Notorious R.O.B.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."

It’s a hot Saturday morning here in Houston, and the sunlight is so strong you can almost feel the weight of it on your skin. Maybe it’s early onset of sunstroke, but I felt like musing on random things. Feel free to skip this post; it isn’t likely to be useful to anyone.

But I’m thinking about Google+ more, about Internet 2.0, and human beings. I wonder if the future — what we might term Internet 2.0 — will simply be a return of the walled gardens of the early days of the Internet. Things go in cycles. The Wheel of Time turns.

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So I login to Facebook today just to check out what’s going on, while waiting for the various workers I’ve hired to dig my car (with attached U-Haul trailer) out from under 3′ of snow. And I see that Facebook is recommending a friend to me: Dottie Herman, the CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Which got me wondering… is there any point to networking with a VIP on Facebook or Twitter? Really? What is the likelihood that you’ll get real interaction, like from a real human being, from someone so visible? These are individuals who represent major companies or organizations. Are you really going to get to know them as a person in such a public forum?

I know exceptions exist, but for the most part, people who have such senior roles are not likely to be free, open, and human on public social networking sites. Because human beings are imperfect, and being imperfect, sometimes they mis-speak, or are inappropriate for polite company. Hang out with some of the VIP’s off-hours, behind-the-scenes, and you’ll see that those perfectly coiffed, perfectly spoken people are just men and women like any other. But the social media interactions of most VIP’s strike me as carefully crafted as any PR wire release. Everything is either trivial (“Happy Birthday, so-and-so” and “Loved the new movie XYZ”) or carefully neutral pastel-like shades of correct. What’s the point of following such people?

I just don’t think there’s any way you’ll get VIP’s behaving like regular human beings in public. Social media experts are telling young people to be careful what they upload into Facebook, since those pictures of keg stands in Daytona Beach will come back to bite them in the ass when they’re going for a job. What do you think they’re telling CEO’s of companies?

So, what do you think? Are you connected/friends with any VIP’s in or outside of real estate, who aren’t afraid to just let it all hang out? I can only think of a couple myself.

-rsh

The Seattle-based brokerage John L. Scott has waded into social networking waters in a pretty significant way with JLSconnect — a brand new service based on Microsoft’s Live platform.  From the news release:

JLSconnect augments the previous “Property Tracker” service found on www.JohnLScott.com which provides the ability for individuals to log in and save “favorite” properties.  JLSconnect adds new social networking capabilities to the Property Tracker experience that makes it possible for people to easily share and exchange comments on interested properties with others.

“Live Services are building block cloud services from Microsoft that John L. Scott utilizes to enrich the consumer experience,” says Sam Chenaur, Microsoft Platform Strategy Advisor. “With those services, John L. Scott is now able to allow users to see when their friends and family are online, provide instant messaging services to share and view property information, see and map properties with Microsoft Virtual Earth, and offer a single sign-on experience to all of those capabilities.”

This could be interesting, but it has the feel of a dollar short and a day late.  If JLS had launched the service a couple of years ago (and conversations about doing this sort of social networking were happening inside Realogy as early as summer of 2007), it might have been different.  But today, there are a lot more questions as to how JLSconnect will work out.

My concern is that if JLSconnect does not deliver the results that JLS may be expecting, it will be seen as evidence that social networking and social media in real estate don’t work.

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1.  Thou shalt not spam thy friends.

2.  Thou shalt not be LinkedIn with coworkers, for LinkedIn has replaced most job sites for recruiting. Social network with thy coworkers around the large container that dispenseth water.

3.  Thou shalt think twice before being Facebook Friends with coworkers, clients, and prospects. And definitely think thrice before posting photos and videos of thee in that club in Cancun with the beer bong.

4.  Thou shalt not network under a corporate name, for silly rabbit, social networks are for humans!

5.  Thou shalt be thyself as much as possible on social networks, for if thou art false, it shall be evident, and thy friends shall un-friend thee with the quickness.

6.  Thou shalt help thy friends in appropriate networks meet and help each other as much as possible, for that is the whole point of doing social networks at all.

7.  Thou shalt unsubscribe from any social network that thou hast not updated in the past thirty days, for thy time is not unlimited.

8.  Thou shalt refrain from ad hominem attacks in debates that inevitably arise in any social networks worth a damn, unless thou truly means to simply trash and flame another person.

9.  Thou shalt venture outside thy circle from time to time, for a social network that ceases to grow might be one that is headed unto death.

10.  Thou shalt have fun on thy social networks, for all work and no play makes Jack a psychotic murderer who freezes unto death.

-rsh