Notorious R.O.B.

Last night, the RE.net and the world lost a thinker, a mentor, a wit, a pioneer, and above all, a good man.  Joe Ferrara has passed on.  My thoughts and prayers are with his family, and his wife Sandra, whom he loved above all else.

Joe’s Sellsius blog was one of the first and best real-estate blogs, full of interesting thoughts, news, and most of all, a great sense of humor that Joe imparted to it.  Posts like this one usually had me grinning, and sometimes laughing out loud maniacally, startling the nearby denizens of a Starbucks or two.

Joe is also one of the first people I’ve met in the RE.net.  When I first started blogging in 2008, Joe was one of the first to somehow find my unadvertised blog, comment on it, and contact me, encouraging me to keep writing.  If it weren’t for him, it isn’t clear whether Notorious R.O.B. ever evolves.  I called him the Godfather of La Blogstra Nostra, the East Coast RE.net Famiglia, out of respect for him and his sense of humor.  That is what I’ll remember about him — how great his laugh was, how his eyes would twinkle constantly, and how funny the man was.

I will never forget that Joe was a font of ideas and innovation.   Although not a wealthy man, Joe was constantly thinking about helping those less fortunate than himself.  We must have discussed the idea of pro bono real estate for hours, days, weeks.  He was the first person I remember proposing a “Hot Ladies of the RE.net Calendar” to raise money for various charitable causes, like Habitat for Humanity.  His ideas were often great, sometimes not, but always, always interesting.

Joe and I have had so many great conversations over the years, whether on the web, or in person at various conferences, or meeting up in New York City over a cup of coffee or seven, debating everything from social media to real estate to the state of the nation to whether Batman could beat Superman in a fight.  It was our love of conversation that led to the Lucky Strikes Social Media Club, which is still going strong in New York, in the hopes of getting together with other like-minded real estate, technology, and marketing people to share a meal and a great conversation.  That wonderful network of people does not exist without Joe Ferrara’s leadership and vision.

Above everything else, I will remember just how much Joe genuinely loved people.  That’s a rare enough quality in human beings, nevermind an attorney.  (Yes, Joe, I hope you’re laughing where you are, since you loved attorney jokes.)  But he really cared about people as people, was interested in them as human beings, and wanted to connect as one person to another.  If social media means anything at all, it means human beings treating each other as such.  Joe embodied that spirit better than just about anyone I know.

I’ll miss you, Joe.  See you on the Other Side.

-rsh

Get yer popcorn here! Fresh piping hot popcorn!

Earlier today, we had a bit of a brouhaha among the Twitterati of the real estate set.  The genesis was this video blog by Greg Cooper in which he blasted Todd Carpenter, attacked him personally, and laid the heavy artillery on to NAR.  Which then brought responses from various members of the RE.net, some friendly to Todd and others hostile to him, and resulted in this post by Bill Lublin.

Periodically, it seems we get one of these little kerfuffles in the RE.net; I personally think it’s pretty healthy.  As far as the specifics of the Todd vs. Greg deal and all of that, the whole thing is likely blown way out of proportion, and others will address the “personal vs. corporate” burdens on someone using his personal channels.  I hear Jay Thompson is working on a post.  Suffice to say that Todd is a great guy, and if any “embarrassment” resulted, I’m 100% positive he did not intend it.  So count me in Team @Tcar as far as that goes.

But the real issue I’d like to discuss is actually from a comment by Ines Hegedus-Garcia to Bill’s post which goes:

But again, that’s not the point – it’s not about Todd, it’s about the flaming of an individual on a public forum that totally crosses the line. (And the fact that is Todd makes it all the worse)

And via Twitter, there are a number of folks who thought Greg’s post was over the top, unfair, and illegitimate.  Criticism, it goes, should be “constructive and thoughtful” of else, not worth the time at all.

This is where I part company with polite society.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sherry Chris at REBarCamp San Diego, 2009

In part 1, we explored the controversies and the issues surrounding what a Real Estate BarCamp should or should not be, and explored the rules and principles of the original tech-focused BarCamp.  At the end of that, I asked three questions:

• What goals are we trying to achieve with REBarCamps?
• Who benefits from REBarCamps?  Who should benefit from REBarCamps?
• What principles and rules help achieve the answers to the above questions?

