Notorious R.O.B.

So this morning, I do something completely unusual for me: I turn on the TV and watch one of the morning shows while sipping coffee.  I normally never turn the TV on except for NFL games, maybe ESPN, or something special I really have to see.  But I did today, and happened to catch a segment on CBS Early Show where a Rebecca Jarvis, on how to avoid common real estate mistakes.  This is the associated web story (I am looking for the video of that segment right now).

In that segment, and the associated story, Jarvis brought up some good solid advice as well as a couple of points that I found… shall we say, “interesting”.

First, she thinks the #1 mistake that sellers make is that they pick “bad agents”.  The advice, then, is as follows (from the web article linked to above):

Find someone who has successfully sold similar homes in your area. When you’re selecting an agent, ask them to show you three recent sales of homes comparable to yours in price and location. You may also want to look at their asking price-to-selling price ratio.

Hmm.

Second, she advises buyers to retain a real estate attorney:

You may want to consider hiring a lawyer. It’s the only person in a transaction that’s not incentivized to get a deal done. A real estate attorney will charge flat fees and offer objective advice.

Uh-huh.

Some questions and thoughts from yours truly follow.

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I've uncovered a terrible secret... a conspiracy...

So earlier today, I get an interesting email from our form on 7DSAssociates.com:

First Name: NAR
Last Name: Scandal
Email Address: info@narscandal.com
Company: NARscandal.com
Title:
Phone:
Comments: Breaking News!  New Scandal at the NAR

Exclusive from NARscandal.com

A new scandal is brewing over at the National Association of Realtors and we at (www.NARscandal.com) have the “exclusive story” along with quality in-depth reporting you can find no where else.

This scandal is a true living tale of real estate, the internet, technology, money, power & greed.

A must read for every member of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) as well as every citizen and homeowner within the United States and modernized world, as this one actually has the power to affect our future as well as future generations to follow, in so many ways.

Click here to read all of the latest details at ( http://www.NARscandal.com ).

Sincerely,

The Researchers & Writers
www.NARscandal.com
feedback@narscandal.com

http://twitter.com/narscandal.com

“The Next Generation of Real Estate Media”

Naturally, I am intrigued by the “Next Generation of Real Estate Media” that is talking about scandals and intrigues, power and greed, a shadowy powerful conspiracy with the power to affect future generations for years to come!  I’m sure there’s some sort of a DaVinci Code type of puzzle or three involved.  Tom Hanks and sexy French lady can’t be far behind!

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a quick note.

I found something recently that bears directly on my post on Employer Liability for Employee Social Media, and I’m somewhat hopeful that we’ll see more clarity on this topic.

Michael Yon is an independent journalist who reports from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world where the U.S. military (and its allies) are fighting.  I happen to love his work, and believe it points to the future of journalism, but that’s a different story.

He recently posted a report on Facebook about two soldiers who were killed by Taliban attacks.  That in and of itself is not unusual. He does this all the time, doing the job that the national media rarely does.

What is unusual is that in the comments to this report on Facebook, a Mike Garcia attacked Yon for releasing the names of the soldiers before the DoD got around to it.  Scroll down in Michael’s fan page to find this thread, as I couldn’t find a way to link directly to his post and to the comments.

Turns out that Yon had followed all guidelines, directives, and had cleared the release with Army commanders on the ground in Afghanistan.  What followed is where things get interesting for us.

We see that Mike Garcia says that the FB comment is is personal opinion, that he is not representing the US Army or speak in any official capacity, even though he is a Public Affairs Officer.

Michael Yon is having none of it.  He believes that the fact that Mike Garcia is a Public Affairs Officer of the US Army means that he represents the Army even on a Facebook comment.  Which means that Yon believes he can now sue the Army for defamation and libel.

Now while it’s highly unlikely that Yon would actually sue the Army for defamation, I sorta hope he would so we’d get a case directly on point as to when the employer is and is not responsible for the social media actions of an employee, and what the relevant factors might be.  In this case, Major Garcia is a Public Affairs Officer — something close to a PR person — and posting on Facebook is likely in the sphere of his employment.  Respondeat superior ought to follow.

