REreflections.com

I’m a fan of silly things – they usually make me smile , but sometimes I end up just scratching my head and wondering why people do silly things when they don’t intend to. And more and more frequently I see people doing sill things in social spaces.

Your community ( or audience, or market) needs to be the prime consideration when you write or say things, so I am stunned  by many real estate people who  think their audience needs to be interested in the things they want them to be interested in. I reserve  ReReflections for the comments on the real estate industry that are so peculiarly mine that I ‘m not sharing them over at AgentGenius. My social media thoughts are either published there or at www.smminstitute.com or www.buzzbuilderz.com. My blog posts that might be of interest to consumers find their way to either MovePhilly or C21AgVoices. Not because I want my writings to be hard to find, but because I want to be saying things that are relevant to specific readers.

It not a new phenomenon but before the advent of social media, we needed to be present to hear real estate agents say silly things. For example, an agent might tell a client whose listing was expiring “You can’t list your property with someone else – I’ve really spent a lot of time working on it”.  Why does the seller care? Their property isn’t sold and their needs are not being met. and they still needed to sell the property.  A more relevant tactic would have been to give them a reason to stay listed that made sense. Perhaps a discussion of their pricing and marketing position combined with a comparison of the marketing efforts  of the current and prospective real estate companies.  It might not have convinced the client to extend the listing, but at least the conversation would have been relevant instead of simply self-centered.

Today, poorly informed  agents who use social networks to broadcast commercial messages make their lack of thought a public spectacle. The “Facebook listing” is an iconic example of abuse.  With listings reiterated in thousands of places through IDX feeds and listing syndication, putting listing information or open house information in a social environment demonstrates not only a lack of concern for the other members of your community, but a lack of respect for your “friends”.

By demonstrating lack of relevance in your content, and a disregard for the social context, you demonstrate disrespect for your ‘friends’  that results in a dismissal of your message and a reduction in your online relevance .

Recently, I saw an interchange on Facebook that went like this:

When I read this he sounds like a multi-level-marketer talking about “income potential” . No one cares what you make (unless you’re paying their bills) – they care about things that impact them or your relationship with them. Not to mention the fact that the whole response might have been better placed as a message rather than a wall post.

And while we’re talking about advertising disguised as social interaction – how about this;

Where is the engagement in this blind solicitation? Who could be silly enough to think that this person cares about their career ? This could easily have been lifted from a bus bench billboard – is that what we perceive our social network values?

I think that talking about work in social settings can be appropriate , just as it would be in face to face settings. For example, you might say in a social setting that you had a tough time working with sellers to obtain a listing, but you probably wouldn’t whip out a flyer for the property and give it to the guests.  If we could just take a moment to think about whether we would do something in person that we’re about to do on-line, it might really improve the quality of our communications, and the bonds we have wth our communties,

Its the middle of a really busy work day, so obviously I need to check out what my friends are doing on Facebook (I am after all an American). And there is the lovely Brandie Young on my live feed Asking

Like this? Want to do something about homelessness in Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, Providence, and Nashville?

Because that’s really a hard question to say “No” to (and Brandie is the type of woman who just makes you want to say “Yes” to her requests) I clicked on her link and saw the slideshow below – a compelling story I think.

Then when I looked even further, I found out that Brandie (who still totally rocks) had built this awesome slide show at the request of Lani Rosales who had aksed a number of people to step up and participate in a unique event. But let me have her tell you about it in her own words from her New Media Labs Blog

PLEASE use one of these slideshows in your own blog:

For the first ever social charity presentation roundup, several people (even some not in Austin!) stepped up to bat to put together various slideshows based on facts provided by Alan Graham of local non profit organization, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, serving the needs of the homeless.

Now I told you Brandie Young ROCKS, and this new information did nothing more than remind me that Lani Rosales also TOTALLY ROCKS.  Makes you feel good to know that two women who are totally adorable and smart, and hot, are also so thoughtful , generous, and gracious… (Dontcha Wish you knew them too?)

Now go out and do something to make them feel good about this..

As I write this, I am in a hotel in Western Pennsylvania, where ReBarCamp Pittsburgh will take place tomorrow.

I’m writing this post because of a few conversations I had recently with friends of mine. It seems that there was a conversation about whether ReBarCamps served any purpose. Concerns were expressed that the ReBarCamps had become hackneyed, that every ReBarCamp featured speakers who were just vendors trying to sell things to people, and that the same group of people kept showing up to talk. There was concern expressed that  the ReBarCamps were nothing more than a social gathering for some people in the RE.net who knew each other and who kept to themselves during the events,  making them more of an elitist social gathering than an education or sharing event.

