Six hundred marketers share expertise through the new online professional community.

• Position: MARKETING edge

More than 600 marketers have signed up for the new professional online community that was initiated earlier this year as an exclusive benefit for Marketing Network members.

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The online professional community is a platform to enable marketers to exchange resources, ideas and expertise.

Users, for example, can exchange information with other marketers, download educational articles or view images of marketing materials generated by another bank.

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Marketers benefit from having quick access to information needed to make them more productive and successful in their jobs.

Jason Tonioli, CFMP, vice president and marketing manager for the Bank of Utah (assets: $696 million), Ogden, Utah, recently turned to the online professional community while searching for vendors for a debit-card rewards program. "There was already a discussion chain started about these vendors, and I was able to read what other bank marketers thought about different programs that they were using.

"It helped us find vendors who did what we were Looking for and also helped us know what potential problems other banks had experienced with these kinds of programs so that we knew what questions to ask when meeting with vendors."

Even if marketers don't post any questions, they can still learn valuable information by reading the discussion threads, says Cindy Rowe, vice president/marketing, Harvard Savings Bank (assets: $125 million), Harvard, III. "If you view it on a regular basis, you get ideas, your creative brain starts flowing, and you think of how you can help this person or how you can take the information and use it at your bank," she observes. "I'm addicted."

Among the features of the online community:

* A discussion...