once again a major Credit Union has failed to secure its name and all aspects of the name, suffering among other things, an invisible assault by the Internet Buccaneers. High weirdness as the trail of the Internet Buccaneers leads to the Hermit Kingdom.

The Internet Buccaneers Discover California Credit Union – Strange Connections Revealed – LATU Names Grabbed Up – More Names Go South and East – The Strange Case of the Reverse Hijacking – The View From the 16th Floor Must Be Exhilarating – The Four Clues – The Vanished Galleons of the Internet Buccaneers – Should Credit Unions Read The The Good Book?

Lockheed FCU’s Trademarks Go Nowhere

Lockheed FCU’s Trademarks Go Nowhere – Not Linked To Domain Names

A previous 2 part article entitled Domain Name Games (on supportcreditunions.com) pointed out that a mantra of internet name guru Big Jim says that it is important to link your trademarks to domain names. The trademarks, properly tied to domain names, works with your website, sending customers directly to your website without the possibility of them getting directed elsewhere. Failure to do this leads to situations where your customers and potential customers, who are trying to find you by searching for one of your trademarked names, get sent to other websites of the same name or similar name. People who get confused in this mass of internet names can easily give up. Everyone is in a big hurry these days, time is precious. How many times have you heard someone just say “screw it, it’s too much hassle” when looking for something on the internet? We have all felt that way one time or another. So making it easy for your customers should be a number one priority.

 

A search for trademarks for Lockheed Federal Credit Union (hereafter referred to as LFCU) turns up eight records. Taking a look at the trademarks shows that LFCU has missed the boat on most of these, making it harder for customers and potential customers to find them. This includes their new name, which will be launched in July of 2012. Let’s take a look at the trademark names in detail and see what the situation is.

 

The first name is a trademark for “Logix Smarter Banking”. I can’t reproduce the pictorials on these, but you can search google for the trademark visual and check out the designs yourself (www.trademarkia.com is a great tool for this. The company that provides this is LegalForce Trademarkia) The filing date for this trademark is recent, 5-30-2012, by LFCU’s excellent and professional trademark agents in Seattle. However, when you try to find a connected website for this, www.logixsmarterbanking.com, you go to a holding page at Domains By Proxy, which is a company owned by godaddy founder Bob Parsons. This company, Domains By Proxy, will hold the domain name owner in “secret”, hidden behind a wall of security. So who owns LogixSmarterBanking.com? Maybe Lockheed (LFCU) owns it in secret? But if they do, why not just re-direct the inquiries to their lfcu.com website? The guess is that LFCU does not own it. Since this looks to be their main logo for their new name, not owning the domain could cause a lot of confusion for their customers. A recent check shows that LFCU has obtained the name LogixBanking.com, which re-directs inquiries to their lfcu.com website. A step in the right direction on a long, confusing road. But without the words “credit union” attached, it looks like “Logix” is just another bank.

 

Next on the list is their trademark called Altis. This is under the category of Insurance and Financial Services, and listed as credit union services, loans, etc. This is a nice strong-sounding name, and was filed on 12-28-2011. Unfortunately, searching www.altis.com does not take you to LFCU, but instead to a company in Australia that is engaged in consulting, information dashboard design, data warehousing, business intelligence, and other web activities. The main IP for this company is in the states, in Sunneyvale, CA., but the company is in Sydney, NSW, the Land of Oz. They have had this great name since March 22, 1996. For a potential LFCU customer seeing the logo and trying to get to lfcu.com, this is a dead-end road, so to speak.

 

Third is another great sounding name that LFCU came up with: Aviance. This was filed on December 28, 2011, the same date they filed for Altis. The category for this is also Insurance and Financial Services, and states that it is for credit union services, loans, on-line banking, and more. If you try to find LFCU through this website, www.aviance.com, you are taken to a large airport services company. This company, Aviance, says that it is “the first ever alliance of airport services providers in the world. The alliance was created in 1999 to provide carriers with a co-operative alternative to the global handlers. The website is registered to a company in Istanbul, Turkey, and the IP server is somewhere near Kayseri, Turkey. The website seems to date from April 28, 2004, years before LFCU filed for the Aviance trademark. So once again, LFCU’s trademark does not match an internet domain. The latest look at the trademark information shows that a letter of suspension was mailed to LFCU on March 30, 2012. Possibly they are dropping this trademark, or are behind in filing some paperwork?