The answers have been varied, and interesting, and I appreciate the dialogue, y’all.

The heart of the dilemma comes out in the responses as well.  Kathleen Buckley (@kvbuckley) writes:

# What goals are we trying to achieve with REBarCamps?
In my mind REBarCamps aim to help RE Professionals learn about and leverage a wide range of new, largely technology driven tools to enhance performance.

In contrast, Andy Kaufman (@andykaufman) writes:

# What goals are we trying to achieve with REBarCamps?
As organizers, I think we should strive to provide a friction-less setting where participants can meet face to face with their peers who are passionate about the space can interact. As a participant, I want to meet people, strengthen relationships, learn & share knowledge without ‘being sold’.

Is REBC about “helping RE professionals learn about technology”?  Or is it about peers meeting to share their passions?  Can it be both?  If so, how?

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Mick oOo, Flickr

If you’re on the RE.net, then you know that the hottest topic within the community right now is the issue of NAR’s ruling that search engines are no different from scrapers.  Even my post on this blog talking about social media process using just the NAR handling of the issue as an example got enormous traffic and commentary.  I think it’s fair to say that the overwhelming opinion within the RE.net community is one of outrage, anger, and outright rebellion against MIBOR and against NAR.

So it was a surprise when I got an email from a reader who asked for anonymity expressing a contrarian view.  S/he is a REALTOR who actually agrees with MIBOR’s ruling (backed up by NAR) that indexing of IDX listings should be prohibited and MLS members should be forced to block search engines from finding those listings.  I encouraged him/her to post the email as a comment, but got a firm refusal, as s/he was worried (with some justification, I think) about possible negative reaction from the RE.net.

In fact, I ended up chatting with this REALTOR and agreed that instead of posting his/her email, I would just understand his/her point of view then write it up myself.  While I wouldn’t normally bother, the issue is an important one, and the sensitivities are such that I felt it would be helpful to the conversation to present a contrarian opinion without fear of retribution or accusation of bias.

Read the rest of this entry »

Should the Big Brands in real estate start blogging?

Joel Burslem over at FOREM thinks so:

Even with its obvious bias, the blog is actually a fantastic resource for anyone interested in staying on top of the beer wars. Several years ago I worked for Molson, before it became Molson Coors, so the brewing industry is still of interest to me (both professionally and socially).

But I think there is a lesson here for the real estate industry. Often when I speak to brokers, I hear a lot of them complaining about the negative press the real estate industry gets in the mainstream media.

One thing I suggest is for them to create their own blogs to counter this noise. Not fill the space with meaningless marketing platitudes like “Now is Great Time to Buy…” but actually contribute meaningfully to the conversation and to debate the issues.

The big real estate brands would be wise to take a lesson from Miller; create a real estate blog and hire a full time blogger. It could be an agent – but they’re (hopefully) too busy selling real estate. Rather, carve out some dollars from that bloated print marketing budget and hire a social media guru or a cub reporter fresh out of journalism school, then let them off the leash a bit to create stories that are relevant to the conversation but maintain your brand integrity. (Emphasis mine)

It’s an interesting idea, and I’m sure that at least some folks in Big Brands are thinking about it and experimenting with it.

For some reason, however, the idea makes me sort of queasy in the belly.

For one thing, the Brewblog itself referenced in the WSJ story that sparked Joel’s post makes me sort of queasy in the belly.  For Miller, and for the limited purpose they’re trying to serve, the Brewblog works.  Basically, the Brewblog exists to piss off Anheuser-Busch.  I didn’t read the WSJ story as being all that complimentary to what Miller was doing with Brewblog.  It’s not exactly a trusted source of information, and its biases are plainly obvious.  (Although, I suppose the plain bias puts Brewblog ahead of things like the New York Times and Washington Post… so that’s saying something.)

