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Why iPhone will Never Beat Blackberry

Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I still don’t get the fascination with the iPhone (new or old). Maybe someone can help me out? I just read the cool story at Engadget (love their site - bookmark them!). Apparently the whole universe has become star-struck again as Apple plans to release its next version - cuter, cooler, whatever - of the iPhone. And they’re about to release a software development kit so people can write software apps for it. Just about the only thing I can say about these two moves is: It’s about time. Apple must have learned its lesson about releasing the SDK, because it’s lock-down on hardware/software in the Mac personal computer end of things prevented it from dominating the universe.

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Next Generation

Five Focus Areas of Evolution for REALTOR Associations

It’s time for REALTOR Associations to do something they don’t like to do: Change. Certainly, over the past two decades, I’ve watched a fair amount of “changes” at REALTOR Associations worldwide: Executive Officers have come and gone; Associations have moved to bigger, then smaller, then bigger locations; they have changed their newsletters from print to email. All of these are “changes” but none of them represent the Change I mean when I say it’s time for REALTOR Associations to change.

I mean: It’s time for them to Evolve.

Recently, the National Association of REALTORS released it’s 2008 Association Technology Study. By and large there was nothing in it to make me fall off my seat. But that’s because I’m usually already sitting on the floor when it comes to REALTOR Association technology usage. Now, in all fairness, many Associations have worked hard - at some things - but once again, the Technology Study shows us yet another “quantum delay” in the REALTOR community’s adoption of technology as a whole.

Here are a few excerpts to make the point. When asked “what was your biggest technology achievement in the last year?” these notable accomplishments were listed:

• Ability to send mass email without a large percentage being blocked
• Changed over to an electronic newsletter
• Going wireless
• Established a technology committee
• Setup online registration for classes and events

and my personal favorite…

• Developed a technology strategic plan

Yawn.

On the surface of it, these all seem like “good” accomplishments. Except that, objectively, they all should have been done five years ago. Or earlier.

How can we say that? Well, it’s simple: Most of the Association’s members have already been doing these kinds of things for at least three to five years. Really. I know, it’s hard to believe. Aren’t we all in the dark recesses of the cave together?

To clarify, I’m only talking about the Association’s members - not their “membership” - which means I’m only talking about the brokers, not the agents, and only those brokers who are actually producing serious results in the marketplace. Those are the Association’s members. Most everyone else just pays their dues during their short tenure from “new agent to no-longer-an-agent” over a year’s period.

What’s an Association to do - if the kinds of things they are just getting around to are already “old news” to their members? How will they remain relevant, critical, worthy of membership dues, if they only got around to putting their newsletter online last year?

It’s time to get serious. REALTOR Associations don’t have the luxury of making slow, small incremental changes any more. It’s really do-or-die time for most of them: Even years after Board of Choice - in which a REALTOR could choose to pay dues to any Association within their state, not just the most-local one, the majority of Associations are still servicing local agents, most of whom never attend the meetings, use the services or come to the classes. As it stands, most Associations are still mostly just lucky. And not by much, because the number of agents is dropping across the boards, so the number of dues-paying members is dropping with it.

How do REALTOR Associations get serious about change? Here are Five Focus Areas for them to start.

1. Get Radical. REALTOR Associations can’t just change a little, over time. They need to tear down the house - literally - and rebuild it. No more “renovations.” Most slow-change approaches are because the Association “doesn’t want to upset the staff” who might not have the skills to keep up. Well, either train them or part ways. Your members expect the highest levels of performance from their Associations - that’s what they are paying for - and they just won’t put up with “leaving a voice mail to register for a class” or worse - sitting in a classroom that still has a chalkboard!

