2009 REALTORS® Convention & Expo

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The REALTOR® Conference & Expo in San Diego, CA, is right around the corner (Nov 13-16, 2009). Many of you have been asking about CRT sessions during the Conferece. This year CRT will be sponsoring 10 educational sessions in addition to the WiFi Hot Spot and the Bloggers’ Lounge.

The following is a schedule of sessions hosted and sponsored by the Center for REALTOR® Technology:

Friday:

Digitally Expose Yourself(8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 11B
The goal is to inform members of new web-based technologies for marketing themselves better and attracting new clients.

Speaker:
Evo Terra (ASW Consulting Services)

The Future of the MLS(10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Ballroom 20A
The goal of this session is to help members understand where MLSs are going in the next few years.

Speakers:
Michael Wurzer (FBS Data Systems), Moderator
Matt Cohen (Clareity Consulting)
Ron Stephan (RealtyWEB.NET)
Bob Bemis (Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service Inc.)
Jim Duncan (Real Central VA)

Real Estate Road Warrior(2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 6B
This talk will focus on the tools & technologies used by a successful real estate road warrior.

Speaker:
Shannon Williams-King (TriBella Real Estate)

Saturday:

Agent 2.0- Efficient, Informed, & Empowered(9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 29A
Learn more about the social media tools currently available to strengthen & build your client relationships.

Speakers:
Jeff Turner (Social Media Marketing Institute), Moderator
Amy Chorew (TechByte)
Rudy Bachraty (Trulia)
Daniel Rothamel (Strong Team REALTORS(R))
Dustin Luther (4Realz Consulting)

RETS: Its Impact, Your Data(1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 8
RETS, the Real Estate Transaction Standard, has been changing the way your data has been shared for over a decade. In the past few months, several new initiatives have been implemented to make its impact even broader. Learn the current state of RETS and where it is going over the next several years.

Speakers:
Patricia Bybee (Metrolist MLS), Moderator
John Holley (NTREIS MLS)
Michael Wurzer (FBS Data Systems)
Kevin McQueen (Focus Forward Consulting)
Scott Woodard (Showing Time)

Business Technology Forum(1:30-3:30 p.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 6B
“Your head is in the clouds” may no longer be a figure of speech! Cloud computing is a growing model that is impacting the way businesses run and where data resides. Our panel of experts discusses cloud computing from the real estate practitioner and legal perspectives. Next time you hear the term, cloud computing, you’ll know what the tech buzz is all about and whether it is an option for your office of the future.

Speakers:
George Stephens(ERA Stephens Properties)
Jerry Matthews (Consultant) 
Jonathan Sapir (SilverTree Systems)
Michael Thiel (National Association of REALTORS®)     

Sunday:

VoIP: Can You Hear Me Now?(11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 4
Voice over Internet Protocol will be discussed in detail – how it works and how it can be used in your business.

Speaker:
Tristan Degenhardt (Digium)

Going Beyond Listing Data(1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 6A
This session will help members understand the kind of data and information that surrounds listings so they can more effectively serve their customers and build their online brand.

Speakers:
Rob Hahn (7ds Associates), Moderator
Darrin Clement (Maponics)
Sara Bonert (Zillow)
Eric Bryn (Leading Real Estate Companies of the World)
Jim Marks (Virtual Results)

Monday:

Understanding the Internet Buyer in an Evolving Market(9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 25A
Learn about the psyche of Internet buyers in the current economic environment. What catches buyers’ eye, where are they spending time, and how can you, the real estate practitioner, effectively make your services stand out.

Speaker:
Spencer Rascoff (Zillow)

Defining the Social Me(9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 24A
This session will explore how to promote yourself, your listings, and your expertise through social media.

Speaker:
Dustin Luther (4Realz Consulting)

Location and room names are currently pending. Once that information is finalized, updates will be posted here and at Realtor.org. We look forward to seeing you in San Diego!

