Innovation

Posted by Kevin Doell

Trite but true, “all real estate is local.” Yet, the parts make up the whole, and when you put all those parts together, you arrive at the “big picture.” Analogous to this is that all environment is local, too. In countless villages, towns and cities, individual activity affects the local environment in ways that result in a significant collective impact on a global scale.

As ambassadors for the homeowner, real estate professionals have the perfect platform to deliver value by educating the consumer on ways they can green up the home to save money while improving the home’s environmental footprint.

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Posted by Sherry Chris

The latest new thing to hit the real estate blogosphere is the “Blog Meme.” In essence, it is a blog chain letter that lets others learn more about you and vice versa. I am still trying to trace its origin, but that part does not really matter. The interesting thing for me is that while blogging is transparent, it is also anonymous, and this is a good way to learn more about your fellow bloggers. Last Friday, I noticed on Facebook that Rudy from Trulia had Memed me … check out his blog about Meming.

So, I got to work over the weekend answering the 8 questions below. After you answer the questions, you choose 8 bloggers and ask them to answer the 8 questions, and so on, and so on … this could go on for a long time. I think we should plan to have a meme reception at Bloggers Connect. Well, here goes:

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Posted by Kevin Doell

We had dinner with the guys from Domus Consulting the other night. Kevin Boer and Pat Kitano dropped in from California to talk shop on social media. Smart guys. They were talking social media and Twitter, the social media micro-blogging tool that has been the rage of late. Many people are beginning to tinker on how to make it work for themselves. Even news media such as Reuters and the BBC are exploring ways to incorporate the tool into their news gathering activities.

For my part, I realize I have to get my “twitter fingers” on. It’s not that simple and there’s a learning curve involved. But so far so good. I’m set up on Twitter at “kvdoell.” And I even set it up to drive the “tweets” automatically to a page on our blog. Watching it work was pretty cool! I felt 10 years younger. Maybe twenty. Ok, 25.

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Posted by Kevin Doell

Catching up on my podcasts this morning, I pulled down the PRI Studio 360 show “Creative Minds Go Green.” It was a great program full of crazy stuff to make one think about the many shades of green.

This show had it all: solar powered street vendor carts, “Eco Art” featuring deformed frogs and songs generated from hurricane data, the solar powered subway terminal at Coney Island that generates 250,000 kilowatt hours per year (40 houses worth) and of note, “Superadobe” homes originally prototyped for a NASA lunar colony that maximize space, light and interior ventilation.

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Posted by Wendy Forsythe 

Last week was a very exciting week for us as we rapidly move towards our launch in July. What made last week more exciting than most? Our consumer website and brand intranet came one step closer to coming to life!

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Posted by Kevin Doell

This is cool.

Tomorrow I’m kicking off a company-wide employee green Task Force and, wouldn’t you know it, someone sent me a link to Earth Hour 2008. Great timing. Check out the video above.

It’s a pretty simple idea that is intriguing, though immensely complicated to execute I bet. On Saturday, March 29th, the organizers at Earth Hour (the folks from the World Wildlife Fund, WWF) are asking everyone to turn off their lights from 8-9 p.m., local time, in the fight to reduce global warming.

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David Pogue, technology editor and blogger of the New York Times, sings “I want an iPhone”

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With numbers like these, is it any wonder that agents are trying to promote themselves and their listings on these social media sites? We learned recently that some of these sites may not be as open to the advances of today’s modern Realtors as we once assumed (see Inman News-Future of Real Estate Blog). Well, to be fair Facebook will gladly let you advertise your listings as long as you pay!

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Posted by Wendy Forsythe

“Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.” Seth Godin, author Purple Cow. (www.sethgodin.com)

At the National Association of Realtors Conference in Las Vegas I anxiously sat in the audience as Seth Godin spoke about being remarkable. As I listened my internal thoughts kept circling around the notion that we are all striving to create a Purple Cow every day. Real estate sales professionals need a Purple Cow to attract buyers and sellers. Brokers and managers need a Purple Cow to recruit and retain sales associates. Franchise companies need a Purple Cow to attract affiliates.

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