Brooke Wolford
By Brooke Wolford
I recently attended and volunteered at the Minneapolis RE BarCamp. I was a BarCamp virgin. I knew the concept and felt excited about it. I also anticipated excitement among fellow agents. I didn’t, however, realize how amazing the atmosphere would be.
Agents came in early and could wait to view the session board. I saw many popping in and out of sessions just so that they could get a taste of everything. You would see excitement in their eyes once they realized the concept. The event was free and you learned way more than you normally would learn in the traditional CE course.
This made me look back at educational events I attended throughout the year. I remember just a few months ago realizing that I didn’t have all my continuing educations credits even though it seemed like I was constantly training throughout the year.
I chose the events that I attended based upon what I would learn. Not the CE credits I would receive. Many of the events were not even focused on real estate at all. I chose them to learn something I didn’t know or because of who was speaking.
My point is, don’t focus on your continuing education hours. What you learn should benefit you and your clients. Look into other business areas. There is a ton you can learn from other industries. Don’t be afraid to step outside the box!
Brooke Wolford is a real estate practitioner with Edina Realty, Hastings, Minn. Follow her blog at adventuresinrookierealestate.com.
Jason O'Neil
By Jason O’Neil
Last month I had the privilege of going to Nashville’s RE Bar Camp. The event was exciting, informative and inspirational. But beyond the unrestricted walls of the camp, I found more inspiration — in a real bar.
The night before the event, I took my brother out for a couple of rounds at one of Nashville’s most famous watering holes, Tootsie’s. If you don’t know Tootsie’s or have never been, let me start by saying it is one of the best places to watch or perform country music in Nashville, which itself is ground-zero for country music. The likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Bomshel, and countless other country legends have passed through Tootsie’s on their way to stardom.
The evening was about more than the music: It was about the talent, the untold stories, and roads less traveled of these up and coming musicians. Tootsie’s is but an intersection in the artists’ paths to stardom. The female lead singer of the band performing upstairs that Tuesday night had the audience in her grasp, belting out high and low notes, her band jamming to some of the most famous and difficult songs to sing and play. She was good, maybe one of the best I’ve heard. I wandered downstairs and that band was equally as good. I wondered, “How could such talent not have a label? Why play in bars for tips?” Continue reading »
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
For a very long time I hated Twitter. Hated it. I hated that I felt like I was broadcasting my life to people I didn’t know. I hated the amount of DMs (direct messages) I received from porn stars, perverts and others trying to sell me SEO tricks and the like. I hated the cumbersome search to find people that I was interested in following, and I am not a fan of a “these people are cool so follow them” list. Most of all, I hated that actually using twitter.com to manage your Twitter account basically sucked.
But my part of my job is to get out there and try these tools and then advise my agents – so I gave Twitter a fair shake… I thought. By the time RE BarCamp Philadelphia rolled around last May, I had broken up with Twitter and moved back in with FriendFeed. If you ever attended a BarCamp you know – your Twitter handle is almost more important than the name on your badge. I attended a session with the TwitterQueens @LesleyLambert, @HeyAmaretto and @MayaREguru and learned more about Twitter in 45 minutes than I could have ever imagined. I felt left out afterward and I decided to give Twitter another chance. This time around, I broadcasted less and shared more. I learned the unwritten rules of the retweet, the hashtag and other Twitter tweaks and tricks.
Still, I found Twitter to be dull. A necessary evil at this point, but not something I enjoyed. I continued to teach our agents about Twitter and the various ways they could use it for their business, but I’m not sure too many of them bought it, because really, I didn’t buy it.
I can’t say exactly it happened, but something suddenly clicked into place for me and Twitter. In the last 6 months or so, I have learned to tolerate Twitter and even (shhh ….) enjoy it. Why? This part is easy – connection. I was craving connection but broadcasting instead. Once I started actually connecting with people on Twitter and building real relationships – I got it. Finally reaching out to others and putting myself out there allowed me to make real connections.
Initially, I would reach out via DM – a private “hello, how are you?” to someone, and then connect by way of the @username mention. There is nothing cooler than meeting someone in person that you have connected with online in a meaningful way. It’s like running into an old friend that you never met. Twitter has widened my business and my social circles – I have connected with agents on Twitter that I might never have met offline, real estate and technology trainers from all over the place and even made a few friends along the way. I teach my agents that want to use Twitter for their business to find and follow the locals, connect and build relationships and attend or host Tweet-ups to achieve that IRL (in real life) interaction with folks using Twitter.