For more information, please contact the CRT.

The history of the Internet is a story of inverse proportion; as technology accelerates, the barriers to it—both monetary and technological—shrink.  During one of my CRT presentations(Digitally Expose Yourself), I lead off by asking “Who has been using email since 1971?”  Only once has someone raised their hand.  And while you may be wondering who would be naive enough to think that they could have been emailing since then, the lore of the Internet traces the first use of email back to the summer of 1971.  So now, I ask you, 'Why weren't you using email back then, or even in 1991?'

I lead off with that example because it clearly demonstrates what I’m discussing: technically, there was nothing to prevent people from sending email back in 1971.  If you look at a timeline of the internet[1] you can see that many of the services that we take for granted today and which we often perceive as only a couple of years old have actually been around for quite some time.  Many times, a “new” technology merely refers to an old technology with a new label, a sign that it has reached the mainstream.  But because technology takes some time to enter the mainstream, most people either aren’t aware of what’s possible or consider the cost too unreasonable. 

Social Networking is a prime example of this trend.  Technically, email is a basic form of social networking.  Who hasn't gotten a randomly forwarded resume of a person who is a friend's friend's friend?  And email has been around since the 70's.  AOL even dates from the mid 80's, though they really didn't hit the critical mass until the 90's.  But from the 70’s to the 80’s, the barrier to entry for an individual significantly decreased, both monetarily and in terms of knowledge.  The most basic computer cost a few thousand dollars in the early 90's; today you can get a desktop easily for under $1000 (and even that is expensive).  And that's before the per-minute toll charges for a dial-up connection with a modem.  Imagine what your monthly phone bill would be spending your now-daily 2.5 surfing hours connected via modem.  Not to mention how much that time would multiply because the connection is so slow.

And that’s just the price-tag part of the equation.  To actually connect to these usenet or bulletin board systems (bbs), one needed some techie know-how, and sometimes even an invitation to 'join the secret club'.  And it wasn't about point-n-click: initially, you needed to get under the hood, setting up modem ports, and dealing with baud rates, oh my!  But as technology advanced, these tasks got easier and easier.  Remember Web-Tv?  It promised ease of use: plug a little box into your TV and phone and you were online instantly!

The same is true for social networking and many of the new trendy services and “need to join” communities out there.  Blogging, for all intents and purposes, started the day the World Wide Web was created (1989).  But at first, you needed to have hardware and the know-how to create your own presence on the 'Net—a server with the software to run websites, an Internet connection and a knowledge of how to create a web page.  A few years later, services developed to help you with all that: enter Geocities.com, and LiveJournal.com.   As these features got more and more accessible, the numbers of people using them and how they could be used grew.  The technology started to reach the masses.  Then the term 'Weblog' was coined in 1997 and a tidal wave of bloggers started in 1999.

Have you been blogging since 1991, when the concept was started, or even since the late 90's when you could simply just post your thoughts on your own little corner of the web?  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that everything we are doing on the Internet is simply an extension of our real world persona applied online.  It isn’t really new, but now it’s easier to do and more geared towards the masses.  But along with that, as a technology is increasingly adopted, the impact you can make with it decreases.  Being the number one blogger in your area is simpler when you are one of the first versus when you are one of the multitudes.  So it might be a good idea to always be on the lookout for emerging trends, because those are your best shot at moving forward and they can really help define how you embrace technology.

As a quick addendum to these thoughts, I leave you with the The Machine is Us/ing Us video.  While you watch it, try to note the point when you stop understanding or are familiar with everything that they are referencing.  Then think, how much earlier in the video that point would have occurred 5 years ago, or 10 years ago.  With that in mind, and just imagine how, 3 years from now, you could watch that video and say, ’Yeah duh, who isn’t writing their grocery list in XML, importing it into the 'cloud' and tagging it?”