But at a minimum, we might see the Army promulgate specific directives clarifying when a soldier (an employee of the Army) is and is not speaking for the Army when engaging in social media.  That would be helpful for additional clarity.

-rsh

The science is SETTLED, I say!

If you live in the United States, and rely solely on Pravda New York Times or similar for your news, you’re probably unaware of Climategate.  Basically, the entire premise of the global warming/carbon footprint craze of the past few years turns out to be totally bogus.  From the RealClearPolitics.com overview:

Global warming “skeptics” had unearthed evidence that scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to manufacture a “hockey stick” graph showing a dramatic-but illusory-runaway warming trend in the late 20th century.

But now newer and much broader evidence has emerged that looks like it will break that scandal wide open. Pundits have already named it “Climategate.”

A hacker-or possibly a disillusioned insider-has gathered thousands of e-mails and data from the CRU and made them available on the Web. Officials at the CRU have verified the breach of their system and acknowledged that the e-mails appear to be genuine.

For even more damning evidence of a conspiracy to defraud the world, pervert the scientific process, and cover things up, check out this post from Australia.  Because they still have, you know, “journalists” interested in investigative journalism there.  One day, we might import some of these useful fellows from Australia to the United States….

While Climategate is a scandal of the first order, and all Americans (indeed, all humans) should care about it, as real estate people, we need to take a look at how Climategate will impact the industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Twitter itself (h/t: @mathurrell) comes this amazing piece of news:

Nearly one in five (19%) online Americans now uses Twitter or a similar service to post and share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others, according to the latest survey data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

This figure represents a significant increase over previous surveys that reported on Twitter use. Research in in December 2008 and April 2009 from Pew found that only 11% of internet users preported using a status-update service, while a similar study by Harris Interactive in March/April of 2009 found that number to be even lower, at 5%.

Let’s assume that the research is valid and accurate.  1 out of 5 is an amazing figure in and of itself.

There are, however, two other even more amazing observations that can be made if we take the 20% figure as valid.

First, we may be heading towards a self-balkanized America with no common shared cultural touchpoint.

If 19% of online Americans are on Twitter, and some 73% of all American adults are online (this is from 2006, by the way, so the actual number might be higher), and there are 304 million Americans of which 227.4 million are 18 years of age and older, what we get is that there are some 31.5 million Americans on Twitter.

Well, the #1 highest ranked Twitter user in terms of number of followers is one Ashton Kutcher, with 3.88 million followers or 12.3% of the total Twittering Americans.  That’s it.  in terms of news or information sources, CNN tops the list with 2.79 million followers, or 8.8%.

The implication is that Americans have formed a bunch of small cells of their friends, colleagues, people they know on Twitter — there is no Twitter user/company/whatever that commands the majority of the Americans using Twitter for whatever it is that they use it for.

If social networks is the future of information distribution and communication, then we’re likely headed into a society without a defining common shared source of information or culture.  We’re going to make references, allusions, and jokes that will become increasingly “insider info”.  Gamers will instantly know what other gamers are talking about, while art fans will be speaking mostly with other art fans.  Micro-fragmentation appears to be something we need to think about.

Second, maybe none of that micro-fragmentation stuff will matter because Americans are just plain too dumb to survive in a challenging world.

Here’s the top ten most popular (in terms of number of followers) users on Twitter:

1.  Ashton Kutcher (aplusk)
2.  Britney Spears (britneyspears)
3.  Ellen DeGeneres (TheEllenShow)
4.  CNN Breaking News (cnnbrk)
5.  Twitter (twitter)
6.  Kim Kardashian (KimKardashian)
7.  Ryan Seacrest (RyanSeacrest)
8.  Barack Obama (BarackObama)
9.  John Mayer (johncmayer)
10.  Oprah Winfrey (Oprah)

Seven of the Top Ten (eight if you include Barack Obama, Celebrity President) is an entertainer/celebrity.  Some are celebrities that are famous for being famous — Kim Kardashian for example.