2. Lead Your Members. My friend Roger Turcotte is one of the smartest persons I know. He’s not just a trusted advisor with thirty-plus years of experience in this industry. He’s a proven leader in both real estate and military careers. And for years, he has focused on a troubling issue that the industry seriously lacks: Leadership. Roger travels the world helping Associations develop their volunteer and paid leadership - to help them develop their association with a “purpose” in mind, not just a “reaction to the members”.From his lessons, I have come to the conclusion that too many Associations do not lead their members: They follow them. For proof, consider that the “changes” they made last year were already old-news to the productive brokers in their Association - who already use e-newsletters, online class registration and wireless internet to list and sell homes. Too many Associations simply “survey their members and then do what they are being told,” rather than say to their members: Watch this! We have the research (from NAR) and the brainpower (for which we are hired) and we’re going to lead you up and over the next hill! You’re not going to love it all the time, but you’re going to thank us when we get there. So stop coddling your members - especially the whiniest and the loudest and the ones who don’t sell homes so they have plenty of time to sit in committee meetings - and start telling them where you’re going and how they can come along.

3. Get Serious about Education, or Get Out of the Business. Recently, I read a news article which did make me fall off my chair. A REALTOR Association leader was quoted as saying that their members “wouldn’t like online classes” and “preferred” classroom style with a live instructor. Needless to say, they did slip in the “and we’d lose too much cash flow if we put it online” motivation for their “assessment” of their members. Now, our company teaches more than 300 live classroom sessions a year - so we know it works and we love doing it. But we also teach 2000 online seminars annually - with live instructors - and we also know that works, and is increasingly preferred by the attendees over travelling to classrooms and hotels. There is a time and place for both forms of education. And REALTOR Associations need to build deep competence in the online portion, and do it fast, otherwise they’ll be out of the education business altogether. For two reasons: The bigger brokers already offer all the live classroom training an agent needs - and for free (so how’s that for a revenue challenge?) - and the NEXT GENERATION of agents isn’t going to sit in a class NO MATTER WHAT. So it’s demographics and competition, folks. It’s time to get on or move on with your education.

4. Create a Comprehensive Strategic Plan. Associations who have “technology” plans are making the same mistake that many agents and brokers do when it comes to business: They view the “technology” portion as something “separate” from their vital, efficient operations. There is NO SUCH THING as a technology strategic plan. There is a comprehensive strategic plan for your business or Association: and it will include technology as a component that will maximize your strengths and opportunities. It cannot be separate. Technology is as “ordinary” to your strategic plan as your “marketing” or “personnel” components. Associations need to start thinking of them simultaneously - so that the operation of the Association automatically takes into account the possibilities of technology.

5. Stop SWOTting and start saying SO-WhaT! At Matthew Ferrara & Company, we have created the “anti” planning tool. Traditional strategic plans and assessments have focused on the “Strengths, Weaknesses, Oppportunities & Threats” model. Well, we think that’s junk - a total waste of time - because the emphasis always ends up on your weaknesses and threats. Never to SWOT model plans focus enough of your attention on what you CAN do WELL - and TODAY. That’s why we prefer to use our SO-WhaT model, which says: Identify your STRENGTHS and OPPORTUNITIES - and plan EVERYTHING you do around maximizing them, perfecting them, implementing them every day. Sure, we make a list of your weaknesses and threats, but ONLY so that we can quickly find ways to marginalize them, outsource them or just simply stop doing them. The idea is part of a “Strengths” movement that we learned from Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton’s fantastic series. The key book to read is “Now Discover Your Strengths” or visit their website. Until Association stop focusing on all of the things they can’t do well, and start focusing only on the things they can - AND SHOULD - be doing every day, they aren’t going to change. It might even be worse…

I have a lot of confidence that REALTOR Associations can change. I have seen many of them take tremendous steps - leaps, really - over the past two decades. I have watched leaders “fight” their members’ idiosyncrasies and lead them, kicking and screaming most times, to places they didn’t want to go, but are now happy to be. The challenge is simply time. Most of the innovative, leading Associations have implemented their evolutions slowly over time. They started early, so they are in a good place today. Too many Associations, however, sat around, especially during the boom-years, and “serviced” their dues-paying members rather than pushed them forward. And now, possibly, they may be out of time, and money, to become the organization they need to be for the future.

REALTOR Associations face a choice: evolve into something distinct or join the fossil-pile of the extinct. By focusing on these Five Areas of Evolution, they can choose to avoid becoming an Associationasaurus.

