Guest post from Debra Trappen, Director, Career Development, Coldwell Banker Bain|Seal

Why do I attend Agent Reboot…again and again?

Well, it comes down to two things: Education and Connection.

It has been just a few weeks since Agent Reboot (#agentrb) was in Seattle… and I am STILL feeling the wonderful residual effects.  Being a passionate participant in and advocate for the exciting, tech-infused side of real estate (and a self-professed education junkie), I jump at the opportunity to attend these conferences!

I always learn something.

It may be a new twist on a traditional process,  a fabulous app to replace a manual system, or an upgrade to an existing technology… Whatever it is – there is a tip/trick that makes Agent Reboot worth it. Every single time.

The powerhouse discussion pictured above was led by Daniel Rothamel (@RealEstateZebra).  He expertly wrangled Dale Chumbley (@dalechumbley), Chris Smith (@techsavvyagent) and Darin Persinger (@darinpersinger)… through sharing ideas on streamlining your business with traditional AND new technology.  The advice was flying around left and right – it was amazing.  If you have not seen this chat in REAL life – register for the one coming to your city and hear/see if for yourself.

The market discussion, again moderated by Daniel, with Coldwell Banker Bain’s Ron Sparks (@RonGSparks),  Dale Chumbley, and Windermere’s OB Jacoby was super informative and relevant.  Listening to local experts share their vision and views of WHAT is happening right in our backyard was a positive shot in the arm!  Not to mention Ron’s closing tip on the Mass Text app was a big hit… wonder how many people downloaded that one??  Hmmm….

In the end, however, the number one reason I attend will always be networking and connecting with peers.

Many who, until these events, are purely online relationships like: Christina Ethridge (@CEthridge), Chuck Ethridge (@Chuck_Ethridge), Kathy Stilwell (@kathystilwell), Kelly Mitchell (@HawaiiRealty) and the fun Inman team (@Inman_Will, @katielance, @Inman_Tim)!

It always makes the morning so exciting when you FINALLY meet the people – IN REAL LIFE – whom you have been collaborating and engaging with online! Long gone are the days of attendees nervously entering a room full of people they don’t know… and I, for one, LOVE it!

The TweetUps, breaks and lunches surrounding the event also allowed me to take relationships with many of my Agent Reboot 2010 peeps  to another level!  Getting together with my top tweeps like John Payson (@johnpayson), Stephanie Baldwin (@depmodechick), Teri Conrad (@TLCHome), Rebecca Permack (@rebeccapermack),Dan Keller (@dankellermtg), and all the speakers/peeps mentioned above is my FAVORITE part of Agent Reboot!

In the end, the day reminded me how far we have come… and that there are still amazing mountains to climb and processes to perfect. This gal won’t be waiting until next year for my next #agentrb – that is just too far away.  There are road trips to the Agent Reboot events in Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR on my PlanCast.  Hope to see YOU there too… along with Linda Aaron (@skynnard). Stop us and say hi…we will likely be in/near the front row.

About the author: Debra Trappen is the Director, Career Development at  Coldwell Banker Bain|Seal. Debra can be found online here http://about.me/debra11 or on Twitter @debra11

Share on Facebook

Guest Blogger, Mike Bowler, Sr. has been in the real estate business (Lansing, MI) for the past 32 years. During that time he’s educated and consulted hundreds of REALTORS. Mike is a former owner; broker of Coldwell Banker Bowler Real Estate and is currently an Associate Broker for Coldwell Banker Hubbell Briarwood in Lansing Michigan, who bought his company in 2001. He also owns his own company PRETEC (Professional Resources, E-Business, Technology, Education, & Consulting) and is an avid fan of social media in the workplace. Mike was named in 2009’s Top 25 Most Connected Real Estate Professionals by PROXIO and selected by Inman News as one of the 50 Most Influential Online.

The real estate industry is in a constant state of evolution and changes every day with technology, regulation changes, and economic challenges, never experienced by most of us in the real estate business.  You can either bury your head in the sand or dig in and get on this exciting train ride. I choose to ride it out and continue becoming educated by some of the best resources I have witnessed over the past 32 years.

When our industry gets lax in education, it contributes to the lack of professionalism, our growth as REALTORS, and affects how competitive we as real estate agents will be in the coming years.  I really believe that adapting and learning new ways to do business will help brokers, managers, and agents stay ahead of the knowledge curve and strengthen our ability to survive this paradigm shift.