If this is what Americans want, then that’s what Americans want.  Just don’t ask me to think the future is rosy and wonderful on this evidence.

-rsh

PS: Note that adult Twitter users are computer-literate, tech-savvy people over 18.  The supposed creme de la creme of our society, who “get it”.  Oh #*@(%@!

Yo, FaceBook me homie!

In my Top Nine Things I’ve Learned at BlogWorld post, I wrote:

Many social media professionals talk as if social media is the future of media, then act exactly the opposite when camera crews show up.

I can’t forget the moment.  Due to some deadlines, I excused myself from a session to get some work done while everyone else was attending a session or a keynote.  I found myself at the cafe near the Convention Center, setup the mobile office, and started working.  The TV on the wall was tuned to something I can’t recall, since i wasn’t paying attention to it.

Suddenly, a youngish gent walks in, instantly recognizable as a BlogWorld attendee: thick black plastic frame glasses, some witty geek-chic T-shirt (like, “I Twitter, therefore I am” or some such), jeans, and a backpack.  He asks the cafe staff if he can change the channel to CNN — and they say yes.  CNN comes on, and they’re doing a segment on BlogWorld.  Ah ha!  That’s why this guy was so interested.

Some nameless anchor who I couldn’t pick out at a lineup is interviewing a number of folks, including one of the founders of BlogWorld, and the talking heads are going on and on.  And I found myself wondering… if a blogger had contacted the organizer of the Annual Conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors... would one of them have dropped everything in the middle of the conference to get on a videochat with him?

Would any attendee at ASNE’s Annual Conference have stopped whatever he was doing to rush to a laptop because he had heard that The Bloggess was going to post an interview with the editor of some newspaper?

Actions speak louder than words.  And this, frankly, is why I fear that social media might be hype after all.

Read the rest of this entry »

As expected, my latest Inman column brought out only wide agreement and headnodding.  Positively sleepy comments section there.  NOT.  Go read it fast, or better yet, go be a subscriber so Inman can continue to pay me for my ramblings.  (LOOK! A COMMERCIAL PITCH!)

First of all, I owe a word of thanks to everyone who responded over at Inman — especially to those who disagree and are taking my points apart.  I guess I’m a Hegelian in the way I view progress: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

In any event, I wanted to post a few responses on this blog since I want to carry the conversation beyond just Inman readers, and past the 24-hour paywall deadline.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been meaning to check out The Local — New York Time’s foray into what they’re calling ‘hyperlocal’ media but only got around to it just now.  Imagine my surprise and pleasure to discover that my neighborhood (Millburn, Maplewood, and South Orange) is one of the two trial neighborhoods for The Local.  (The other one is Fort Greene & Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn.)

Of course, I’m not quite sure why the blog address has to be maplewood.blogs.nytimes.com rather than millburn.blogs.nytimes.com but I chalk that bias up to my L-Dub Lower Wyoming hood mentality.

The Local

In any case, it appears that The Local is written primarily by journalists or people who want to become journalists.

Tina Kelley, NYTimes reporter & Maplewood resident

The primary poster is Tina Kelley, who is a reporter for the NYTimes and a resident of Maplewood.  There are, as of this writing, three other writers (bloggers?) for The Local including a journalism college student, a grad student in “politics and journalism” which sounds like a particularly horrible combo, and a Columbia Journalism student.  It is not immediately clear that the three student intern-types have any connection to Millburn/Maplewood/South Orange.

And the topics of The Local are a mishmash of police blotter news, cute promotions of local residents, and information about local political or community events.  But it is precisely the sort of thing that I, as a local resident, find interesting and even useful.

For example, I didn’t know that Maplewood is receiving $200,000 of federal money, but that the money can’t save the jobs of three cops who are being laid off due to budget problems.  Interesting info.  That’s actual news.  Maybe now that cops are being laid off in Maplewood, the township might consider promoting greater gun ownership among the residents?  Or maybe not.