 

The fourth trademark is Logix Federal. The filing date for this trademark is given as September 2, 2011, before they filed for either Altis or Aviance. LFCU’s marketing folks must have been on full tilt that last quarter of 2011. The associated domains would be logixfederal.com and logixfederal.org. Both of these domain names are being held by Domains By Proxy, with the true owners shielded from view. Both were created in mid September, 2011, right after LFCU filed for the trademark, so the question is: if LFCU owns these domains why let them go to a dead end holding page at Domains By Proxy? Why not have them re-directed to the main LFCU web address of lfcu.com? Maybe these websites are not owned by LFCU, possibly a domain broker like Big Jim is scanning the trademark applications every day for opportunities. Perhaps one of the internet buccaneers has snagged it. At the moment, it’s a mystery. The domain name game can be a high-stakes game, with stacks of cash on the table, and many operators are scanning the business news looking for just such opportunities.

 

The fifth trademark to be discussed is Logix. This was also filed on September 2, 2011, a busy time at LFCU. This is also stated to be Insurance, financial services, and credit union activities. This is their most important trademark, as LFCU has announced that Lockheed FCU is changing its name to Logix FCU, so “Logix” will become the main name in July, 2012. “We are proud to announce that LFCU will soon become Logix.” they state on their website. As far as being able to get the domain name for this, the great name logix.com, the chances are about as great as becoming the King of England. Logix.com is owned by Logix, a very old communications company, that has its roots in the great breakup of AT&T, and the founding of American Telco in 1983. This is a major telecommunications company, with over 12,000 customers, based in Houston, Texas. The main IP server is in Oklahoma City. LFCU has made a major mistake in picking a name that they can never have as a domain .com. Think of the large amounts of money LFCU will be spending on this name change, legal, signage, letterheads, advertising, trademarks, etc. And after all that, when someone driving down the street spots the name Logix on the side of a building and searches on an Iphone or computer for logix.com, it will show up as the great Logix of Houston, TX, a large telecommunications company, not as LFCU. (There are alternatives of this that can still be pursued, such as a name that has “Logix” in it, that is a strong-sounding name that can be trademarked and also get the .com and other extensions that go with it. It’s never too late for this.) Meanwhile, what would Big Jim, the domain name whiz, say about this? I’m not asking, as the verbiage would too colorful for this article, and I have no reason to upset him, because ballistic he would go, and mere mortals like myself would have to run and hide. You get the idea.

 

But while we are on the logix domain subject, what about logic.org? That is at least in the ballpark, and something that LFCU should own. The current registrant of this domain is one Chris Nielsen from Minneapolis, MN, but the domain is hosted on a site in Germany. Is Mr. Nielsen a domain broker? Or is he acting on behalf of someone in Germany? It was created on January 1, 2011, months before LFCU filed for their Logix trademark in the fourth quarter of 2011. This great name is stated on one site to be for sale. Why LFCU did not grab this right away when they filed for their trademark is puzzling, to say the least. But this is still possible as of this writing.

 

The sixth trademark is another, older version of Logix Smarter Banking. This is the same name as the first trademark discussed, but the artwork on the name is not as fancy as the more recent one. This earlier rendition of the name was filed on September 2, 2011, along with Logix Federal and Logix, a busy time for the LFCU’s trademark agent. It was also stated to be in credit union activities and financial services. As stated before, the names logixsmarterbanking.com and .org both go to a Domains By Proxy holding page.

 

The seventh trademark on the list is more of a slogan than a logo. It is: “It Pays To Be A Member”. This was filed back on March 3, 2004, and classed as the usual insurance and financial affairs. The domain name itpaystobeamember.com is registered to something called Industrial Credit Union of Bellingham, WA, and was created in May 13, 2009. It goes to a link page type of website. The IP server is located in NY. Checking out itpaystobeamember.org, it was created on July 27, 2011, and if you type this in to your browser it will take you to something called The Indiana Farm Bureau. LFCU’s trademark was years before either of these domains. Their failure to grab both the .com and .org for ItPaysToBeAMember is baffling, they could have easily owned these for chump change, and redirected visitors to the lfcu.com site.