[1] credit: http://joaobordalo.com/files/topInternetHistory.png

Chris McKeever
cmckeever@realtors.org

One of the big buzzwords in technology these days is the idea of “the Cloud”.  While this is not really a new idea, some services that are associated with cloud computing have recently become more viable.  At CRT we recently had a chance to use a cloud service for our RETS compliance tester, specifically the virtual server service, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (E2) from Amazon Web Services.  Our experience was captured in more technical detail in a white paper, but for those that don’t want to get mired into the technical details I will give a high level overview and discuss when using E2 might be advantageous, aswell as the potential drawbacks of using E2 and other similar cloud services.

 First off, what is E2.  The short answer is that itis a virtual private server service, where customers can rent the use of a virtual machine to run online applications on.  These virtual server instances can run any software that you want, and you are given full access to them, configuring and running them very much as if they were physical machines in a data center.  As an Operating System, E2 supports Linux, Solaris and Windows 2003.

 Since E2 makes heavy use of virtualization, it allows you to easily scale up and down as demand requires.  E2 lets you save your configured instances so you can create other instances with the same configuration, in addition to offering a large collection of preconfigured instances designed to give you a start for different types of servers (web server, database, etc.).  A host of other services also support E2 to allow users to create robust and scalable applications, including Elastic Block Storage, Elastic IP addresses, Automated Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing and monitoring.  

 So what does all this cost?  That depends, as E2 is mainly based on an hourly cost for each instance running.  The hourly cost depends on the type of instance, the more power you want, (CPU power and/or memory) the greater the hourly cost.  There are additional costs for the other supporting services as well as for bandwidth used beyond a certain base amount.  All this means that it’s not necessarily cheap.  Amazon’s page for E2 has the service and pricing details.

What are the disadvantages of E2?  The biggest one is that you need to trust that Amazon will be able to keep the service up and running without an extended outage or a failure that destroys your data.  In light of this, you would likely want to have backups held elsewhere.  Also, there is a learning curve to getting the most out of E2, and you will still need someone to maintain your servers, so E2 does not obviate the need for a competent System Administrator.

So the question then becomes, when would using E2 be advantageous?  E2 is flexible in a way that would benefit people who have an unpredictable demand on their online services, demand that requires them to have hardware to make sure the service is responsive, but that is not always being fully utilized.  With automatic scaling and the preconfigured instances, E2 can allow you to scale up and down with demand needs, so you are only paying for the resources you need and are using.  Also, the preconfigured instances can make service maintenance and set up faster and less prone to error.  But if you have modest server requirements and little fluctuation in demand or light demand, E2 is likely to be more complex and expensive then a well-maintained physical box. 

But if you are someone who finds they need a flexible server environment, or who just wants to make your server setup and maintenance easier, E2 might be a valuable solution for you.

Andrew Tillman
atillman@realtors.org

Every day we’re bombarded with ads trumpeting the newest tech gadget. It seems as soon as you buy some new gadget the next version is available. So how do you keep up? Or better yet, should you keep up? Is the cost of constant upgrading worth it?

This leads to the idea of good-enough technology. Good-enough technology is tech that accomplishes the tasks required of it and nothing more. No flashy interfaces, graphics, or construction material. An aluminum laptop may look neat, but it doesn’t help you meet your business goals.

So what qualifies as “good enough for your needs”? First take stock of all the everyday activities you do that require technology. This could be a rather long list, so try to keep it to business-related activities. Do you use your cell phone to check email as well as take calls? Do you bring a laptop with you or does it stay on your desk? Once you’ve made your list, I think you’ll find that you may not take advantage of much of the functionality available in the devices or software that you’re currently using.  While this isn’t to say that you won’t find some new technology that suits your business better than what you use now, what the list will give you is an inventory of what works for you and an idea of where to look for new technology.