In any case, while I find the overly-cutesy tone gratingly condescending, I can see what New York Times is trying to do with this experiment.  If these hyperlocal sites can turn a profit, then that might be the way out for the newspaper industry that is dying off, one by one.

The response from the community has been somewhat mixed.  Tina Kelley posted an initial “Why We’re Here” post and the comments have been a mix of support, brutal criticism, and a wait-and-see attitude.

A “Jay” wrote:

I don’t understand what this is supposed to be. I don’t see any solid mechanism to include content related to news items of pressing interest. Are you tied in with the Times and your wire service to dump stories related to our towns in here as blog entries?

A “MCH” commented:

If this is supposed to be a blog (a new thing), you need to stop modeling it after a newspaper (an old thing.) So, lose the datelines. The bylines. And the take-yourself-too-seriously tone. Surely the old gray lady can learn some new tricks. If not, then it’s buh-bye!

In contrast, people like “John X. Kim” are far more supportive:

I’m glad to hear that the foundation of The Local will be local news, considering every time I pick up the local rag I shake my head in disappointment.

There are tremendous opportunities for stories here in Maplewood/Millburn/South Orange…stories of local significance but also of national resonance. The unique demographics of Maplewood/SO make the towns a bellweather for larger cultural currents on politics, education, race relations, to name a few. (No doubt you and your editors know this already.)

As such, it’s my hope that the site will shy away from fluff and tackle difficult questions that often are NOT asked for the sake of keeping the neighborly peace, community boosterism, and other vagaries of small-town exigency. We can certainly heed Eric Holder’s admonishment about our collective cowardice about race and apply it to other pressing public conversations.

So welcome, and I look forward to joining!

[Now, one sidenote here.  The link address for John Kim's comment above is: http://maplewood.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/why-were-here/#comment-43.  Comment-43, got that?

On the thread, his comment is #10.  Where are the other 33 comments?

It seems that even in the blogosphere, the newspaper folks can't resist picking-and-choosing which "Letters to the Editor" see the light of day and which do not.  So I will be posting on my own blog, rather than trusting my "comment" to the tender mercies of the "editors" of The Local.]

Localism: Maplewood

Being that I am in the real estate industry, I couldn’t help but compare The Local to Localism, the ActiveRain project that Jonathan Washburn, CEO of ActiveRain, has said will pull more traffic in 24 months from launch that Trulia and Zillow combined.  That was July 28th, 2008.  So I figure we got sixteen months to go to see whether J-Dub was right or not.

So I went to Localism and searched for Maplewood.  And got to this:

Localism Maplewood's home page

It’s probably an unfortunate coincidence that the very first post on Maplewood’s Localism on the day I write this is an ad for a listing.  But then, that’s sort of a feature, not a bug, considering that Localism is written entirely by realtors and sold to realtors as a way to “connect with the community”.

My initial impulse is frankly to click “Back” simply because I am not in the market to buy anything in Maplewood, and being hit with a listing as the first piece of actual ‘journalistic content’ is enough to make me believe I’m at a spamsite.  But in the interest of science — science I tell you! — I soldier on.

If you do scroll down, and give the site a chance, it does appear that the realtors who write (at least for Localism Maplewood) do provide information and news that is not real estate specific.  For example, here’s a post about an artist who will be coming to do a presentation about animation careers at the Maplewood library.  It’s just the kind of info that local residents might care about.

Except… that I see no evidence of any local residents at Localism Maplewood based on the comments.  The place has the feel of a bunch of local brokers talking to each other, and providing market reports to each other, and out-of-market realtors coming to comment on listings and such.  It’s all so… I don’t know the term… artificial?  Like a circus being put on for the benefit of clowns and acrobats.  I just can’t imagine a local resident wanting to spend any time at Localism Maplewood, since the news and info are sporadic at best, and are completely self-serving advertorials at worst.