I just looked at the RSVPs for this ReBarCamp. it seems that none of the “usual suspects” will be arriving tomorrow. In fact, there are only six people here that I know, and I met two of them this evening, two are past state association Presidents, and two are organizers of the ReBarCamp and they would probably not yet be familiar names to you.

When I heard these statements I was astounded. This will be my 12th ReBarCamp.  I have been all over the country attending these events, and each one has had a different flavor. I have experienced them in San Francisco twice, Fredricksburg, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Virginia Beach, Miami,Columbus, helped organize one in Philadelphia and here I am in today in Pittsburgh. During that time, I only remember two sessions that I felt had commercial overtones, and I walked out of one of those sessions, and in the second one told the presenter that they were missing the point of the event. At those events I have presented or moderated sessions with  topics like social capital (whuffie), social contracts, selling foreclosures, listing foreclosures, the future of the real estate brokerage, short sales and working with banks on defaulted properties among others. Each time , I had little or no idea what I would talk about until the day of the event. I have also participated in dozens of sessions moderated or presented by others. Most of them were interesting or fun, and the others I walked out of and found another session.

I have really enjoyed seeing many of the more experienced social media presenters at a number of the events, but I am excited to see who the presenters will be today. I’ll probably present a session or two, but the agenda will be new and different because the people are new and different.  Even the sponsors for this event are different, though the Social Media Marketing Institute is a “repeat offender” – however as the CEO , I know they will not be pitching a product at the event.

I am friends with the three men who created the first ReBarCamp,Andy Kaufman, Brad Coy, and Todd Carpenter. I don’t think they intended to get rich or famous from the event – they just wanted to try something out and see if people responded. And their creation has become a national event that has educated hundreds upon hundreds of people about social media, real estate, and a variety of topics too eclectic to be listed here.

Anyway, my experience with ReBarCamps tells me that the people that attend today will start the day confused and unsure of what they have gotten themselves into. They will bring with them differing levels of knowledge and different expectations of the days event.  By the end of the day some will be confused, some will be disappointed, some will be enlightened, and some will be engaged. But they will all be impacted by a volunteer driven sharing experience. And at the end of the day I think that’s a good thing.  SO much so that I look forward to doing it again at ReBarCampDC next week and San Diego next month – where new groups of people will hopefully share and learn and become engaged in an event created by and for the community to benefit its members. People keep voting with their feet, by walking into sessions at ReBarCamps everywhere.

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I wrote a post recently at AgentGenius about the need to write, even when you are afraid that you are not writing “War & Peace”. Today, in checking my recent posting history I recognized how much I’ve ignored this poor little blog.

Its actually pretty ironic since this is the place I wanted to write about the real estate industry and trends that affect it. Social media is obviously one of those trends. I thought perhaps, it might be time to write a little about what I’ve learned about social media and what social media has done to and for me.

And today I’m teaching a group of people at a CSM class in Cincinnati that they can fit blogging into their lives as easily as I finish this little post. Hope they actually try to do that when they’re ready.

In a recent search, I noticed a post by another brokerage firm about a relationship with RealtyTrac that was promulgated by their national franchise. .

It reminded me why I hate salespeople sometimes.

This post would indicate to a real estate consumer that the agent and firm had some benefit through the publication of their third party information, and that this would make them some kind of foreclosure experts. And while the writer is a pleasant enough person, and just trying to create a business advantage for themselves, its just nonsense, and its frankly misleading – though I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it is unintentionally misleading.

I have been selling foreclosures for 21 years in Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester Counties, and for the past year or two also in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties in New Jersey. I have also been an active real estate investor for even longer than that, so I think that I would be considered an expert in the marketing, purchase and sale of foreclosure properties. From my experience I know that , for the most part third party relationships like the one touted by this broker don’t work. And I know that for the past 21 years, most of the calls from services like these that I received were from people that were calling on outdated properties that were published long after they were sold and settled.

Third party listings of foreclosures have a number of problems. As I mentioned, their information is often outdated.They often provide too much information seeming to provide value but muddying the waters for most consumers – for example “pre-foreclosure” data which is useless to most of their subscribers. The source of the information is not disclosed in many instances, and is therefore questionable. For real estate professionals, the third party information is less accurate than the Multiple Listing Service .

I understand the need for the third party company to sell subscriptions, and their right to advertise and boast about their services to do so. And I understand the need for the national franchise to create affiliate relationships to obtain income opportunities and to position themselves as providing value to their franchisees, I even understand the writer pimping this out as a benefit to the public – but it is indicative of their lack of understanding about the product and the foreclosure product that they even do so. It just burns me up that they are so busy posting something to appear at the front of the pack, that they don’t take the time to actually determine if it accomplishes that before they publish.