And Twitter – the twitter.com, I mean – has improved along the way, too. Now I can create and follow lists, a feature I love as a list-person. I can search and even save my searches from right on the homepage. Even the Twitter spam reporting is easier now. That said, I still use TweetDeck to manage my Twitter account(s).
Twitter is not for everyone, I know that… and I’m still not in love with Twitter. But I get it now.
Stefanie Hahn is the education director for Coldwell Banker Hearthside, REALTORS® in Willow Grove, Pa. Visit her Web site: www.StefanieHahn.com.
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
Hashtags are everywhere on the Web right now.
During last week’s RE BarCamp Atlantic City and the Triple Play 2009 REALTOR® Convention and Trade Expo, anyone in attendance could follow along and get messages via the virtual map created by the #REBCAC and #TP09 hashtags. Attendees, presenters, and vendors were using these hashtags when posting information, photos, and videos online so that even those who were not in attendance could follow along. The #TP09 hashtag offered (and continues to offer) a view inside the conference — with bits of info from those tweeting about their class, sharing photos from the different events and video from the convention floor, or just offering up their PowerPoint slide deck for the benefit of the group. As the old saying goes… information is everywhere, you just need to know where to look.
Hashtags are a beautiful thing. So, what exactly are they?
Well, if you blog, you tag your post with certain words that identify what your post is all about. Hashtags work in much the same way. When you tweet about something, you can use a hashtag to tie your update to others that share the same tag. For example, if I were to tweet something the presenter said in my Triple Play class that I thought was truly great and must be shared – I could use the #TP09 hashtag to tie my single tweet to those of all the other Triple Play folks.
Not on Twitter? Not a problem! Go to http://search.twitter.com/ to see the posts and get an idea of what you missed. The hashtag also allows me to tag my photos and videos from the event when I upload them to my photo and video sites.
Hashtags can be used for any topic. Find out what hashtags are trending at http://hashtags.org/.
Most of you are familiar with tagging from your social networking on Facebook, where you can be tagged in a photo, video or note. This tag works in much the same way, the person tagging you is associating you with the post.
You can also geo-tag a post — adding geographical information to your update, photo or video. Geo-tagging shows the location of your post. In late November, Twitter enabled geo-location functionality – go to Settings, then on the Account tab, click on the “Enable Geo-tagging.” This will only work with third-party applications and not on twitter.com itself.
So, can’t make it to the next big real estate conference or RE BarCamp? Just follow the tags! You will be amazed at what you can learn.
Stefanie Hahn is the education director for Coldwell Banker Hearthside, REALTORS® in Willow Grove, Pa. Visit her Web site: www.StefanieHahn.com.
Brian Copeland
By Brian Copeland, 2009 NAR Conference Blogger
Zero money was spent on ads. Zero information went out through overly official channels. Social media and organic communication lead more than 500 registrants to NAR’s first RE BarCamp held at Stingaree (a venue bar in the Gaslight District). The day kicked off with a whole lot of amazing networking.
I always worry about what I call “social media dissonance,” what you expect when you meet a person face-to-face after networking with them online for months/years. Needless to say, in 99 percent of the situations, the meeting exceeded my expectation. And, by the way, I’ll be hosting a RE BarCamp in Nashville, Tennessee in 2010…if Taylor Swift can win entertainer of the year for the CMAs, Nashville can pull this off!
Once everyone got oriented to how the day was to flow, a day of impromptu session, everyone gathered around several big dry erase boards to find out where they were going to spend the each of the 30 minute segments. Sessions centered around the social media theme and included video blogging, mobile apps, WordPress SEO, social media brand equity, blog content, legal issues in in social media and blogging, advanced Twitter, distressed sales/short sales and brokerage of the future, just to name a few of the 58 topics.
Drew Burks
By Drew Burks. 2009 NAR Conference Blogger
Downtown San Diego had a special electricity in the air this morning. As I was pulling up to the Stingaree, location where RE BarCamp is being held, I immediately noticed small groups of people buzzing around. The energy was similar to small children waiting to open gifts on Christmas morning, anticipation and enthusiasm oozing from every person there.
It was a who’s who of the Social Media and Blogging world. One person commented to me that this was his first barcamp and what he immediately noticed was the positive attitude from everyone there. He was correct, there was no negative attitudes or haters.
Maybe it’s all the hard work put in by the volunteers or the beginning of a “movement” as Jim Marks stated in his opening comments, but I am not sure there was a better group of people in the world to be around than the group of people who were at RE BarCamp San Diego this morning.
That’s it for now…I gotta get back to the bar camp and learn more from all these great people.
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