 

The last trademark on the list is another that is more of a slogan type, although a strong, good one: MyMoneyManager. This would also be a powerful .com name. It was filed on January 29, 2002. Currently mymoneymanager.com goes to a website called Ferguson Asset Management, Inc, an independent money management firm and registered investment adviser. They filed for this on September 1, 1998, years before Lockheed filed for their trademark. As for the other extension for this, the mymoneymanager.org, it is registered to a UK firm, Energy Internet Group. This was created on March 23, 2012, very recently, and typing in the domain goes to a link page with financial links. LFCU could have had this name years ago. The latest information on this trademark is that no statement of use was filed, and this great name was abandoned by LFCU on June 18, 2003.

 

As internet name guru Big Jim says, trademarks should be connected to domain names in all the possibilities that can be thought of, with every .com, .org, .net and dot everything. This study of LFCU’s trademarks can be a lesson learned for other credit unions, as well as for LFCU. Link the domains for your trademarks back to your main website. But first you have to obtain those domains, something that LFCU has often failed to do.

The Domain Name Game – Domain Buccaneers Sail the Internet Seas Looking to Grab the 2 Most Valuable Assets Your Company Has. Part 1

The Domain Name Game

Domain Buccaneers Sail the Internet Seas

Looking to Grab the 2 Most Valuable Assets Your Company Has

Part 1

What’s In A Name?

According to creditunions.com, plenty:

“We are programmed to think, organize and connect by name, starting with our own, one of the first words we learn. Names are special words that hold magic. The very best names are easy to pronounce, appealing to the ear, sticky to the memory and whenever possible, link us to an associated emotion. That means the very mention of a name should be a complete mini-selling pitch of your brand. Pretty efficient.”

A lot of thought goes into picking a name for your business. Since we have been looking at some interesting name problems that credit unions have had, especially Lockheed Federal Credit Union, this line of investigation will continue, and now delve into the shadowy world of international domain name buccaneers. Be aware that SupportCreditUnions.com is just that, an activist group supporting credit unions against the big banks. When we point out the sometimes disastrous mistakes some of the credit unions are making in the Name Game, we do so to warn of the consequences and problems that will follow.

The excellent article that we quoted from in the opening paragraph was written by Mr. John Mathes, Director of Brand Strategy at Bancography. His article goes on to list a number of things that are important to selecting a great name, in this case for a credit union. Down at the bottom of his list is probably the most important point: The name should be available as internet domain addresses.

When we look at how the Name Game has been played in the last few years by some of the biggest credit unions, it will become shockingly clear how lax attention to domain names has led to the worst case scenario for some of these organizations. Not that they are in danger necessarily of going out of business, but that they are losing a big chunk of the two most valuable things they posses:

1. The company name, in all its possibilities as domains on the internet.

2. The second most valuable asset, the customers and potential customers.

Look at it this way, imagine your credit union is a ship, a passenger liner. Your ship, with your name on it, is pulling into a major port to pick up passengers. Little known to you, a merrie band of buccaneers has stealthily boarded your ship during the night and infiltrated the crew, even placing their guys in your engine room. You dock at night in a thick fog, and in the morning, as the fog lifts, you see around you hundreds of other ships also at anchor, and they all have similar names as yours. The infiltrators then proceed to escort waiting passengers to these other ships, much to your consternation. The buccaneers have just legally taken your two most valuable assets, all the names similar to yours, and a big boodle of your customers. You’ve just been morphed, and some customers hijacked, and it’s all perfectly legal.

 

Big Jim: He Plays His Cards So Close To The Vest That You Think They Are Part of His Skin.

 

Big Jim is tall, about six foot four, a little on the thin side. He’s middle aged, sports a mustache. His sandy brown hair is thinning, so he often wears a baseball cap. In his college days he played football, usually an end or a linebacker. He had speed more than bulk. But an injury changed his life; things happen like that. Athletics took a back seat to the new computer stuff. Big Jim became a computer geek. I’ve known him for over ten years, and during that time Jim never discussed domains or names with me. About a year ago I wanted to get a domain for something, and I started asking questions. After some time it came out that Big Jim was not only a computer geek, but a domain whiz. He had been buying and selling domains since the start of the internet. He keeps it quiet, real quiet. But I listen and learn. And Big Jim knows a lot about domains.

 

Big Jim’s Mantra #1

 

Big Jim’s number one Mantra, told to me many times is simple: Protect your (business) name at all costs. Get every single extension, .com, .org, .us, .net, dot everything. Get all the possibilities that you can think of. Then think some more and get all of those. If you don’t do this you are a “freaking” idiot and you are going to get what you deserve. Big Jim uses more colorful language than that, of course, but I’ll leave it there. He says that you have to protect your trademark also with all possibilities that you can think of – Trademarks also have to be linked to domain names. That’s just how it is. End of story. If you think anything else you are dumber than a donkey.