Real Estate Tech

Boost your Blackberry with a Powerful RSS Reader

Here’s a cool tool I’ve been playing with for a few weeks. It’s called Viigo and it’s a RSS reader for your Smartphone. I’ve been testing it on my Blackberry Pearl (which still continues to leave my students in awe at the fact that they don’t need to carry around lunch-box sized smartphones unless their cranky old MLS mandates it) and it has worked flawlessly. So it’s time to share the product with all of you.

Oh, yes. And it’s free!

Viigo is an RSS reader. For some of us - even avid blog readers - RSS is still something we do on our “PCs” (oh, and I think even Macs can do PCs? Lou, what do you think? Can they handle them?) Modern websites and blogs can provide a “mostly text and a few graphics” in a “feed” that allows readers to subscribe to their content in a streamlined fashion. This “Really Simple Syndication” of content not only lets computer users pull in many feeds into their browser, and just scan the headlines (sort of like Google News brings in headlines and then lets you jump out to a variety of web news sources), but the RSS format permits something really special to happen: Streamlined access to website content on non-computer devices.

Like your Smartphone.

Even if your Smartphone isn’t really that smart - some basic phones without keyboards can even accept RSS feeds - the key is that the RSS content has been “stripped” down to the bare essentials, so that the simpler screens on wireless devices can display their content effectively. For those of us who remember “Associated Press” reports that used to come in on a pin-printer to the radio station, it’s the same idea: Plain text, just-the-facts data pushed onto plain-screen formats.

The beauty is that, with RSS, you can not only surf site content faster, but you can surf multiple sites faster on your Smartphone if you use a “reader.” RSS Readers are a kind of “bookmark browser” that lets you enter the URL of lots of RSS streams, then just check an “Index” of their headlines. The RSS technology (or the reader, or both) will frequently ask for “updates” of the content from the sites you have subscribed to, without asking you to “refresh” or actually visit the sites. Content is pushed from the sites regularly (or pulled by the reader every time you start it up).

So, that’s the RSS process. Now, let’s talk about Viigo. You can go to their site and download the software - or just install it  “Over the Air” (OTA) by surfing your smartphone to their site. It’s a tiny application and it installs in seconds. Viigo starts you out with some “popular” RSS feed categories or “Channels” as it calls them - such as News headlines, their own blog, a localized automobile and weather traffic feed, etc. Adding your own channels is a piece of cake - just click your menu and Add Channel. Enter the URL and presto!

Viigo has more than 5000 channels to choose from and you can create your own custom feeds from just about any site, too. Some specific channels are just too cool - such as UPS/Fedex/DHL channel which lets you track packages from your Smartphone. (All Graphics from http://www.viigo.com) All channels can have “alerts” setup to monitor new content for any “key words” you might be keeping an eye on. So if you have added a “Wall Street Journal” feed and you want to monitor the words “housing market” or “inflation” that may appear in new stories, Viigo will send you an alert when they next appear in the feed.

But wait! There’s more!

One of the features I use the most is “Send Article to Me” which instantly takes whatever page I’m reading and zaps it to me in an email. There is a “send to a friend” function, too, but I prefer to send it to myself first, then forward it to friends (so I get the relationship- building benefit of adding my signature file - grin!).

Viigo is very customizable. You can set the maximum number of articles it pulls from each feed (or all feeds) which is important if you didn’t get a large memory stick for your smartphone. Plus you can create a schedule for it to update the feeds (or it does it automatically), which can conserve battery power (or minutes, if you didn’t get an unlimited data plan on your smartphone (not so “smart”)).

When reading each posting, you can scan the basic summary, then pull in the full article in “plain text, minimal graphics” format directly into Viigo, or click to see the full website (graphics and all) in your smartphone browser. If you read articles in Viigo, there are integrated buttons to add them to Del.icio.us, Stumble It! and Digg, too, so you can save articles and share them with friends (or the world) in the blog-posting-promoting networks.

In true Boston fashion, Viigo would be considered “wicked cool!” It’s a must have for smartphone users to be connected to web content in a fast, friendly way - especially for managers who can scan headlines and zap them to agents and clients (who can send them on, too). Adding your own site to Viigo makes it easy to send your own stuff to clients by email, who may be checking up using their Smartphones, as well.