But it does seem relatively clear to me that the Brewblog is not adding to Miller’s own brand in any significant way.  It’s an industry blog for the brewing industry, aimed at industry insiders.  And its goal is more or less to be an ankle-biting annoyance to Anheuser-Busch.

Does that hold true in real estate?

Would, for example, Re/Max spend a bunch of cash for an industry-focused website that trashes Century 21 or Keller Williams for the sake of annoying their competitors?  What purpose would that serve in our industry?

Furthermore, I’m afraid there’s an even bigger issue for the Big Brands.  As I’ve highlighted above, if a Big Brand is going to do nontraditional PR via blogging, then it has to let official blogger(s) create stories that are part of the conversation while maintaining brand integrity.

But brand integrity is the one thing that is honestly lacking from the Big Brands.  Seriously.

What is the brand image of Re/Max?  What is the brand image of Century 21?  Of Coldwell Banker?  Of Keller Williams?  Of Long & Foster?  Of anyone in the business?  How are the brands different and distinct from each other?  Say you take a survey of 1,000 real estate customers.  Put the logos of the top ten brands in real estate in front of them and asked them to write a sentence next to each one describing the brand image of the logo.  Could they actually do it?

Besides, do you really get the sense that the Big Brands actually compete against each other if the media?  I don’t.  If anything, I think it’s more of a Us vs. Them mentality, where it’s the real estate industry (particularly the brokerages) vs. the Media.  I don’t know that you’d get serious disagreement between the Big Brands or between real estate agents of every stripe and market about the treatment of the entire topic of real estate in the media.

That being the case… I think it might be smarter for the Big Brands to let the RE.net worry about messaging, and for the brand themselves to worry about creating distinctive brand identities.  Here’s how I’d handle it.

Rather than hiring a corporate blogger, hire a corporate blog PR person.  Make sure that you have a guy or gal whose job it is to reach out to the RE.net constantly.  Every good, bad, or indifferent thing that happens should be publicized to the RE.net as soon as possible.

They all already do this with the dead-tree media.  Why not the RE.net?  Don’t just think about press releases; think about getting word to Joel or to Dustin or Greg Swann or Pat Kitano or any one of the numerous industry-focused RE.net bloggers.

We’re all hungry for the inside scoop.  The RE.net has blogs that are industry-focused with an audience that is primarily industry participants.  The Big Brands could start to leverage this fledgling online trade media by a coordinated effort to keep us informed and up-to-date.  Some of us will knock them, and others will defend and praise them.  But they will be part of the conversation.

Add in an executive or two who may be willing to post comments, and I think you have the recipe for success in growing an alternative media.  No need to hire a blogger and let him go out on the limb under the company name.

Simon Baker of REA Group recently stopped by my little corner of the Internet.  Frankly, I was shocked.  And he provided some good detailed information.  Frankly, I was shocked again.  That’s amazing outreach.  Even if I were to go on and trash REA Group, Simon has a fan.  If some dead-tree media type wanted to find out about REA Group, my post may show up, with the conversation Simon and I are having about international real estate.

Imagine if Alex Perriello did that.  Or Dave Liniger.  And not on just my tiny blog, but on the big RE.net blogs.

Don’t become the media.  Don’t try to convert the dead-tree media that hates you anyhow and has no idea what the @&*% it’s talking about anyway.  Grow the media instead.

-rsh

This is completely unrelated to anything serious at all, but… Greg, Mr. Swann… WTF?

Is it because I find insults abhorrent? Obviously not. For all of me, well-crafted satire is the essence of Western art — the primordial expression of independence by the nascent Greeks toward the hegemonic Persians. To be oriental, in the Greek and Roman sense, is to be of the East — docile, obedient, subservient — a domesticated animal in the guise of a homo sapiens. (They’re not talking about particular people, they’re talking about categories of behavior.) To be occidental — of the West — is to be wild and free, a truly human being. To deliver a scathing insult to the powerful is to defy the idea power over others. This idea I absolutely love.

To be docile, obedient, subservient, is to be of the East?

You mean, maybe like this guy?

