NAR 2008 Conference & Expo: Call for Presentations

Ever been to a NAR Conference & Expo? It’s a madhouse I tell you! Several thousands of agents, brokers, and other real estate professionals; exhibits, learning presentations and more.

The 2008 Conference & Expo will be in Orlando, FL on November 7 - 10. This year’s theme is Destination Success: Full Speed Ahead.

The NAR has put out a call for presentations for conference education sessions. At last years conference in Las Vegas, I heard session feedback ranging from “that sucked” to “absolutely brilliant!”.

Here’s your chance to submit an outline (preferably of the “absolutely brilliant!” category) and find yourself in the land of Disney World helping to educate your colleagues.

How are speakers chosen?

Proposals are reviewed by a team of industry experts with expertise in real estate topic areas.

Reviewers evaluate proposals based on six criteria:

  1. Relevance to today’s real estate professional
  2. Well-defined topic focus
  3. Practical application of material
  4. Timeliness of topic
  5. Overall program quality
  6. Speaker credentials

Have a great idea? Like to teach and speak? Whined and cried in the past about the quality and content of NAR education sessions?

Well step up or shut up! Submit a proposal! (Deadline is Feb 29)

My wheels are turning…

Hat tip to Ben Martin, with the VAR via Twitter.

The Great Debates: Realtor.com: Friend or Foe

Head on over to Real Estate Politics and watch Brian Wilson of Zolve take on mega-producer Russell Shaw in the first “Great Debate”.

It’s all about varying aspects of Realtor.com. From two decidedly different points of view.

Interesting stuff.

And if you haven’t already done so, please vote in our poll to the right “Are Enhanced Listings” on Realtor.com worth the cost?”

An NAR Blog that “Gets It”

I was a bit remiss in my recent post, “Why the NAR Needs a Social Media Director“. While I firmly believe the NAR needs a social media guru as spelled out in that post, there IS a NAR blog that does seem to at least understand some of the finer points of blogging and social media (though still a little weak in the networking aspect, IMHO).

The Center for Realtor Technology (CRT) blog is quite well done. It’s loaded with info (and not necessarily NAR-centric info)  written in a personal tone and links to “outside” blogs and sites. They’ve been around for a long time and are doing good stuff.

Lots of insight to be had on tech things that effect Realtors. If you have any interest in technology and its impact on your job as an agent/broker, you should have these folks in your feed reader.

Keep up the great work Keith, Chris, Andrew and other CRT contributors!

Why the NAR Needs a “Social Media Director”

Trevor Smith said in a comment here:

The other thing that drives me nuts about the NAR is that they have never made an effort to become a part of the real estate blogging community. It’s very “Come read my blog and hear the truth my little children.”

People like Drew and David at Zillow, folks from Trulia, and Glenn (Redfin) have done a great job of blogging, commenting, and generally being a part of the community. The NAR has failed to do this.

Athol Kay remarked:

I think thats a good point Trevor.

Unfortunately there is not even a single person at NAR acting as any kind of social media guru. We can’t even say “NAR sucks, but person XYZ at NAR at least seems to be equipped with a brain and operates with a personality”.

They just seem to have a legal department and bipolar “release the hounds” / “we are oblivious” attitude to us blogging.

These guys got me to thinking (happens every once and a while).

The NAR doesn’t really seem to understand blogging, or any aspect of social media / networking. Clearly they are trying to “blog”. They’ve recently rolled out a few blogs. Apparently someone at NAR sees some value in blogging.

But do they “get it”?

Let’s take a quick look. The ”YPN Lounge” (Young Professionals Network) was the first of the new blogs. They’ve got a contributors page that includes 19 young professional Realtors.

I’ve heard of two of them. Now of course I don’t know of every blogging agent out there (though I do know a lot of them). So in an effort to get to know these folks, I took a look at their profiles. I fully intended to subscribe to each and every one of their blogs. Here is what I found:

8 of the 19 have no link to either a web site or blog in their profile.

2 of the 11 remaining actually had a link to their blog. One of those two was an Active Rain blog.

1 link went to the hosts parked search page.

1 link lead to the oblivion of a “server not found” page.

These leaves 7 links out of the 19 contributors to take a peek at…

All 7 lead to static static web sites. Of these 7, only 2 had links to blogs. One of those had a total of 8 posts (the last made over a month ago) and one was started on Jan 30 and has a total of five posts.

The final tally? 19 contributors. Two I already subscribed to. Two more added to the feed reader. 15 with no apparent blog presence other than two on Active Rain.

I am not highlighting these facts to pick on or demean the contributors to the YPN Lounge blog. But given the quantity and quality of prolific (and young) real estate bloggers out there, it simply begs the question — why aren’t these folks contributing to the NARs YPN blog? Has anyone at the NAR asked them to? Has the NAR even attempted to recruit anyone? Are they reaching out and engaging Young Professional bloggers?

