We don’t normally do trip recaps here on the blog because we would end up writing something almost every day. Okay, we really don’t travel every day, but it sure seems like it sometime. This trip was worthy of a shout-out.
I was invited by Doug Groppenbacher, the President-Elect of the Scottsdale Area Association of REALTORS® (SAAR), to take part in the Technology Symposium that SAAR had last Friday. I had a 25 minute or so intro for the day, and then I moderated a panel on blogging with (pictured below (thanks Dru)) Steve Belt, Dru Bloomfield, and Jay Thompson. (Yes, THAT Jay Thompson. ) All in all, the day went perfectly. The audience had lots of good questions, and they went well with the prepared questions I had. SAAR will have videos up of the panel and I’ll share them here if I can. There are more pictures of the panel in Dru’s photoset, including my awesome He-Man slide. I then had a nice lunch with Dru, Irene Hammond, and John Wake, where we discussed generational as well as gender differences in social technology usage.
The next morning, I took a bunch of Phoenix/Scottsdale bloggers out to breakfast to answer any NAR questions for them and so I could ask some questions of them. I never pass up an opportunity to learn more about the industry from the practitioners hitting the ground every day. Besides the three people on the panel I’ve already mentioned, we were joined by Artur Ciesielski and Joanna Zajusz, Christoph Schweiger, Jonathan Dalton, Patrick Mahony, Craig Frooninckx, Max Chirkov, and Heather Barr. It was a great discussion where I learned a lot and hopefully imparted some knowledge as well. I even got my geek on by talking Perl and Ruby with Craig! (By the way, next time I go to Scottsdale, I’m going stay at the Valley Ho, where we had breakfast.. The retro aspect of that place really got to me.)
The whole trip was filled with a great group of people really passionate about their industry and in using internet technology to reach out to and work with consumers.
Heading out to NAR’s midyear meetings? Want to be able to compose your blog posts in peace? Just want some internet access to check on the business back home? Then you’re in luck as CRT will once again be hosting in the always popular WiFi Hot Spot and the increasingly popular Bloggers’ Lounge.
The following PDF’s have the lowdown on the locations and times. Print them out, pass them around. Tattoo them on your back! (Okay, maybe not the last one.)
WiFi Flyer Bloggers’ Lounge Flyer
Click on the image to take you to the REALTOR® Confidential Website
Join us as we crack the code on one of the best kept secrets in real estate — how REALTORS are using and learning about technology to improve their business — in the new web-based video series REALTOR CONFIDENTIAL. In fact, the first episode is up and ready to go at the website, www.realtorconfidential.org. Along with first episode, the site contains all the information about the series. Take a look, and please don’t keep your thoughts confidential – let us know what you think.
How would you respond to real estate professionals that ask, “What’s social media? What does it have to do with real estate? Why would I or my clients care about creating a social network?”
The Center for REALTOR® Technology is hosting an education session during the REALTORS® Annual Conference & Expo in Orlando, FL. The goal is to cultivate awareness and explore social networking & any related tools that you’ve found useful.
Share your experiences with professionals that may know very little about social networking. Tell ‘em all about being “tweeted.” It’s not as bad as it sounds, is it? If face-to-face networking will never go out of style, what do social on-line networks have to offer? How do you get started on social networks? Are there pitfalls? How do you avoid them? What about social sites that rate REALTORS®? Yep, they are out there!
For those that are already immersed in the world of social networking, how do you take it to the next level? Dare we talk about ROI & business/brand implications? How can social networks foster & grow the REALTOR®-Consumer relationship? Where do sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. come in? How to address difficult situations on social networks? Really, where is social networking going?
How about keeping sane while staying connected. Are there tools that can minimize chaos while allowing you to keep pulse on all your RSS feeds, blogs, etc.? Are they del.icio.us? Others? How do you use them? Are they worth the investment? Do these tools interact with my smartphone, laptop, website, etc? How? Show them how it’s done.
Interested?
Continue reading ‘Social Networking: Call for Presentation’
Keeping with my trend of welcoming new people many weeks after they are new people, I’d like to welcome Ana Schmitz to CRT.
Ana joins us as our new Communications Associate. However, she’s been with NAR for over 10 years, most recently in our marketing dept. We’re happy and lucky to have her with us. In just two weeks she’s already jumped into all of her major job responsibilities as fast as we could throw them at her.
Ana is looking to learn more about technology in general and would like to be a rock-star programmer. For some reason, she thinks she can learn that stuff in CRT. She’s already been doing self-study on Java, and for a project we need done, she’ll be learning PHP. As a welcoming present in our comments, please feel free to leave her other technologies she should look at.
