Looks like I won an award!

I think this is the first award I've received. Uh, yes, I think it is. Thanks RSS Pundit for bestowing this wonderful award on my post.

Please take a moment to visit the RSS Pundit site and read about all the winners here.

I think this is a very import award and I will be proud to display the logo.

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It happened just like I predicted it would

I have been feverishly working on systems that will allow me to be more mobile in my real estate business. I know, I could hire an assistant, but when a client calls and wants to talk about a specific paragraph in a contract and you don't have access to it, you're going to be in trouble. Take for example my day today:

Mind you it's two days before Christmas and I have never, ever, had this much business even the week before Christmas. But, I was trying to get one client into a home today and negotiate a purchase contract for another. My problem? The FAX. Yes, the FAX. Why? Because I needed to pass copies of signed documents from one client to the next. The problem isn't with FAX documents themselves, it's the total archaic technology used to create them. After one or two passes through a fax machine the quality is degraded to a point you can't read anything.

What I really want, no, what I really need, is an application that would allow me to store an encrypted signature of my clients, or anyone’s clients, post a document on a website for them to sign, they log in, open the document, attach the digital signature, and viola, a signed document that is still completely readable. Now, I as a Realtor can log into this same application via my mobile phone, PDA or computer, locate the documents and send them to the next person via email, fax or printer.

HINT: Print or save all your client documents to PDF format, buy a large SD or CF card, or a large USB Thumb Drive, create folders for each client and store their documents on one of these devices. Why? Quick access to them at almost any PC or PDA.

HINT: Use a service like uReach to mange all your fax documents. You can get to them via the phone or web. I do as described above and create folders for each of my clients and store their documents online. Then I can email or fax right from my PC and I don't need to stand a fax machine.

So, how does all this apply to Real Estate 2.0? This industry generates so much paper we are literally swimming in it. We need to come up with a way to reduce the killing of trees and reducing the amount of time it takes to complete a transaction. We have the technology, now we just need to apply it in the right places.

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RSS and Real Estate

My good friend Kip and I talk about RSS and it's coming impact on business often. While Kip is fairly new but aggressive in the blogosphere, I on the other hand have been blogging for almost 5 years now. January on 2001 is when I made my first weblog post.I don't use or have access to posts from years past but it would be nice. That got me thinking... what about archiving RSS/ATOM feeds for future reference. I mean it is only XML text, it's not like we need to real post. Of course if you only share an excerpt then you could have a problem.

I recommend you create a second feed that contain all your posts and off load it somewhere for safe keeping (you could also offer this feed as an archive online for your readers.) If you ever think you might change blogging software or hosts or you can't export post from your blogging software then this is a great alternative.

Thinking at this from a business perspective, there are a lot of things you could archive in static RSS feeds; company reports, old articles and white papers, podcasts (you are podcasting, right?) and many other things.

Now to the part where RSS and Real Estate meet. As the real estate business continues to change and more information is online, Realtors should look at ways to stay informed with the smallest amount of effort. Enter RSS. I am going to coin phrase here (Kip, are you listening?), I'm going to call it Real Estate 2.0. The web has it's 2.0, so does software, and there is Business 2.0 and 2.0 version of just about everything. But I think we are just about to release Real Estate 2.0. As the baby boomers become less and less interested in purchasing real estate we can turn a larger portion of our marketing budget and efforts to the GenX crowd. This is the next major generation to make large investments in Real Estate. And most of them have grown up with computers as part of their every day lives.

Real Estate 2.0 will consist of many technologies and I think RSS will be an important one. Personally I'm in the process of bringing a new technology to market using RSS that will make real estate information on the Internet consistent and valuable. Because as agents we must make our services valuable or we won't be around very long.

I believe the days of it being just about "you" are pretty much gone. When a perspective buyer can get about 90% of the data they need to make a purchasing decision online, it only means one thing, if you aren't in some way offering valuable services via the Internet to the GenX crowd you will begin to lose market share. I don't care what you are doing right now; it isn't going to work very much longer.

In a future post, probably the next one, I'm going to talk about websites and why agents grossly over state their success and how you can overcome that. My job will be to help you, with real world practical experience begin to make a move towards Real Estate 2.0, and the closer I get to releasing this new RSS technology I will begin to share the vision and the value which you can use to build a larger consistent and profitable lead generation system, all using RSS.

** Update 12/18/2005 **
I was lurking through my RSS reader tonight and came across this post on Freshblog. I have used many of the hacks from this site. Anyway, John talks about using OPML as a standard way of importing/exporting blog content. I wanted to update this post since I basically bring up the same point. Anyway, here is the post.

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