 

When Lockheed’s Missile Boys Moved North From Burbank, They Took Their Money With Them.

 

The old Lockheed Aircraft Company was a fixture in Burbank for a long time. My dad worked their during World War II, as a technical writer. He was very proud of the fact that he wrote most of the Tech Manual on the Lockheed P-38 fighter. When the cold war got going in the early 1950’s Lockheed opened up a Missile and Space Division in Sunnyvale, Northern California. In 1957 Lockheed transferred a chunk of dough from the old credit union in Burbank to a new credit union in Sunnyvale. 1,350 accounts were more than enough to start the Lockheed Missile Employees Federal Credit Union. By 1971 they had 22,225 members, and assets of $92 million. The cold war was good for Lockheed, and it was on the verge of the boom years.

 

In 1981 Lockheed Missile Employees Federal Credit Union became LMSC Federal Credit Union. By the end of 1985 the assets were $435 million and they had ballooned to over 43,000 members. The furious pace of growth, fueled by space and military, continued. In 1995 they again changed their name, now dropping the word Lockheed, and becoming Star One Federal Credit Union. A few years later they got a state charter and dropped the “Federal”, and the official name Star One Credit Union has been in use until today. Assets claimed now are $6 billion and membership is at about 89,000 members. If you live, work, or attend school in Santa Clara County you are potentially qualified to join.

 

But as the cold war wound down a new boom came rushing in: the great tech/computer boom of Silicone Valley. With that came the internet. And everything changed. The thousands of domains became millions of domains, and 2011 saw something like 300 million domains added for a total now of over 550 million. We are full-blown in the new technological age, like it or not. Look especially at the young people under 30. Everyone is clutching smart phones. Laptops and ipads rule. Ignore all this at your peril.

 

In the old days, the executives at the big companies like Lockheed protected their name by filing a trademark. That was about it. Copyright a few things and done. But the new age came like a whirlwind, shredding old companies, birthing new products, exploding the human universe beyond the comprehension of anyone at the helm of a company in 1950 could ever imagine. The execs at the helm of Star One Federal Credit Union in 1995 were ill-prepared for what was happening. For this, they can’t totally be faulted. But by the end of the 1990s and the approaching millennium there were plenty of warning signs that things were different. Information was pouring down like raindrops in a fierce storm, and tens of thousands of people came into companies to set up computers and keep track of things, like the company’s domains. In the mid 90s the web site design business took off. What should have been a yellow brick road to company success at times became the yellow goldbricker’s road, as executives spent too much time daydreaming about their next golf game instead of learning the new technology. There were, however, a lot of people who were learning about things computer, and the domain name explosion was an attractive lure. While most of us were struggling to learn Windows 95, others were learning to play the name game. A secret tussle began, worldwide, to buy up and control the great names of businesses and products. Around that time, people like Big Jim got into it, buying up really cool names and sitting on them until a customer appeared with cash in hand, or actually auctioning the names on domain auction sites.

 

The Star One Domain Name Saga Begins.

 

In 1995, as Star One Federal Credit Union was growing like weeds, so was the search for great domain names. The obvious name for this is starone.com. The executives at the credit union missed it, and in March of 1995 this great name went to a real estate company in Ohio, where it remains until today, 17 years later. Star One Realtors would be insane to ever let that one go. Which brings us to…..

 

Big Jim’s Mantra #2

 

If you have a name with any kind of number in it, you MUST get all possibilities, including both the written number and the Arabic number. This also goes for anything that can possibly have a “dash” in the name. You get them all. If you don’t, as Big Jim says, you are insane, a total walking zombie idiot who doesn’t deserve to be called a thinking human. He actually says more things, but I can’t repeat them here.

 

Let’s take Star one. Starone.com is in the hands of a realtor in Ohio, so what about Star1.com? It’s owned by one of the domain name boys, and is advertised for sale at $10,000. If you type it into your browser, you might come up with a “holding” website, leader2leader, a tech company advertising file sharing and other web services. When you consider that Star One Credit Union is claiming assets of $6 billion, the $10,000 asking price seems like pennies. You could spend that much advertising on bus bench ads for a few months. So why don’t they buy it?