I have to think the NAR isn’t doing any of this. Why not? Likely because they don’t understand blogging, and/or they don’t know how to do these things. They simply aren’t actively engaged in the new social media of real estate.

Let’s take a gander at the NAR blogs from another angle…

Almost without exception, the articles are relatively well written. However, I’m going to have to agree with Matt Carter’s take on the Inman Blog yesterday. Matt said, “On the NAR blog, the style is formal and it’s hard to get past the constant use of ® with every mention of REALTORS®.”

The term “REALTORS®” or “REALTOR®” appears 20 times on the home page of the Voices of Real Estate blog. In 7 posts…

(In another telling moment — Inman News, arguably the real estate industries leading “mainstream” source and provider of news, wasn’t even aware these NAR blogs existed..)

“Linkation” is one of the critical components of blogging. How do the NAR blogs look in the link arena?

In the last 10 posts on the YPN Lounge – 1 link. To a NAR survey.
In the Speaking of Real Estate blogs last 10 posts – 9 links. All to realtor.org articles.
In the Voices of Real Estates last 7 posts – 4 links. One to the Code of Ethics, one to the Realtor Action Center, one to NARs new web site and one to a realtor.org article.

In summary, not one single link was made to anything outside of a NAR domain.

This is not taking advantage of the power of social networking. It’s demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of it.

To Trevor’s original point of not seeing the NAR reaching out and becoming a part of the community, I looked at all the new NAR blogs for a significant length of time. I did not see one comment from anyone in the NAR administration/leadership team. No links out to the community and I can’t find any links into any NAR blog posts.

I read a tremendous amount of real estate and industry blogs, and I can’t recall a single instance of anyone in any position inside the NAR ever commenting on a blog. Never seen them on Facebook. Active Rain? Nope (though I haven’t been there in quite some time). What about YouTube? Other than some NAR commercial clips (the posting of which clearly violates the NARS Terms Of Service) I can’t find any NAR presence. MySpace? Twitter? LinkedIn? I don’t think I even have to look. If they aren’t on these “primary” social networks, you can bet they aren’t on any secondary ones.

Does the NAR “get” blogging and other aspects of social media? I believe the answer is clearly no.

So why should the NAR hire a “Social Media Director”? (Director, Guru, Advocate, Manager – pick a title, any title.)

To help bring them into the 21st century.
To improve their brand recognition.
To improve their brand reputation.
To accelerate their learning curve on the implementation of all aspects of social media.
To take advantage of all social media has to offer.
To engage the “RE.net” to help turn some into advocates for the NAR.
To develop and provide training and systems for the NAR membership to take advantage of social media.
To provide an active conduit between the membership and leadership.

You tell me, what else could a NAR Social Media director do? I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with a disadvantage. No can do.

The Internet and social media can be incredibly powerful tools if they are used properly. With a good Social Media Director, the NAR could trim hundreds of labor hours from the learning curve and use the power of social media marketing and networking to reach out to not just its membership, but the general public as well.

Believe it or not, I’d take that job in a heartbeat. And I bet there are others out there that would too. Despite what I often write here, I want the NAR to succeed. The power of social media / networking is too great not to be taken advantage of.

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URLs Squished by the NAR

The XBroker is seeking input on domain names taken down by the trademark police.

Help him out.

Sigh. More Games with NAR Blog Posts.

I don’t get it.

This morning I questioned some “date manipulation” happening on some posts on the NAR’s “Voices of Real Estate Blog“.

One of the posts in question (the lessor of the two evils IMHO) was re-dated multiple times in order (I assume) to keep it at the top of the page.

Tonight, the post is gone, fini, out of there.

Or so it appears at first glance….

I thought maybe the keeper of the NAR blog had reverted it to its original date.

Nope.

Then I assumed it had been deleted. It was simply nowhere to be found. Why would they delete a post? Because in it they committed to posting on a schedule — a schedule that hasn’t been maintained?

So what. Bloggers everywhere say they are going to post some series, or post on some sort of regular schedule — and many times those things fall apart for various and sundry reasons. Been there, done that myself.

But I suspect you’d have to look long and hard to find a blogger that just deletes an entire post, particularly after getting a little criticism. Just fix it for Pete’s sake. There’s no need to delete it and hope it never happened. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal.

As it turns out the post wasn’t deleted. But it isn’t easy to find.

This URL leads to the Jan 31 date version of the post.

This URL leads to the Feb 6 date version of the post.

(Note to the NAR blog master — when you chose to use year and month in your post URL structure, multiple copies are made when you change dates across months.)

Here are screen snips:

This isn’t so much about changing dates on posts. Or “deleting” posts. (though I don’t understand either practice, at all).