Who would have thought a few years back that:

• Move would be acquiring Threewide (ListHub) providing a huge syndication for Listings (See Inman News story)
• RPR – REALTORS Property Resources would be formed and providing 98% of the nations property data (For those who have it)
• That YouTube would be the number 2 search engine
  • That Facebook would have 500,000,000 members, the average user would have 130 friends and People would spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
  • That approximately 2.5 million foreclosures would be in the process, and another 2.5 million mortgages would be 90-plus days delinquent.

Yes, we are in a whole new era of education for REALTORS, with short sale designations, foreclosure classes, green designations, new mortgage regulations, classes on how to work with your ancillary related businesses like appraisers, mold technicians, home inspectors, and of course loss mitigation.  The sampling of changes above are just a small portion of drastic game changing events that any REALTOR, who has an interest in being a player for the future of real estate, must be aware of.

So where do we begin?

Professional development, learning new trends, and adapting to a more complex industry are musts for brokers, sales managers, and real estate agents. This also includes ancillary businesses like appraisers, mortgage originators, and title companies that have experienced massive change. My point is that as professionals we must adapt to new business strategies that enhance our knowledge, give quality service, and meet the demands of the e-consumer. We Must Raise the Bar!

Here’s a Place to Begin at Zero or Little Cost:

Right Tools Right Now
Agent Reboot™
Real Estate BarCamps
REALTOR University
Your Local Association, Company and Professional Educators

Setup Google Reader and Subscribe to the following sites:

Future of Real Estate Marketing
Mashable
Inman News
RISMedia
Realty Times
My Tech Opinion
Trulia Blog
Zillow Blog

I could go on and list many other avenues to education, however this list will help you grow your own list of favorite places to learn. Developing an edge in today’s market requires that real estate practitioners be proficient in Blogging, social media, search engine marketing, and how to work with the e-consumer once they contact you.

It is imperative that those real estate professionals who have come through this challenging market be fully prepared to take advantage of new steady growth that will be forthcoming. My point is that our industry needs to step up to the plate and sharpen our competitive edge by using good old fashion service integrated with new technology. Consumers drive the industry and have always driven it, however today they are looking online first. Are they finding you when they go to Google, Yahoo or Bing? If not, you owe it to your family, company, and yourself to get on board and learn this business all over again. All this is part of your newfound professional development, learning new trends, and adapting to a more complex industry.

Please share your strategies for staying abreast of the current trends in real estate.

Share on Facebook

Have you heard the news? Inman News’ Real Estate Connect is turning 15!

15 years ago Brad Inman welcomed a couple dozen leaders in real estate to join him in Sonoma County. That was the birth of what has evolved into the leading event for the most influential people in Real Estate. The next Real Estate Connect conference will be held in New York City from January 12-14, 2011 at the Marriott Marquis hotel in the heart of Times Square. We’ve lined up a couple great keynotes already with more to come:

• Mashable COO Adam Hirsch
• Patch.com CEO Warren Webster

You can see more program details on the event website: www.realestateconnect.com/nyc11.

To celebrate this milestone, Inman News is offering its biggest promotion yet – $500 off the new Premium Package at Real Estate Connect 2011.

Premium Package – An all-access pass from January 11-14, 2011 includes:

• Full access to the first 2011 Agent Reboot™ conference on January 11 (a $149 value)

• All Real Estate Connect sessions: Workshops, Keynotes, Innovation Tracks and Meetups

• Real Estate Connect Special Events and Conference Receptions

• Access to the Premium Lounge where you can relax, enjoy complimentary refreshments, take part in special activities and test drive the latest technologies

• One-year subscription to Inman News as a Premium Member

The standard price for this package is $1,099 but if you register by September 30, 2010 you will pay only $599.

You don’t want to miss out on this incredible opportunity to mingle with the best in the business and celebrate Real Estate Connects 15th Anniversary. Register now and save! This is the best deal you’ll get.

Share on Facebook

UPDATE: I’ve received word from a number of people that they want to participate in the contest, but they didn’t think they could get their story to me by the 6th.  I know how it is, it’s a crazy time of year.  So, I’ve changed the deadline for submissions to the 9th.  That changed all the dates.  The changes are below in red.

From having been to Inman Real Estate Connect numerous times, personally, I’ve got plenty of stories stored up from all the awesome people I’ve met, and valuable things I’ve learned.  Chances are, if you’ve been to Connect before, you do, too.

