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 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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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.

Twitter PR Strategy, originally uploaded by ogilvyprworldwide.

With the limited budgets of many real estate brokers and agents, Social Media is bcoming a place where you need to be if you want to increase your sphere of influence and obtain new business opportunities.

This chart, has a social media life of its own. Created to explain a strategy for use on Twitter, then posted to Flickr, it was given additional exposure on Facebook by Teresa Boardman of St. Paul. It then came to my attention (I am interested in almost everything that Teresa does or posts) and I am sharing it here with you on my blog.

So aside from clearly defining the great opportunity that Twitter presents to businesses and individuals, its own life and the path of its travel to your attention is pretty neat as well. Imagine if this were a piece of information with your name on it…

It seems that everyone is always trying to improve on the poor old “For Sale” sign.

I was reading a recent Blog at Sellsius which speaks about  Custom Fit Realtyin Wisconsin who  is using Matrix codes on its house for sale signs to reach mobile users. The company’s new technology allowing buyers to take a photo of a “For Sale” sign on a house, and then get taken to the property information through their smart-phone browser.

I’ve got to say I was underwhelmed. While this latest piece of technology is pretty neat, and one that I would want to try just because I like to play with toys. I don’t think it ie unique or even new. People have been inventing ways to disintermediate the salesperson as long as there have been sales signs. Without thinking deeply I can think of…

• “Talking” Houses – FM transmitters that play the property information for the potential buyer. This is actually more efficient since almost every auto today has an FM receiver, while not every phone is a smart-phone.
• Property Brochure Boxes – OK , so this is a little Lo-Tech, but come on, its doing the same thing isn’t it? And it has the advantage of being a little more durable and easier to share than the site on a cell phone.
• Marketing Voice Mail Boxes which use a code number on the sign to allow people to call for property information. Again, every mobile phone user can do this, while the smart-phone, though more common is not yet ubiquitous.
• Single Property websites posted on the property sign
• MLS number and Company Web site printed on Yard Sign Riders

All of these marketing support systems have one thing in common however. You need to have located the property, and be sitting in front of it to utilize them. So the marketing system that worked here is obviously the Yard sign – the original real estate technology to advertise a property for sale. (In all fairness, they might have located the property through print advertising, but if they had called the office or seen the property on a website, they would have already had the information these systems provide)

 We need to remember that the purpose of a real estate brokerage is to make money, and that under the most common current business model, that means that our sales associates need to interface with consumers at the earliest possible point in the sales curve. So why would we want to provide them with yet another method of avoiding contact with a sales associate , who should  be able to provide them with better information than a website , pre-recorded message or property flyer?

There is a lot of conversation in the real estate industry about print advertising being overtaken by on-line alternatives.

There are surveys that show that most buyers start their search for homes on th Internet, and obviously it is better for the consumer to see more photos,in color, with amps and statistics,then it is to read a classified print ad.

When I was young, the real estate section of the Sunday paper was thick, bulging with ads and articles about neighborhoods, new construction,mortgages and more. And of course there were just tons of ads- and it was because of that concentration of ads that the real estate section existed.

Over the years, the ads became more expensive,covering smaller areas, and real estate professionals worked to find alternatives to print ads. And as that happened , the real estate section got thinner and thinner.

Even so, the real estate section is such a tradition that one would have thought that its demise lay far in the future. At least I would have thought that before I read this in the LA Times real estate blog.

In case you missed the announcement today in Real Estate, because of reductions in staff and space, the Sunday Real Estate section has printed its final edition.”

With some much information available to the consumer online from photos to maps, to street views, and demographics, people just don;t need to sit with the newspaper to get their information. And as the sources of news expand electronically as well, the competition for the attention of the consumer just became too great.

Obviously, the amount of real estate print advertising was no longer concentrated enough to warrant generating articles for the consumer. The Times will continue their real estate blog which will have the same quality writing that the paper is known for, but this may be the most obvious signpost to date that consumers want to find their real estate information on-line, and the providers of that information will need to be where the readers are if they wish to remain relevant.

Yesterday I got to meet a number of the people that I have been conversing with, arguing with and agreeing with for several months.

In an very limited structure these people gathered together from all over the country to talk about what they do and how they can do it better.

Tagged on to the INMAN Connect Conference (an Industry technology event), this conference was organized by volunteers and run by volunteers who are almost evangelical in their desire to communicate through blogging with each other and with consumers

They were loud and social and funny and as gregarious as a family dinner during the holidays. It was wonderful.

Last night, the same folks were drinking for free for a couple of hours, courtesy of a real estate vendor, and the family dinner degenerated into a college frat party. Loud raucous, and fun, but the conversation didn’t slow for a second. And the veritas found in the vino was that all of the people are as real in their writing as they are their lives.

Today I’m listening to six of the same people talking about content in their blogs. And oddly enough, I find them to have the same message inthis arena, though wearing the expert cloak makes the conversation by nevessity more formal. But they remain true to their personalities and business goals.