There are after all, no rules in blogging. It is the NARs blog, and if they want to delete posts, it’s their privilege. If they want to back date a post from the President of the organization, who am I to stop them?

I just hope they understand what it makes them look like in the eyes of some of their members. Seems to me that an organization that prides itself on a Code of Ethics would stop for a second and say, “Hmmm. How does changing dates on posts come across? How does it look when one morning a post is there, and that afternoon it is for all practical purposes gone?”

Looks snarky to me. But I tend to go a little over the top about these things. I can say though that based on some of the comments here and numerous emails I got today that I’m not alone. Taking actions that bring integrity into question probably isn’t the best plan for the NAR.

Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

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Don’t Write Checks Your Time Obligations Can’t Cash

As mentioned here, on Jan 16 the NAR said in their new “Voices of Real Estate” blog:

Every Tuesday, Dick Gaylord will blog about his experiences as NAR President, with supplemental posts from other members of the 2008 Leadership Team every Thursday.

Sure enough the next Tuesday (Jan 22) we got Silver Lining. Cool.

The following Tuesday (Jan 29), we got nothing.

The next Tuesday (Feb 5), we got nothing.

But wait! At 7:15am MST today (Wednesday Feb 6) there was nothing. But now there is a post up, magically dated Tuesday Feb 5.

A couple of suggestions / thoughts for the NAR when it comes to blogging…

1) You can change the date of a post to make it look like it was posted on a Tuesday. But you might want to keep in mind that what shows up in someone’s feed reader is the real date it was posted. I’d rather see the post reflect the true date, even if it is late. Call me crazy. I call it an integrity thing.

2) Please stop changing the date for the lead “Voices of Real Estate” post. It was originally posted on Jan 16. Yesterday it was time stamped Jan 30. Today it is time stamped Feb 6. One can only assume you are changing the date to keep this post “on top”. There are other, better, ways to do that (put it in your “About” page that is linked in the sidebar, incorporate it into your header graphic, or get your web guy to put it as static text below the header).

It looks silly to have a post dated Feb 6 with comments from Jan 16.

Manipulating post dates so they stay on top or (even worse) give the false appearance that you are meeting some stated time line is a poor practice. Honesty really is the best policy.

I realize Mr. Gaylord is a busy man and may not always be able to meet his “Tuesday post commitment”. That’s fine. But really, stop making it look like he is. Might I suggest changing this:

Every Tuesday, Dick Gaylord will blog about his experiences as NAR President, with supplemental posts from other members of the 2008 Leadership Team every Thursday.

To read something along the lines of:

Every week, Dick Gaylord will blog about his experiences as NAR President, along with other members of the 2008 Leadership Team. Occasionally time constraints may prevent a weekly post.

Do that, and you can lose the questionable practice of back-dating posts.

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The Realtor Trademark Police are at it Again…

From the “Oh for the love of God” files…

The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, in its infinite wisdom, has shut down a Facebook group for inappropriate use of the trademarked term “Realtor”.

Yeah, why should the NAR and our Realtor Associations support realtors in their marketing efforts?

Well, what can you expect from the NVAR? After all, they granted NAR’s Chief Economist Larry Yun a “prestigious honorary membership” in the NVAR for “telling it like it is to consumers, reporters, and most importantly, prospective home owners”.

Meanwhile, http://rottenlyingsleazyrealtors.com/ is still online.

So I guess it’s OK to combine “realtor” with “Rotten, Lying, and Sleazy” but don’t you DARE use it to positively market yourself!

Other domains using the word “realtor” in less than kind fashion:

FuckRealtors.com (parked)
IHateRealtors.com (points to — a Keller Williams Realtor’s site!)

40,430 registered domains containing the word “realtor”. (Hey, it’s down from the 53,434 I noted in this Oct 2007 post…)

Nota bene: The word “realtor” is used 11 times in this post. Not a damn one of them uses it “properly”.

Hat tip to Lani for “Realtor Officially a Curse Word”

The NAR News Filter — Smacks Down Redfin

A recent New York Times article, “Despite Housing Slide, Real Estate Sites Sell” mentions Redfin, Zillow, Terabitz and Trulia.

Mostly Redfin. You can’t miss the big photo of smiling Glenn Kelman, Redfin CEO.

Glenn opines frequently on the Redfin blog. Like, love or hate the guy, you can’t argue that he doesn’t have a presence in real estate. Perhaps a significant one in many aspects.

Why then when the NAR summarizes the NYT article and presents it to their readership do they strip out all the references to Glenn and Redfin?

I have no issue with the NAR regurgitating a news story. But if they are going to barf up someone else’s work, seems like they could skip the editorializing and/or personal opinion and give us all of the story.

To blatantly remove all of the references to one of the key subjects in the story seems…. I dunno… wrong on some level. It begs the question, “Why”?

Hat tip to Blue Collar Agents, via Greg Swann.

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