Localism features lots of content about the local real estate market.  House prices are doing this, house prices are doing that, here are the past X closed transactions, and so on and so forth.  The “community news” stuff seems really like an afterthought add-on, as if to say, “Hey, we uh… we live here too.”  It’s somewhat like the worst possible agent blog possible made that much worse because it’s a sort of forced group-blog.

Which makes sense.  I mean, I assume most of the people writing for Localism have their own blog.  I know Perri Feldman — a contributor to Localism Maplewood — has her own blog, and her own website, and an active social media marketing thingamajig.  (And she’s a member of the Lucky Strike Social Media Club — woohoo!)  I guess in the time that’s left over, sort of as an afterthought (it seems), Perri must recycle a post or two from her blog onto Localism Maplewood.

And everyone else does too.  So no narrative, no coherent flow, no personality, just a bunch of market stats and listings, with little bits of local info thrown in there like raisins in a peculiarly chintzy loaf of raisin bread.

Perhaps other communities’ Localism pages are far better.  I don’t know.  But comparing The Local: Maplewood to Localism: Maplewood feels somewhat like comparing, well, the New York Times with all of its haughtiness and enforced cleverness to AutoShopper.

Apples and Oranges?

To some extent, I suppose you’d have to cry foul at the comparison.  After all, The Local is a venture by the New York frikkin Times, with a professionally-trained reporter who is getting paid to blog about three small towns.  And she has three interns to help her.  And she has nothing to sell you, so she’s free to just do hyperlocal content.

Localism, in contrast, is a hyperlocal blog put together by realtors who have a vested interest in selling someone a home.  The goal isn’t to provide local news and info to local residents; it’s to educate out-of-towners on what it might be like to live in Maplewood.  Right?

Well… not so much:

Localism is the valued point of connection, a place of meaningful interaction. It’s where neighbors and local merchants share what’s happening in their community. It’s people collectively communicating the unique flavor and nuances of where they live, work, eat, and play.

As long as Localism is run mostly by realtors, this vision is pure fantasy.  In reality, the best that Localism can aspire to is to become a place where local realtors give consumers an excellent rundown of the local real estate market, local listings, and service providers.

Because there is no incentive at all for “neighbors” to share anything whatsoever with the folks at Localism.  If you’re not a blogger-realtor, then you have no way to enter content or to participate, except in the comments.

The Local has a better shot at becoming the hyperlocal media channel, but it too has enormous issues to confront and overcome.

One issue is that Maplewood already has a hyperlocal media channel: Maplewood Online.  The notion may be that the New York Times and its talented journalists can do hyperlocal just better than the gimps over at Maplewood Online, but… I got news for ya (get it? I got news… oh nevermind).  There ain’t much skill involved in copying police blotters and posting up cartoons and pictures of local residents.  Sorry.

If Tina Kelley were to post a piece of investigative journalism where she risked life and limb to expose the decisionmaking behind Millburn lawmakers’ screwing of taxpayers with a $10m boondoggle giveaway to the Paper Mill Playhouse, why that might be the kind of news I would find absolutely indispensable.  But copying and pasting police blotter reports requires a graduate degree in politics and journalism?  Right then.

And The Local really has to drop its authoritarian approach and its condescending tone to local news.  Bigtime journos might think that stories about local police layoffs should be filed under “News By the Slice” with photos of a pizza, since it isn’t about war, famine, or national politics.  We get that you think what you’re doing is “cute” and beneath your many years of reportage, and the tragedy of your having to cover local news instead of the latest Supreme Court ruling or the pronunciamentos of Barack Obama is overwhelming us too.

But those of us who live here are deeply impacted by local laws, local policies, and local businesses.  We happen to think it’s pretty damn cool that Maplewood restaurants are having a “Restaurant Week”.  So have a little respect.  Or expect us residents to stay the hell away in droves.