 

Maybe Star One Credit Union is fat, dumb, and happy, that’s one answer. Why buy it, they own www.starone.org. That’s enough. But in violating Big Jim’s Mantras, both of them at once for God’s sake, they open up a can of internet worms, because the domain buccaneers are wide awake, and they are looking to take your two most valued possessions and make money off them. With a big company like Star One Credit Union, when you look closely, the buccaneers are like hundreds of mosquitoes who have landed on the company’s body, sucking the booty from its treasure room, interdicting customers and re-directing them to the dreaded enemy, The Big Banks. This is the horror that is now visited on Star One, an invisible attack, ruthless, conducted by shadowy figures around the globe. And all legit. Nothing personal, as my friend Jordan Maxwell would say, it’s just business.

 

Star One Credit Union’s Old Heritage Not Even Protected. The Germans Move In.

 

So remember that back in the old days, when they were just starting out, Lockheed had changed their name to LMSC Federal Credit Union. The interesting fact is that until this day, they have not protected their old name. Why bother? That’s a tough question to answer in any sensible way. Big Jim told me simply, “Look, don’t be stupid, you protect EVERYTHING about your name, past, present, and future. You never know what sh*t can come down on your head when you least expect it. What kind of reflection on your company would it be if someone grabbed your old name and made it a porn site? How many prudes would be writing letters or wagging tongues?” When I checked this in the process of researching this article, I found that LMSCfederalcreditunion.com was available. Incredibly, since the 1995 first name change to StarOneFederalCreditUnion, the old LMSC name is still available, for $12.99. And so is the .org, .net, .biz, and many of the other dot extensions. All for chump change, really chump change, like one lunch for one exec. One name that is not available is LMSC.com. This was taken back in 1997 by some Germans who are running a string of websites in Europe, through a web server in Austria. The LMSC.com currently goes nowhere, it’s just in their war chest, for what reason nobody knows. What is known is that Lockheed Star One does NOT own it. Luckily, the German owners seem to be web designers or hosting legitimate companies. Looking at their operation, they don’t look like buccaneers, so good for now. But what about later? Things can turn on a dime.

 

Even more incredible is that Star One has failed to secure trademarks with their name. A search of the trademark sites shows that both Star One Credit Union and Star One Federal Credit Union are available. The cost of getting these filed is also miniscule: One site offers a starting filing of $159.00 for each of the names. It’s a strange situation, and I for one, am afraid to even mention this one to Big Jim. I’m just writing the story here, but the tirade would be almost unbearable.

 

End of Part 1

 

Coming in Part 2: The Nobby Beach Boyz take a bite out of Star One….The Brisbane Blokes also move in…….So You Failed in Spelling? The Buccaneers Make Money Off That, Too……Server Farms in the Bahamas……From Pompano Beach to Panama, From the Bahamas To Brisbane, The “Clicking Sound” you hear is a roar of cash and it’s going into the Buccaneer’s Treasure Chest….Star One Ravaged From All Sides…..Premier America Credit Union Also Under Assault….What Would Edgar Allan Poe Say?…..The Ultimate Question: Who Are These Guys? One Mastermind or a Crackling Gang of Buccaneers, The Crisscross of Clues.

Mysterious Disappearance of Charles T. Sprading Solved

Mysterious Disappearance of Charles T. Sprading Solved

“I am the last living person to have seen him alive in the late 1950s”

 

Charles T. Sprading was one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th Century. He was a man who championed liberty and fought tyranny all of his life. He vanished around 1959, and many people over the years wondered what happened to him.

My dad was a great friend of Mr. Sprading. Although my father was a technical writer, he was very interested in many other subjects, one of which was rationalism, or free-thought as it is sometimes called. When I was a kid I spent most Saturdays riding around in our old car, visiting dad’s friends. Most of them were quite elderly. Two of the rationalists I remember were Sadie Cook and Charles T. Sprading. I was taught from a young age to listen, not speak. “Children should be seen and not heard,” was the refrain I remember hearing on a weekly basis. These visits to Cook, Sprading, and others opened my eyes to things in philosophy and history at a very early age. Listening to elders talk was serious in my family, so I grew up respecting the views of those who were in very advanced years.