As salespeople I think we have an obligation to balance our need to market with the need to be genuine and transparent. Its too easy to lay claim to expertise when you’re writing alone in your home or office. Don’t just claim a position, have the position. Be the expert you claim to be – or claim to be the expert you are.

I spent several days last week teaching the SMMI CSM course to a group of top agents in Chicago. I left there Saturday to attend the wedding of my best friend’s daughter in Sarasota Florida, but I find myself in Tampa this morning waiting to fly back to Chicago for ReBarCamp Chicago,

You may be familiar with the concept of the ReBarCamp – an “unconference” where the participants set the agenda after they arrive. The concept was borrowed from the IT industry, and has taken hold in the Internet space referred to as the RE.net. Recently we held on in Philadelphia, last Friday saw one in Boston, and today is ReBarCamp Chicago.

ReBarCamp Chicago is an important event for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious is that I will be there (otherwise I might not be writing about it). But seriously, the venue itself is pretty impressive. The event is being held at the Chicago offices of the National Association of REALTORS (though they are not the creators of the event, and the volunteer event is not a function of the association). For an organization of the stature of NAR to host such an event says volumes about the organization’s willingness to embrace change and technology while supporting the efforts of its members to spread knowledge in this peer based type of event.

Perhaps I am so impressed by NAR’s willingness to provide the venue for this event because they have so often been the target of criticism in the Re.net, often without justification on the part of their critics. Even with that history, the association has shown themselves to be more than willing to reach out, communicate, and try to involve their members in all levels of their operation. I am sometimes accused of being overly supportive of NAR, but I really can;t help it. They give me so many reasons to support them.

Anyway, if you are near the association offices on Michigan Avenue today, i hope that you’ll try to stop in and participate in the ReBarCamp. It looks like there will be quite a group of Web 2.0 and social media participants here for this centrally located event. At last check, Teresa Boardman from St Paul Minnesota, Ginger Wilcox, Mike Simonsen, and Andy Kaufman from the San Francisco area, Sarah Cooper from West Virginia (of Real Estate Shows fame) and my friend Kim Wood, from Chester County Pennsylvania. In addition, you have some home grown Chicago celebs like Todd Carpenter (NAR’s Social Media Marketing Director), as well as Rich Rogala and Matt Dollinger, performance coaches at @Properties in Chicago. And of course there will be lots of new friends there that I haven’t even met yet.

I hope you’ll be one of them.

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I know that this is my platform for writing about the real estate industry, bt today I just want to use this for a quick rant.

In his blog TechCrunch, Michael Arrington recently wrote a great post about Facebook’s refusal to deny a platform to Holocaust denial. The post is well written and cogent, and I hope that you already took a moment to read it via the link I provided above.

Though I agree with Arrington’s position and the points he makes, I didn’t start writing this just to parrot those points, but to express something that occured to me as I was reading the post.  I think that I understand why an organization would not want to feel that they were limiting the right of an individual to to express their opinions, no matter how bizarre, or outright wrong those opinions might be. After all, we live in a country founded upon the precept of free speeech. But does that mean that you are obligated to provide a platform for someone to express an opinion you find reprehensible? To paraphrase and old cliche, “If someone were shouting “fire” in a crowded theater are you obligated to provide him or her with a bullhorn?”

I respect Facebook’s desire to rise above the issue, but should they do so at the expense of their own moral values. As Arrington points out so eloquently “Holocaust denial is a seed. A seed that will grow into a fully bloomed second Holocaust if ever allowed to germinate. And Facebook is providing the fertile ground and watering needed to do just that.”

I understand the dilemma on a theoretical level – If we ban holocaust deniers, should we not ban the flat earth society or groups that think we didn’t really walk on the moon or even groups that think there was a federal/mob/communist conspiracy to kill JFK?  I don’t think those are really the same thing. I do think we can ban hate grops of ay sort from platforms that are privately owned, even if they are accessed by the public. In fact, I think that we have an obligation to ourselves and our society to do so.

My father-in-law was one of the American troops that liberated the death camp at Dachau. My Uncle’s mother was killed at Auschwitz. My Great Aunt died during the holocaust in Jedwabna Poland. I don’t need anyone to assure me that the Holocaust happened. And painful though it may be, I do agree that Holocaust deniers have the right to express their misguided bigoted opinions. But I don’t think that anyone is required to facilitate the replication or proliferation of those lies. And I don’t think that Facebook is provided any moral high ground when they do so.

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September 11, 2001 – was a world changing day. I remember going to work in my car listening to the Howard Stern show on the radio, when Howard started talking about a plane running into the World trade Center. The first thought that went through my mind was that a small plane had run into the huge buildings, but when I walked in to my office, everyone was talking , huddled around a small television, looking at the video of the first plane hitting the towers.