Hyperlocal Media

For what it’s worth, hyperlocal media may very well be the future of media.  Seriously, while the current march towards the worker’s paradise will affect me and (more importantly) my children in a few year’s time, what the Millburn School Board decides to do at the next meeting might affect me this year in a far more personal and immediate way.

It would be great to have a single source that fills the role that newspapers and these journalism degree-havin’ folks like to fill at the national stage.  I would read that site religiously.

Localism ain’t it, unless it undergoes a total transformation of focus away from trying to sell real estate.  The Local ain’t it, unless it too undergoes a transformation and embraces the community on which it is reporting — and in fact, actually does some, you know, reporting.  The answer may be in social media, like MaplewoodOnline and Baristanet, as more and more journalists leave the newspaper business (by choice or not) and end up having to learn whole new skills in web-based, local, community-powered media.

It’ll be interesting to watch.

-rsh

Blogging Is Storytelling...

Sometimes I’ll get a really nice comment or praise from various folks who read this little blog of mine.  Like this twitter I got recently:

@robhahn haha, you always have some of the best reads. Will spend the necessary time. Keep up the forward thinking.

In those moments, because I am human and subject to the Seven Deadly Sins, I can almost feel my head swell.  And that’s when I have to go read Mark Steyn.  Or Bill Simmons.  Or Gregg Easterbrook and learn me some humility.

Here’s a passage from Mark Steyn, simply the best writer of the English language of this young century:

If you’re feeling a sudden urge to “invest” in a gallon of tequila and a couple of hookers and wake up with an almighty hangover and no pants in a rusting dumpster on a bit of abandoned scrub round the back of the freight yards, it may be because you’re one of that dwindling band of Americans foolish enough to pursue his living in what we used to call “the private sector.” You were never exactly Giant-Man, more like Average-Sized Man. But you have a vague sense that you’re gonna be a lot closer to Ant-Man by the time all this is through.

I could write for a solid week without rest and never come up with that passage.  I’m a fair writer, but not in the same class as these gents.

An Artist of the English language.

There is a craft to writing.  There is a different craft to blogging, I think, but that there is artistry and skill involved in putting one word next to another is indisputable.

When folks are kind to me, and tell me what a great writer I am, I go and read the really great writers and get back down to earth.

A while back, I read On Writing by Stephen King, who is a truly underappreciated talent by the East Coast Intellectual Illuminati.  I maintain that when my grandkids learn about American Literature in High School, they will be studying the works of Stephen King.  Anyhow, I found this blog with some excerpts that are worth considering.  Check them out.  For example:

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.

Writing for Blogs

At the same time, I also believe that the craft of blogging is different from the craft of writing.  As I am trying to get more people around me to blog, I’ve found myself repeating some things.  This is not a “how to blog” type of thing here; more of a, “just some things to think about” type of thing.  And do keep in mind that your scribe may actually know nothing about writing, or blogging.  You have been warned.

Read, Read, and Read Some More

James Kilpatrick, the longtime columnist who penned The Writer’s Art, once wrote that to learn how to write, one should “read everything. Read matchbox covers, read labels on cans of cleaner; read the graffiti on lavatory walls. Read for information, read for style, read for instruction, read for the sheer love of reading.”

More and more, I believe this to be true.  Reading naturally leads to an improvement in writing.  We somehow absorb cadence, style, phrasings, imagery, and language itself from others.  While it’s best to read as many great writers as possible, it is also instructive to read not-so-great writers.  At least you learn what you don’t like, and what to avoid.

I believe any serious blogger should read books, columnists, and other bloggers — in that order.

Read books, because these are the finely honed examples of the writer’s craft.  They’ve also gone through the most rigorous editing for content, pace, and style.  For what it’s worth, I average about a book a week.  (Don’t be impressed — most of them are trashy paperback novels I read on the train.)

Read opinion columnists, because blogs by their very nature lend themselves to editorializing.  The best editorial columnists are tight with language, and know how to construct a narrative that drives their point home.  That these have been edited for clarity, content, and style also helps to keep the writing tight.