I believe Sadie Cook was the secretary for one of the rationalist societies, and her small house was packed with papers, correspondence, books and magazines. I heard about atheism on Saturdays, then on Sunday it was off to church, for my mother’s side of the family was somewhat religious. I used to ask my dad why I had to go to church if there was no God, and he would answer that I would go to church until I was 18, and then make up my own mind about God. He never said God did not exist, I just picked up that from his discussions with Sadie Cook and others.

Mr. Sprading was a delight to visit, he was a wonderful man, an advanced age, very thin and fragile. He was living in a ramshackle garage in East Los Angeles, I believe it was behind a house on Folsom St., off Brooklyn, in the older section of the city. His living quarters were very sparse, a cot, a sink, some crates and old shelves that contained his remaining books and papers. Looking back, it is more than sad, it is a national disgrace that one of America’s finest intellectuals, a world-respected author and speaker, would end up in such poverty. During our visits, he never complained. He was always cheerful, speaking of many earth shaking historical events. His time was the time of great radicalism. His contemporaries were anarchists, rationalists, syndicalists, libertarians, the great union organizers, and especially Eamon de Valera, the great fighter for Irish Freedom. Sprading was a close associate of de Valera, and worked in the cause for Irish Freedom for many years, as an organizer, speaker, advance man, publicist, and writer.

I would sit in an old shaky wooden chair and listen wide-eyed to Sprading telling about Emma Goldman, revolutionaries, the great strikes, the libertarian campaigns against the religious “blue laws”, and other fantastic events. Most of the libertarian fights in the 1930s seemed to be against the “blue laws”, which among other things forbade retail stores to be open on Sundays. It is hard to believe now, in this time, that such laws existed 80 years ago. Mr. Sprading could go on for a couple of hours, his photographic memory for people and dates were very clear, he would never stumble over a date or a name. After about 2 hours, he would tire, and we would depart so he could rest.

My dad passed on at an early age in 1956. After a time, my mother would take me on a Saturday and we would make the long trip from Hollywood to East Los Angeles on street cars and buses to see Mr. Sprading. My mom didn’t drive, and when father died she sold the car, so we had to take public transportation. Believe it or not, it wasn’t bad back then, because we had the wonderful street car system, soon to be trashed by a conspiracy of GM, Firestone Tires, and Standard Oil. One fateful day we went out to see Mr. Sprading, but he wasn’t there. The landlady who lived in the front house said that he had died. We asked about his books and papers, and she informed us that she had “thrown away all those old papers and books, who would want them?” Even as a young man of 15 at that time, I knew those “old papers” were very valuable. I wanted to scream at this ignorant woman, but years of family training to be polite took hold. My mother was visibly upset, but she kept her cool. On the way home we discussed what a tragedy it was that the stupid woman threw away such rare photos, papers, and books in the trash. My mother knew that material should have gone to a library somewhere. And so it was that one of the giants of the 20th century died quietly in his sleep, living in a dilapidated old garage in the run down section of Los Angeles. His books still exist in libraries, and if someone could track down old copies of The Truth Seeker magazine published by Charles Smith, or other rationalist, libertarian, or freedom magazines, you will find some interesting articles by Charles T. Sprading. Since I was only 15 at the time (1959), and since I never heard of any other “youngsters” who visited him, I am pretty sure that I am the last person presently alive who saw the great Charles T. Sprading.

Lockheed Name Change Makes No Sense

Why Does LFCU Want To Become More Like A Bank?

Lockheed Federal Credit Union (LFCU) wants to change its name to Logix.  We think Logix is a cool name, but it is a techie, computer type of name, not a name for a credit union.  What is really strange is that LFCU already has a great name: “Lockheed”.  What could be better than that?  It’s a name that has been around since the 1920’s (although the company goes back to 1912).  “Lockheed” is a strong-sounding name, a power name, a name that reflects the company history of building fighting aircraft, planes that had a big part in the U.S. victory in World War II.  It’s a name that projects power, security, and integrity.  As a name for a credit union, it doesn’t get any better than that.

The other thing that seems to be happening, along with the change in name to “Logix”, is a drift to make LFCU seem more like a bank and less like a credit union.  Although they say they are going to remain a credit union, the new tag line on their new name is “smarter banking”.  In other words, their image is morphing a bit, a name (Logix) that is a nebulous techie-type name that suggests a company making electronic parts, and a tag line with the words “smarter banking”.  They are entering the grey area of imagery and leaving behind the strong, powerful name with 80 years of history and strong imagery in print, movies, news, aircraft production, and solid reality. 