So if there is something to take away from this about the process of blogging from these well known bloggers, it might be that blogging brings with the ability to express yourself, and the responsibilty to be yourself while trying to reach your audience.

Photo Courtesy of ResPres and Creativecommons.org

For years I have avoided going to Inman Connect. I go to Century 21’s International Convention. I attend two NAR meetings , and several committee meetings. I attend REOMAC conferences because I am a member, and I generally have two brainstorming group meetings a year. Its a lot of travelling, and they’re often scheduled close to each other, making it tough to get to all of them.

So I figured that Inman, which is run by a private company, dedicated to technology that I get sold all year round, was a place I could skip.

Then I started blogging, and going on friendfeed, and facebook, and plurk, and worst of all Twitter.  So know I have to go to meet, in real life, the people who have conversed with me taught me, fought with me, and agreed with me. And maybe I’ll spend some time at the conference too…

See you in San Francisco

Photo Courtesy of Shapeshift at Creativecommons.org

Since you’re reading this you know we’re committed to being on-line as a company.
We Blog, we twitter (follow me @billLublin or this blog @c21agvoices), we maintain the “normal” websites for people to look for properties, we publish our listings to century21.com, and we syndicate our listings to over a dozen other websites. And we have to be on Realtor.com

I was never a big fan of Realtor.com, but you sort of have to be there to make sellers happy. We monitor the sources of inquiries, and people don’t visit us very frequently from there. And, its the most expensive internet site we participate in, I imagine you can understand why I felt the way I felt about the program. Most people in our industry who are tech savvy aren’t big fans of Realtor.com, but as part of a local Century 21 Broker Council Initiative, we decided to participate.

And imagine my surprise when I found out that we are actually getting better traffic then we had been getting for years. I hate Realtor.com’s pricing structure. I hate the fact that the company is confused with NAR, though it is a separate company. But with the additional photos, and the logo on the search page, we’re increasing the ROI considerably, and I’m learning to be more tolerant.

Obviously we’re experiencing the impact of the consumer’s preference for multiple photos, and perhaps that’s the sum and total of it, but I would be interested to hear of anyone else’s experiences with this particular venue – What works and doesn’t work for you.

I already did a version of this post on AgentGenius which turned into a rant on service. But the nice thing about posting to more then on place is that I can take a single idea and expound on it from different perspectives.

 This perspective is the resistance I believe the majority of people have to adopting new technology. Not that everyone doesn’t want the newest camera, or cell phone, or remote controlled home theater, but technology that changes the way we do some fundamental things.

Buying and selling our stuff for example.

Driving to a property this morning, I passed the store pictured above. Its a business model that represents this resistant thought process.

People used to sell their stuff to other people they knew, or put an add in the local newspaper. Then our society became more mobile, and with the advent of the family drive, swap meets and yard sales became the cheap easy way to sell our stuff to strangers.

But when the Internet became the new place for people to cruise around, EBay was born, and people started to sell their stuff on the Internet, there was a new easy place to do business.

Now buying on Ebay is simple, you sign up for a free account, shop by looking at pictures, and pay with your credit card. Just like buying from a catalogue (an old time honored method of buying stuff), but selling stuff is harder. You need to take photos, set up an account and become a trusted seller. You need to accept payment through various sources, and pack and ship things to strangers. For many people, wayyy too much drama.

Enter “Sell it On EBay” a business model where you take your stuff to a physical location and they sell it for you on EBay. Sort of a virtual consignment shop. Consignment shops, if you’re not familiar are stores where you took your stuff, and they sold it for you to people who walked into their store. Sounds like its the same process doesn’t it?

Web 2.0 is sort of the same situation in my opinion. We use websites, to advertise properties and disseminate information to consumers who might wish to buy a home or an investment.  Not too different from real estate magazines, or their predecessors, the real estate classified ad. Each move forward makes the ad shinier and possibly more effective, but they’re all ads.

Social media is the newest and latest way for professionals of all sorts to establish credibility and display their professional knowledge. There are volumes of electronic publications discussing this new wave of real estate professionals, but the task is an old one – meeting consumers and positioning yourself so they will choose you when they are ready to act.

Before twitter, we went to social gatherings in person to network. Cocktail hours, local taverns, church meetings, or the Diner where everyone in the neighborhood met for breakfast before work.  Blogs? They used to be newsletters that we mailed or distributed to people in our neighborhood. E-Flyers? Too obvious for me to explain. LinkedIn the electronic equivalent to the business card exchange.

But even with all of these electronic methods of meeting new people and exposing yourself to the consumer, many real estate professionals avoid these venues, because, like the seller on EBay, learning the new techniques is outside their comfort zone. Or at least it is now. If the social media arena matures and stabi8lizes, more and more late adopters will participate, and then the question will be – what old thing has been re-invented now?