And read other bloggers, especially the stronger writers.  I’m a big fan of reading Kris Berg because of her natural voice and general narrative flow.  But there are others — particularly not in real estate space — whose writings are always a pleasure to read.  Read them, and often.  The blogs are usually unedited, but that gives you a sense of how blog writing differs from other types of writing.

Don’t Censor Yourself

The most important lesson for blog writing, I think, is to avoid the temptation to censor oneself.  The biggest obstacle I see new bloggers struggle with is how long it takes for them to write something.  I have to constantly remind them, “You’re not writing for the Economist; just get it out there.”

The best feature of blog writing is the spontaneous openness of the voice.  Mistakes will be made; some sentences won’t be as elegant as possible.  Grammar mistakes may abound.  But done well, there’s a freshness to the voice and an openness that conveys authenticity.  The art is, if you will, to be artless.

Plus, the nature of the medium is that corrections are always possible, and retractions and clarifications are not only possible, but perhaps desirable.  If you write something stupid, then hopefully the audience will point that out in the comments.  Which lets you respond in the comments, clarifying things, or admitting you got it wrong.  Then you can go back and edit the original post, appending the correction right there on the original post.

Again, blogging is part of conversation — not an oratorical holding forth.  Don’t censor yourself too much; don’t edit yourself while writing.  You’ll find it easier to write, and eventually settle into a routine and a voice you are comfortable with.  Just shut up that little editorial voice inside your head.

Write A Story

While there are certainly exceptions in blogging — for example, if your post is simply a compilation of interesting posts you’ve read that week — I do believe that if you are creating original content, you need to be telling a story.

Tell a story! It’s fun!

There needs to be a beginning, a middle, and an end.  There needs to be a plot of some sort that moves the narrative along.  Character exposes are fine, but I think the best blogposts have a narrative flow that is naturalistic and effective at exposing the ideas and the voice of the blogger.

Advice blogs (like this one) usually suck because they lack that flow of narrative and often read like a bullet list of rules.  Since realtors are writing a lot of advice blogs — “How to stage a home!” or “What to look for in a REO sale” or some such — I think it’s particularly important to realestistas that they give a thought to the narrative they are presenting.

Link, Link, and Link

The advantage of the Interwebs is in its reference-ability.  If I say “unemployment is X”, you don’t have to take my word for it — you can go check the source yourself.  But only if I provide the link.

This is, in a sense, the counter-balance to the open and freewheeling nature of the Web and blogs.  We don’t have editors and factcheckers; what we have, instead, is the ability for our readers to check the source for themselves.

As a general rule of thumb, if you think it’s something you reader might want to check for himself, then provide a link.  Every single time you quote someone else, you should be providing a link.  The goal is to provide the context, the framework, around your blogpost’s own narrative.

Hit “Publish”

The final piece of advice, and perhaps the most important, is to actually publish the damn thing.  I know I have had dozens of nascent blogposts just sitting in my queue waiting to see the light of day.  Some of them never will.

All of the narrating, the writing, the linking, and all of that won’t mean a thing if you don’t actually publish it.

Keeping in mind that all blogposts can be revised, and any mistakes corrected via the comments or by editing the post, go ahead and publish that post no matter how nervous you are about it.

Chances are, you are your worst critic, and your audience will love it.  (And when they don’t, they’ll let you know, and that’s how conversations start.)

Happy blogging!

-rsh

A while back, I wrote that if you want to become a better writer, reading good writers really helps improve one’s own writing.  While there are hundreds of great writers, many in the RE.net, I thought I would offer up two of my current favorites — one from the world of sports, and the other from the world of politics.