Take the cell phone as an example. Just about everyone has one, but beyond making and receiving calls, not everybody uses all other features equally.  Some people don’t use any other features at all.  Here’s a list of common cell phone features: voice calling, SMS (or texting), email, a web browser, calendar, and camera.  If your phone use is limited to calls and email, then all of the added functionality is useless to you; your needs can be met with some of the least expensive models available today. And you can apply this same type of reasoning to any type of technology you’re thinking of purchasing. One thing to keep in mind is that some form factors (i.e., the aluminum casing) can be important. For example, with cell phones and laptops, screen size is something you should consider as a feature or function.  Larger screens cost more but are easier to read.

Upgrading software can be a bit different from upgrading hardware, for a couple of reasons. 1) Software makers often require periodic upgrades so the software can keep some or all of its functionality. 2) When upgrading hardware, you may find that the software version you use isn’t compatible with your new hardware.

The rule of good-enough technology is naturally frugal and applying it to your technology purchases can save you money. Even if frugality isn’t your aim, understanding how and why you use technology can be equally valuable.

Ian Smith
ismith@realtors.org

These days, it seems like I can’t go anywhere without hearing about Windows 7.  With that in mind, let’s take a brief look at why everyone seems to be completely enamored by the software.  For Windows Vista users, the change is pretty gradual.  Windows 7 borrows many of the user interface enhancements that were first introduced in Vista.  For XP users, however, the change is dramatic.  Speaking as a lifelong Windows user, I can say that like many, I avoided Windows Vista due to the negativity surrounding it.  Since making the jump from XP way back in January (when the public beta became available) I can’t imagine going back to XP mainly due to the advancements in the user interface.

If you haven’t already heard about the new features and changes in Microsoft’s latest operating system, here’s a brief rundown:

Taskbar

The taskbar in Windows 7 makes a significant leap forward.  The main difference is that rather than displaying a long, rectangular box with your open programs, Windows 7 displays program icons.  Using icons takes up much less space and allows you to see exactly what you have running at any given time.  Additionally, there is a small rectangle at the end of the taskbar that when clicked, will minimize all open programs and display your desktop.

Pins

With pins, you can now add any program to your taskbar.  Add your most commonly used programs and you can have easy access to them even when you’re not looking at your desktop.  To pin a program to your taskbar, simply drag the desktop icon to your taskbar, or right click and select pin to taskbar.

Jump Lists

From the taskbar, you can now perform multiple tasks within your programs before even opening them.   Simply click an icon on your taskbar and drag up to view that program’s jump list. Combine jump lists with pins and you have quick and easy access to functions within your programs.  Previously, some of the jump list functions would require you to open a program, wait for it to load, and then dig through the menus to find the correct action.

Aero Peek

Aero peek is one of my favorite features in Windows 7.  Simply moving your mouse over any open program on your taskbar will display a preview box above that icon.  Within that preview box, you will see a miniaturized display of that program.  I have found this to be especially useful when running multiple instances of the same program.

Aero Shake

Aero shake is a quick way to clear away all of the clutter on your screen.  When you want to view one program and minimize all the other windows, grab the program title bar with your mouse, and move it quickly left and right.  This will automatically minimize all other open programs while leaving your selected window open.  Performing the shake action a second time, will restore your other programs.

Aero Snap

Aero snap is another one of my personal favorite functions.  It allows you to resize your open applications much more easily than dragging a corner to the size you want.  Simply drag the program title bar to the top of the screen and it will automatically maximize the window.  Also, you can multitask by dragging the title bar to the side of your screen.  This will maximize the open program on exactly half of your screen, allowing easy side by side viewing.

These are just some of the many new features in Windows 7.  As you can probably tell, Windows 7 is all about making your computing experience easier.  The new features allow you to do what you want to do on your computer, in the way you’re used to doing it (Vista and XP users), only faster.  It may take some time to get used to the new features but once you do, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them.

For more information and in depth reviews of Windows 7 follow these links:

Windows 7: The Complete Guide

Windows 7 Review

Official Microsoft Windows 7 Page

Greg Stinton
gstinton@realtors.org