I was pleased to find Carol Van Gorp’s blog the other day (Carol heads up the MLS in Columbia, MO, and is one of our customers), and it got me to thinking about whether other MLS executives are blogging. Given that Carol is one of our customers, it was very interesting for me to read what’s going on in Columbia and it would be great to be able to easily keep up to date with other MLSs via blogs as well. From Carol’s blog roll, I see Cindy Butts’ blog and Cindy has a few others, like Ben Martin, but I’m wondering if any MLS executives are blogging that I don’t know about. If you know of any MLS executives blogging, please provide the links in the comments below.
I’ve seen some interesting political blog posts this year, including some controversy over guys like Tim O’Reilly posting about politics on their otherwise tech-oriented blogs. Mr. O’Reilly makes the point, though not exactly in these words, that airing such personal views is exactly what the Cluetrain is all about: bringing a human and personal voice and face to an otherwise impersonal corporation.
All corporations are run by people and the fundamental premise of the Cluetrain is that those buying products from the company want a conversation with those real people, not the fiction the corporate marketing department wants to put forward. The web enables interpersonal conversations on a new level, whether it’s blogs or Twitter or Facebook or forums or one or more of the many other opportunities.
Yet this very act of personalizing the corporation raises all sorts of interesting issues, most especially who is involved in the conversations? In our (FBS’s) case, I’ve very much enjoyed engaging in discussions online. In that respect, I guess I am the social media director for FBS. Another approach is to try to hire a social media director. Regardless of who is involved in the conversation, however, the reality is that these are real people involved and that raises two inter-related questions: (1) if the person is successful in engaging in market conversations, is or should that success be transferrable to others in the organization; and (2) if not, how does a company prepare for the hit by the bus risk?
Put another way, how much is being invested in the people at companies best able to engage in the market conversations in a real way? One of the reasons companies are valuable is because they can transfer skills and processes to others over the long term, building brand equity as a result. Is that investment now all of a sudden only in the people who become the real face and voice of the organization?
The answer to these questions may be to give voice to as many people in the company as possible. Those doing the work have the most to say. That’s easier said than done. Some great talents prefer not to have market conversations. Is the Cluetrain suggesting that such jobs are dead? Everyone must engage? Or is the focus now on new roles like social media director or some other title? Personally, I believe the former is more likely than the latter. What do you think?
in the coolest way. Like or dislike Redfin, Kelman has a gift for communicating complex issues clearly and deeply. I don’t read many blogs right now, but I always pay attention to Redfin’s because I’ll likely always learn something. Keep on keeping on, Glenn and the Redfin crew!
There’s a lot corny about Tom Cruise’s “you complete me” dialog at the end of Jerry Maguire but the part that always sticks with me is where he says something like “we live in a cynical world of tough competitors.” Implicit is that there’s something more to life and I’ve been fortunate to witness that this week.
It’s been a long week around here working on the ARMLS conversion. Not much sleep and lots of work. Fortunately, that hard work is paying off. We certainly have tuning yet to do on the system but we’ve gotten over the core networking issues that were plaguing us early in the week. Jaison Freed and Cal Heldenbrand pulled an amazing all-nighter on Wednesday to re-build our firewall configurations from scratch and split our web farms, which were the key networking issues. Jaison’s effort was especially amazing given that he had pulled an all-nighter Monday night as well. Another stellar performer, working through illness and little sleep, James Ridley, summed up on Twitter how I feel exactly:
A really tough week, but I saw some great reactions to some really adverse situations. It’s awesome to work with people like that.
I’ve named a few co-workers but the reality is that literally everyone in the company has been nose to grindstone, doing great work. What an amazing group of people. Sometimes I found myself wondering if the stress is worth “it” but what I’m realizing is that “it” isn’t a monetary reward or other “win” but the relationships we build through life. So, yes, it’s worth it.
The reactions of our employees have been matched equally by the reaction of our long-time customers. These are people who’ve been there with us through thick and thin, and continued to show their humanity this week. These are people who are watching our company grow and celebrating with us even though that growth has impacted them negatively this week. In our cynical world, there aren’t many people who can reach those heights and so we’re very fortunate to have so many of them as clients. I’ve received many e-mails of support from clients and friends in the industry this week, and to all who’ve written, I want you to know it means so much.
At the same time, the newarmls.com blog is blazing away with rants and insults from a few drowning out meaningful discussion by others. I begrudge no one their anger but find it unproductive as well. Richard Park’s comment (#247) rebuffing the ranters hit home with me: “Do you think that those in charge of the system are sitting in their chairs gloating over your difficulties? Don’t you think they are feeling enough pressure and motivation to get things going without your trying to kick them in the gut while they do it?” No one here at FBS has shrunk from or denied the problems we had this week, but the cynical nature of some people does amaze me.