Now we’re going to give you a chance to put those stories to good use, and possibly win a FREE pass to Connect NYC ‘10!

PLUS– If you’ve never been to Connect, but really want the opportunity to attend, now’s your chance to tell us why!

Here’s how it works:

1)  Tell us your best story of your Connect experience.  It could be something that you’ve implemented as a result of things you’ve learned, or a relationship you’ve formed that started at Connect.  Never been to Connect, but want to go?  No problem!  Just tell us why you want to come to Connect!  Tell us the story in 500 words or less, or if you want to do a video, 2 minutes or less.

2)  If you have a blog, you can do the story as a blog post.  If not, just put it in an email.  Then, email the story or a link to your blog post to me at Daniel@Inman.com ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY 11:59PM (PST) ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6TH.  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9th

3)  Once I have all of the entries, they will be judged by the staff here at Inman.  We’ll pick the 3 best stories from each group.  3 stories of previous attendees, and 3 stories from people who have never attended.  We’ll post all 6 entries here on the Inman Blog on Wednesday, December 9th.  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11th

4)  On the 9th, we’ll turn the final voting over to you, our readers.  All you’ll have to do is vote on which story you think is the best.  Voting will be open until 11:59 PM (PST) on Sunday, December 13th. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16th

5)  Once all the votes are counted, we’ll announce the winners from each category right here on Wednesday, December 16th.  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18th.

Here’s what the winners will get. . .

• The first-place vote getter will receive a FULL-ACCESS FREE pass to Connect NYC ‘10 AND a pre-conference workshop.
• The second-place vote getter will receive a FREE pass to Connect NYC ‘10.
• The third-place vote getter will receive a FREE Inman News Premium Membership for a full year.

That’s a grand total of 6 winners!

But, what if. . .

What if I’m already registered for Connect NYC ‘10?  NO PROBLEM.  If you’re already registered, and you win, you can share the wealth! We’ll let you give your pass to anyone else you want.  Connect is even better when you share the experience with someone else!

One last thing. . .

If you choose to participate in the contest by submitting your story to us, you’ll be giving us permission to use your story in part or in whole in future promotions for Connect.  We won’t do anything crazy with your stories, but we’d like to be able to share your experiences with others who might be interested in attending Connect.

So, that’s it.  It’s pretty simple.  Tell us your story, and you could find yourself registered for Connect NYC ‘10 FOR FREE!  If you have any questions, just let me know.

So, what are you waiting for?  Tell us your best Connect story today!

Share on Facebook

Great news. The deadline for early bird registration for next year’s Real Estate Connect conference in New York has been extended for another week.

Plus if you register use the coupon code FOREM and you’ll save an extra $100.

Connect is by far the leading technology conference in Real Estate. There’s always a fantastic line-up of speakers… and next year is no different. Just take a look at the list of some of the folks who will be speaking there.

Dennis Crowley
Co-Founder, Foursquare

Jason Fried
President, 37 Signals

Saul Hansell
Tech Reporter, The New York Times

Max Ventilla
Zoo Director, Aardvark

Chris Pearson
Founder, Personified & DIYThemes

Vanessa Fox
Entrepreneur, Ignition Partners

If you’re serious about real estate technology and you’ve never been to a Connect conference – you don’t know what you’ve been missing. I’ve had the honor of being involved in many of these conferences and I’m hoping I can make it out to New York in January.

Full deets - Inman News Real Estate Connect runs January 13 – 15, 2010 at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York. You can check out the entire program here.

Full Disclosure: Real Estate Connect is produced by Inman News, which owns the Future of Real Estate Marketing blog.

Share on Facebook

The eyes of the real estate industry will be on California again as Inman News’ annual Real Estate Connect conference kicks off this week in San Francisco.

Having been involved planning Connect conferences for the last couple of years, I can honestly say the Inman News team has really pulled off an amazing schedule of events this time around. There’s a ton of great speakers and sessions this time around that will really make a trip to San Francisco worthwhile.

Here’s a few highlights:

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Zappos COO Alfred Lin are going to keynote at Connect!

Also who could forget ReBarCamp – at Trulia’s HQ tomorrow!

Parties! Vendor Alley has all the deets.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend this summer’s Connect – but I will definitely be following the goings-on online. Should be a great conference and there’s still time to register.

And hey, if you’re attending Connect – let me know how it’s going in the comments below!

Full disclosure: The Future of Real Estate Marketing is part of Inman News. Inman News also organizes the Real Estate Connect conference.