I remember clearly the shock, and the endless news coverage of this incredible disaster, The day seemed to be an endless series of shocks as the information about the other planes and their fates unfolded. With family in New York and the Washington D.C. area, we were frantically calling to see where everyone was, breathing easier as we located each family member, our sadness deepening as other families were shown on the news, frantically trying to locate fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. The search for survivors was dramatic and disturbing and the firemen raising our flag in the rubble created a scene for our generation as memorable as the flag raising at Iwo Jima was for our father’s.

We were at war and we learned to live with changes in the way we travel. We got used to increased security at the airports, going through metal detectors, removing our shoes, not carrying liquids, and getting to the airport with plenty of time to spare for the security process. With the economy occupying so much of the news and our lives, we take a lot of things for granted.

After speaking at ReTechSouth yesterday, today was the day to fly home. The people who held the event had arranged for a van to take us to the airport, but the driver needed to fill the van and the trip was 45 minutes long. As a result I arrived at the airport a little later than I would have liked. The airport is rather large, and I had to ask for directions in the terminal. After getting the directions I was focused on finding my way through the atrium to go through the normal stages of security, when I heard some clapping off to my left. I stopped and looked to see what was happening and search for the celebrity that caused such a stir.

I was moved as I saw a column of uniformed men and women making their way through the atrium as the people around them applauded and waved. With a lump in my throat I put my bags down, stopped and started clapping myself.

Its been over 7 years since 9/11, but every time I see someone in uniform, I keep having the impulse to stop nd thank them for their service or ask them if I can buy them a drink or a meal, or do something for them, but my innate sense of shyness stops me from bothering them. However that doesn’t mean that I am not grateful to each and every person who endures hardship so that the rest of us don’t need to. Today was a chance to publicly do something small to show that gratitude and appreciation. This post is just another way to accomplish that . I hope tomorrow brings another chance like these.

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Tomorrow morning I fly out to Atlanta for ReTechSouth.

The conference has grown into a pretty substantial it event describing itself as;

A place where agents, brokers, lenders, builders and many other real estate industry practitioners could join together to collaborate on how technology can improve business

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? And I’m very impressed by the people that will be speaking at the conference, Jeff Turner, Ginger Wilcox, Teresa Boardman, Kelley Koehler, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Todd Carpenter, Joe Ferraro, Rob Hahn, a ton of other great speakers, and (less impressively) me.And, for people that really know their stuff, there is an opportunity to meet the real BoomerJack Boardman. Obviously, the level of information to be passed here is only surpassed by the multitude of awesome social networking rock stars (your author not included).

I’m very excited because I’m moderating the Cage Match of the Century – a ginormous stupendous spectacle of a debate between those two Web 2.0 giants, Joe Ferraro of Sellsius.com fame, and Rob Hahn A.K.A. The Notorious R.O.B. And you dear reader are going to hear about it first right here!

On Friday at ReTechsouth, Joe will be the Pasha of Positivity, arguing the Pro stand on every question while Rob (a usually bright pleasant and positive gentleman) will become the raging Ninja of Negativity! Based upon their thorough and exhaustive academic and practical backgrounds, they will enlarge the mind through their exploration of four important questions:

1. Should Agents Blog?
2. Is there a Place in Social Networking for Shameless Self-Promotion and Advertising?
3. Does Size Matter? AKA Your Importance in Social Media is determined by the size of your…. followers
4. Nobody needs a broker!

From the conference calls to set this up and choose our topics, to the emails we have exchanged, colored by my own opinion of these two smart guys, I anticipate a ton of fun and even more information. So if the idea of two attorneys fighting while moderated by a seasoned real estate broker (someone spilled pepper on me this morning) is at all intriguing to you , I hope you’ll be there when we kick it off Friday at 11 AM on the main stage.

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I was recently reading an interesting article;

The New York Times City Room Blog reports that that Rafael Martínez Alequin, Ralph E. Smith and David Wallis filed a federal lawsuit when each of them were denied credentials, even though all of them had such credentials in the past.

In the face of the lawsuit, the NYPD changed their minds and issued the three their press cards, anyway. This move gives other bloggers across the country hope for legitimacy in the eyes of government officials.

“This step recognizes that bloggers are 21st-century journalists,” Mr. Siegel, a noted civil liberties lawyer who has announced plans to run for public advocate next year, said in a phone interview. “It’s an important first step, but only a first step, because we still need to address the constitutional problem of who gets press credentials in New York City. The Police Department should not be in the business of determining who’s a journalist.”