And I didn’t realize my 10,000 year old cultural tradition — you know, the one where my ancestors were inventing the printing press some 900 years before Gutenberg — was merely the act of “animals in the guise of homo sapiens”.

I know, it’s just a flowery analogy, and Greg’s just trying to be — you know — literary and philosophical.  That’s cool.

Just might want to think about the words you’re using there, lest it distract the reader from your point.  And you know, maybe have the reader focus on such casual racist assumptions (the parenthetical sub-rosa defense notwithstanding) instead of your argument.

Just sayin’.

-rsh

PS: By the way, if you can point to where the Greek and Roman philosophy of the oriental and the occidental is not talking about a particular people, but categories of human behavior, I’d enjoy perusing those pages.  Which of Plato’s writings would that be?  Or is it Aristotelian ethics?  The inquiring mind wants to know.

I thought I was perhaps being a bit unkind to Marc Davison in wondering why a marketer would post what he did about being a rock star.

Greg Swann over at Bloodhound looses both barrels on him:

I should probably stop picking on this little nebbish, but he’s such a champion at leading with his chin that I find him hard to resist. His theme? “Rewriting the book on how to kick ass.” I wish I were joking. I’m gonna guess that he wasn’t among the first picked on the ass-kicking team in grammar school, and I’ll bet a large dollar he wasn’t even in huge demand for the coloring-outside-the-lines squad. I just love it, though, that he’s so completely dysclued that his ass-kicking theme song is entitled — wait for it — Unchained. And before you trouble yourselves trying to imagine Kevin Boer and Noah Rosenblatt in day-glo-hued spandex tights with huge cod-pieces — these two being Davison’s envisioned rock stars of real estate — stop for a moment to consider that we are talking about marketing in the world of Web 2.0. Rock stars are all about “Me, ME, MEEEE!!!!” This role belongs to the customer, not the vendor — this according to this same mental midget a few weeks ago. Brian Brady and I are rewriting the book on real estate marketing, an iterative endeavor that will see its next big advance at the real Unchained. But if you want to find a Web 2.0 star, it’s not me or Brian or Kevin or Noah. If I were to pick one person who best expresses what consumers are looking for in a Realtor or a lender, I would pick Dan Melson. There’s is nothing of a rock star in the man, but if “fiduciary” had a face, it would be his — and that comes through in everything he does.

Since I’m a relative newbie in blogging about real estate marketing and such, I had no idea I was witnessing some ongoing soap opera.  This should get interesting.

Even more amusing: Greg praises Teri Lussier, so I checked out some of her stuff.  She is good, and I’m looking forward to reading more of her thoughts.  But one of the things she posted seemed so apropos the kerfuffle-that-is-about-to-ensue:

 If you are a RE.netter, you can stop reading now. This next part is between me and the ninety and nine. Are they gone? Okay, now that we are alone, between you and me: I don’t quite understand the inner workings of the RE.net power bloggers. I don’t know about you, but I got my head down, trying to keep my nose to the grindstone, scrapping out a meager existence. They make a lot of inside jokes and references to posts that first posted back in the dark ages when they all began to blog. They seem to break off into clans… Now there’s an idea- perhaps my first video for the RE.net will be a whiteboard scorecard so we can keep track of who is pissed at whom.

This week reminded me of the once-upon-a-time when I was a Dance Mom- think soccer mom in a world of pink tulle. You’ve never seen such gossiping and grudge matches and political posturing- and that was just the moms. It’s the kind of world where otherwise sweet girls embrace the pure ugliness of highly charged and competitive behavior. I was quite thrilled- you have no idea how thrilled, I mean you really can’t imagine how thrilled I was- to leave all that behind when my daughter said she had had enough.

Once my daughter bolted from that convoluted world, we were able to sit together and look back and laugh our butts off at one perfect glimpse into the world of twisted politics at the cliquish level. Just like in the dance world, just like in the ancient world, just like high school, sometimes the RE.net world gets a little um, mean.

You don’t say, Teri… you don’t say…

Still, I’ve got my popcorn, soda, and candy ready to go.  The next chapter could be fun and interesting.

-rsh