Lockheed Federal Credit Union’s web site acknowledges that credit unions are under attack by big banks.  Here’s what they say:

“BANK ATTACKS. CREDIT UNIONS FIGHT BACK!

Banks want to eliminate credit union competition

We need your support to fight the banking industry’s relentless attacks on America’s credit unions. The attacks are serious – the American Bankers Association has ranked taxing credit unions as its number-one priority – ahead of combating terrorism!”

LFCU understands completely the threat the big banks are posing.  So then why in the world are they abandoning their great, strong name and drifting toward the banking imagery?  The clock is ticking, the big name change is coming on July 9th.  That’s when the high stakes game begins, with a lot of money being spent on this name and image changeover. With 3 billion in assets, this is indeed a big play for Lockheed.  Will this send LFCU on a road to greater benefits for its members, or as some fear, will it send it drifting over a financial cliff?

 

Lockheed a bank or a credit union?

This morning while en-route to Pasadena with my friend Mike, we had a rather curious experience with the local credit union.

 

My friend Mike sometimes follows the news about credit unions and co-ops, having been involved in starting a co-op several years ago. He has always had an interest in cooperative organizations.

 

After Mike’s return from a short meeting with a representative, he showed me a nice glossy advertisement regarding Lockheed’s name change from Lockheed Federal Credit Union to Logix, with the new website to refer to them as Logix Smarter Banking. Seems they are dropping all references to their being a credit union, so as not to confuse people and gain more customers …. Well I’m certainly confused. I suspect most people will now think they’re a bank, they will say “no we’re still a credit union”. People will ask, “then why are you dropping all references to you’re being a credit union”. They will reply, “so you’re not confused”. I guess I need an MBA to understand this one.

 

I mean really! You’re a credit union, but don’t want to advertise as one? Leading people to assume you’re a bank and offer the same old things that we’ve all come to know and love, like fees for everything, how about out of order processing in order to get overdraft fees. Maybe you should ask for a government bailout, that would be memorable.

 

We’re a credit union, but don’t tell anyone, we want your business, we’re smarter.

Floyd Pink

Lockheed Name Change Is Confusing

Lockheed Name Change Is Confusing

Lockheed Federal Credit Union is changing their name to Logix.  Check out this video cartoon about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALMEQSdDw9k

So what brought all this on?  Lockheed Federal Credit Union decided to change their name to Logix.  Cool name.  Unfortunately, if you go on the internet, someone else is using logix.com, some communications company.  The new Lockheed flyer they are putting out does not have a new website name, nor do they have the old web name on the flyer, which, by the way is lfcu.com.  They also announced on their old web site that the name change is dropping the tag “credit union”, even though they say they are still going to be a credit union.  Huh?  Are you confused yet?  Also on the flyer is the new name with another tag line, Logix smarter banking.  If you go to logixsmarterbanking.com it takes you to a “who is” page, showing that some un-named person or entity already owns this name.  Could Lockheed own this name, kind of a pre-launch secret because the new website isn’t done yet?  Maybe, but we thought they were not going to be a “bank” , they are still a credit union but just not using the name. 

Then there’s the matter of the Trademark.  They didn’t file for a trademark, Logix Credit Union  Maybe they forgot this, or possibly because the name was already filed a few years ago by a school district credit union in Indiana.  But hey, good news here, the school district has abandoned the name by not responding to official paperwork, so the trademark is still available, if Lockheed decides to use the forbidden words “credit union”.

Are you as confused as Knuclehead in the cartoon?  We are too.  But there’s more.  The names “logixcreditunion.com” and “logixfederalcreditunion.com” appear to be owned by pro-credit union folks.  Good news for Lockheed if they can somehow straighten out this spaghetti mess and get their act together.

New Book Recommends Credit Union

A new book, written chapter by chapter and posted in GypsyCool.com recommends folks pull their money out of the big banks and put it in Credit Unions. The book is called “Gypsies of the New Millennium” and is being serialized on the gypsycool.com., a website that is dedicated to people who are forced to live in their vehicles or RVs. More and more people and families are being foreclosed and have nowhere to live, creating a huge “underclass” who have been slammed by the criminal antics of the big banks. Credit Unions, on the other hand, are much safer and controlled by the local community. Very few of them got suckered in the Derivatives game

The book is here:   http://gypsycool.com/blog/?page_id=506