Mark Steyn is, in my opinion, the finest living writer of the English language.  Now, I know his views may be a turnoff to some, so all I can recommend is that you look at simply the way he crafts the language.  He is funny, acerbic, sarcastic, and polemical all at once and has a way of reducing pretty complex concepts into very easily understood phrases.  He’s a conservative writer, but his obituaries are relatively free of his political views and are still gems.  The Atlantic, thankfully, put an archive of his obituary writings online.  Check them out.  Here’s a sample:

A short man with the worst dye job in Central Asia, Niyazov loomed large and gilded in public. Statues abounded, including a glittering behemoth on the tallest edifice in the capital that supposedly rotates to ensure his features are always bathed in sunlight, though it has a tendency to break down and jerk into action as erratically as he did. There are multiple statues of him as a baby: In one he is sprawled across the globe, in another held aloft by his mother atop a raging bull. If he never quite succeeded in sprawling across the global scene, he certainly rode high on his bull. He produced five volumes of poetry and read nightly on television, one remorseless Turkmenistanza after another. He banned news anchors from wearing makeup because he found it hard to tell the men from the women and had no desire to see the country degenerate into a sad Eastern imitation of the decadent Ratherstan and Couricistan.

In 2005, he banned lip-synching because he was tired of seeing elderly singers mouthing to their old hits and reducing Turkmen culture to just another Millivanillistan. He banned ballet because … well, it just wasn’t his bag. “How can the Turkmen people be encouraged to love ballet if there is no ballet in their blood?” he asked. “I do not understand ballet. What use is it then to me?” But melons he did understand: They were in his blood, and they were a lot of use to him. He declared a national holiday in honor of melons and urged his people to “let the life of every Turkman be as beautiful as our melons.” He deployed them in folksy aphorisms: As he sagely observed, “You can’t catch two melons in one hand.”

Steyn’s writing almost sings.  It’s a pleasure to just read and re-read phrases like, “one remorseless Turkmenistanza after another”.  Or “he banned lip-synching because he was tired of seeing elderly singers mouthing to their old hits and reducing Turkmen culture to just another Millivanillistan.”  I often read his writings and simply shake my head in wonder that the man is able to come up with some of the phrases and analogies that he does.

In the world of sportswriting, I think Bill Simmons, of ESPN, is probably the best writer in the business.  While he doesn’t have the sublime turn of phrase that Steyn seems to drop every other paragraph, Simmons writes with a really appealing voice.  He is at once the sports expert and Everyman; his fandom for Boston sports is obvious, and he drops too many references that casual fans may not understand.  But the man can write a casual, chatty style that is ideal for blogging.  An example:

I am a football fan, and I am a Patriots fan. Sometimes those interests collide. For instance, if I were that creepy double-faced lady from the airline commercial, one face would look depressed (because my beloved Pats had their Super Bowl hopes crippled in eight minutes), while the other face would look delighted (because the Era of Perpetual Putridity has finally ended). So let’s have Delighted Face write this week’s column.

Bill Simmons has a particular gift for weaving in pop culture references into his writing that at once humanizes him, while making it clear that he’s a very smart guy.  Take this paragraph:

Monday’s Eagles-Cowboys game was the most-watched telecast in cable history. And why not? Two signature rivals treated us to a breathtaking and compelling shootout. America’s Team was involved. Jerry Jones looked appropriately creepy in his dimly lit owner’s box (one of my readers compared him to the banker in “Deal or No Deal”), totally making up for the no-show of Jessica Simpson and her breasts. Seeing Wade Phillips jump for joy on the sidelines like a “Family Feud” contestant never gets old. Even the Terrell Owens-Donovan McNabb feud remains oddly compelling; I haven’t tired of it yet, just like I haven’t gotten tired of seeing everyone turn on Tonya during the first episode of every Real World/Road Rules season. And it’s always a pleasure to watch two elite quarterbacks battling it out, if only because we’re much more likely to witness a Kyle Orton-Gus Frerotte battle these days.

I love his references to “Deal or No Deal”, to Jessica Simpson, to “Family Feud”, and to “Real World/Road Rules”.  They make him sound less like a sports-nut-dork and more like a regular guy who watches TV, hangs out with buddies, and has a cool job writing stuff.

In any case, I recommend without reservation both of these fine writers to those interested in the art of writing.

-rsh