Share on Facebook

Have you got your ticket for Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2009 yet? Only one more day till the price goes up!

This will be the fifth Connect conference that I’ve been been part of and I’m proud of having been able to contribute to the program over the years.

But more importantly, Connect is something that I personally look forward to attending every summer. It’s a great place to meet up with all my friends in the industry and catch up; but I also get a ton out the conversations that spin out of the conference.

Here are 3 things that I’m personally really stoked about seeing this summer’s Connect:

• The Keynote address by Zappos’ COO Alfred Lin;
• The revival of the ConnectTech Workshop;
• Connect Create – The first-ever online real estate developers challenge. 72 hours to build a killer real estate app.

I’m also speaking this year again on a panel called How the Amazon Kindle Will Change Your Business
on Thursday, August 6 at 2:00 pm. So I hope to see you there!

Share on Facebook

photo by Ewan-M

Reposted from Inman News blog:

UK readers, mark your calendars. On October 16th in London, industry professionals will be gathering with Inman News publisher Bradley Inman at 6pm at the Windmill Pub in Mayfair. It’s being hosted by the good folks at Nestoria and you can read more about the gathering on the following blogs: Nestoria Blog, theRatandMouse, Globrix Blog and Renthusiast.

Similar meetups will be held in the following European capitals:

Amsterdam – October 23rd (stay tuned to nieuwbouw20 for details)

Paris – October 27th

Berlin – Date TBA.

We hope to see you there! If you have any questions about any of these events; please feel free to email joel [at] inman.com.

Share on Facebook

This post is a total plug.

If you don’t like commercial pitches, don’t care what I do from day to day, hate Inman News and are otherwise disinterested, move on. Go ahead and hit that J key in your reader…

The rest of you, we’ve spent a lot of this week working on this summer’s Connect conference and I’m really stoked.

We’ve got some great speakers lined up; Merlin Mann is keynoting (how cool is that?) and we’ve got lots more to be announced soon.

Plus, based on the feedback of our fantastic advisors, we’ve rejigged the format of a couple of our pre-conference workshops into formats that I think are going to be way more instructive for everyone.

We’re updating the web site as I write this, so check it out over the next couple of days for more information.

But that’s not really why I’m writing this today…

The reason I’m plugging Connect today is that today is the last day to register at the early bird rate. You’ll save $280 if you register today. Monday – the prices all go up!

So if even if you’re thinking of wanting to consider the possibility that you might try and come out to San Francisco from July 23rd to 25th – make sure you make that decision today and try and save yourself some bucks.

It’s probably not a bad idea to book your tickets now too – who knows how expensive the fuel surcharges will be come summer. Just make sure you pick an airline that’s not going to A) fall apart or B) go out of business.

One more thing, if you’re coming out to Connect, make sure you come a day early and check out ReBARCamp too – it’s going to be a gathering of true real estate geeks. I’ll be there, I’m the tall guy with the shaved head. Come out and say hi.

Look forward to seeing you all in San Francisco.

Share on Facebook

I have new found respect for what the Zillow folks must go through every time they release a new version of their site.

We just spent the weekend pushing the new Inman News site live.

You can see the result over on Inman.com right now.  I should warn you the site is getting hammered right now so it’s running vvveeerrrry slllooowwwly.

To give you some background on the new site:

• We started work on this project almost a year ago, shortly after I joined Inman News.
• The goal was to bring all our web properties (Connect, InmanWiki, News, Blog, InmanTV) under one tent and tie them all together. Easier said than done with multiple platforms and languages (Wordpress, Typepad, MediaWiki, ASP, HTML)!
• Inman.com is now a LAMP site.
• We wanted to kick open the doors to the archives and still provide valuable new offerings to Inman members.
• We wanted to explore the social/community side of news like the folks at FastCompany and USAToday did, so we introduced some limited social networking elements to the new site. But we were definitely conscious of ’social network fatigue’ and didn’t want to replicate experiences already found elsewhere online.
• We also felt it necessary to include a number of new voices in our new home, so we built a fantastic real estate blog network (that includes FOREM, natch) and invited some well known bloggers to join our team.
• The site is built on the Drupal platform, a very powerful open source CMS system; with a ton of customization done by Toolhouse Design, our development team.
• This is only version 1.0 – we have some very cool stuff scheduled on the roadmap, which we hope to be rolling out over the coming months. So stay tuned.

I hope you like it!

Share on Facebook