But what it really does is highlight by contrast how amazing the people are who rise above their frustrations and anger and seek out solutions and dialog. Those are the people I want to do business with. For them, we’ll walk through crushed glass with bare feet (or at least stay up all night) to help them. Why? Because we’re helping another human being. A person. That the “it’ in all of this.
Though all the people I’ve worked with and spoken to this week are the inspiration for this post and my work, the fire that lit my energy again enough to write the post was from an e-mail sent to me by David Newcombe at Russ Lyon | Sotheby’s International Realty. David was caring enough to solicit positive feedback from some of the others in his office and sent it along to me and the great team at ARMLS with the following note (which I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing because I’m not going to e-mail him to ask at this time of the morning):
” So, for anyone feeling down or pissed off – here are the GOOD NEWS emails. Please pass on as you wish to the incredible teams at ARMLS and Flex, with love from Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty……..”
In this cynical world, this kind of support builds relationships that make the effort worth “it”. We move beyond objects to people. Humans. Amazing and beautiful. Now, back to work.
P.S. I’m having to moderate comments because, I believe, some of our firewall changes are preventing Akismet from handling the comment spam.
The FBS Blog is back with comments. Thanks to Brandon for helping me get it figured out! If you desperately wanted to comment one of my riveting posts from the past few weeks, please go back and visit them:
No Time to Shower and Internet Leads for Real Estate
Roost: Peeling Back the Onion, A Marketing Platform for Brokers
Leads from Listings and Weeping for Buy-Side Brokers (or not)
You know you’re busy when you don’t have time to shower in the morning. That’s how it’s been for me lately, which explains why I haven’t been blogging. Anyway, I have been keeping up a bit with my reading and this post from Greg Sterling caught my attention with some interesting data from Yahoo! Real Estate and so I quote it here in full along with Mr. Sterling’s conclusion:
* Consumers spent an average of 12 hours online researching agents and 75% selected an agent within one week of starting their search
* Home buyers and sellers consider approximately two agents before making a final decision
* 74% of people who accessed an agent Web site got there with the help of a search engine
* 45% of respondents used the Internet to learn about agents they didn’t know existed
* 41% discovered special deals and promotions offered from an agent through the InternetThese data offer more confirmation of the Internet’s influence on consumer decision making. There’s no comparison with word of mouth, which probably accounts for the highest percentage of leads to realtors.
I upgraded WordPress last week and have had all sorts of fun ever since. New posts are automatically being flagged as not allowing comments, when the settings most definitely are set to allow them. Bugs. Also, I published the last post too early, just because I wasn’t yet used to the new interface. Anyway, my apologies to those who may want to comment. Hopefully I’ll find time to figure it out soon. In the meantime, if you’re desperate to comment, the posts earlier than the last two still allow comments.
start with Thompson’s Realty. Congratulations Jay and Francy and the Butterworth Group.
Ordinarily, following a conference, I would write some sort of post summarizing the event. I haven’t felt like that was necessary following the mid-year convention, though, partly because not much was very interesting but also perhaps because what was interesting has already been said on Twitter. Also, I think some of what otherwise might be a daily post has become 140 characters on Twitter. I think I need to look into some sort of Twitter widget for the FBS Blog to start merging the two audiences. Any WordPress.org users out there have any recommendations?
(As an experiment, I’ll cross-post this on Twitter and see where I get more responses.)
Read/Write Web had an interesting post the other day about reading habits on the web, commenting on an article by usability guru Jakob Nielson:
What Nielson found by analyzing the data in the study was that although people spend more time on pages with more words and more information, they only spend 4.4 seconds more for each additional 100 words. By calculating reading rates, he concluded that when you add more verbiage to a page, people will only read 18% of it. . . . Nielsen has been interested in how users read on the web for a long time and he has determined that the truth is that people don’t read very much, often scanning text instead of really reading it. His recent eyetracking studies validate this finding, as well.
I found this interesting, especially following my post awhile back on how I use Google Reader. At the time, I read through my feeds one at a time instead of scanning the “all” list in chronological order. Shortly after that post, however, I switched to scanning the all list, simply because I was overwhelmed with the volume.
The upshot of this change is that I only read a very small fraction of what comes through my reader. I really have no idea what sort of filters my brain is applying, but I’m mostly marking “all as read” even when not. A few things have caught my attention recently, such as the discussion on Trulia’s linking and SEO strategies and Doc Searls’ post on user control over data. Otherwise, the feeds pouring into my reader haven’t been penetrating my new, pretty strenuous filter.
Is this because the real estate blogosphere is getting boring or old in its infancy, or has my attention just waned or shifted? I’m not sure but I think I’m not alone.
