I’ve just returned from the 2008 NAR Convention in Orlando, Florida. I got the opportunity to take some instructor-updates and spend time with several instructors. Some of the things I heard, were disconcerting to me. Several of these instructors were ranting about the students bringing laptops and blackberry’s into the classroom. One instructor went as far as to state that he refuses to even allow these devises in the building (while he was on this rant, I was checking e-mail on my blackberry.) While listening to these discussions, I realized that the issue was not the learning experience nor the student; but the bruised ego of the instructor.
Computers in the Classroom
In this era, its more important than ever that student environments are conducive to learning and minimizing the impact on the agent’s business. We’ve been talking about how the industry has been changing so rapidly over the past few years, why is it therefore, a surprise that Agent Education hasn’t evolved as well? Many of the agents have graduated college in the past 10 years or so, and they are accustomed to taking notes on their laptops, checking out the online references you are giving them and generally using technology to help enhance the educational experience.
You have to earn "center-stage"
Each time I hear an instructor’s rhetoric regarding banning computers in the classroom, all I can surmise is that the instructor isn’t more captivating than the learner’s e-mail. It’s not the students responsibility to be engaged, it’s the speaker’s responsibility to engage the student. I’ve recently walked in to a class, following another instructor and found a student who had been reading a romance novel in the back of the classroom. Within a few minutes the leaner had put the book down and was fully involved in the classroom. Now, the student was rude in the first place; she only engaged me because I began with a controversial topic - but I did get her attention. For the rest of the time the student did not engage her novel, she engaged the class.
Today’s Learner
In my school, we installed power outlets in the floor and added free wireless internet. Its been one of the best selling points for classroom study, and the worst side affect is that the students actually go to the resources we discuss, we have immediate access to research answers to questions the instructor may not know; and students are less anxious about what they are missing in their office, when they can quickly check their e-mail in the classroom. Its up to the instructor to utilize the student’s technology needs and bringing the trends of today into the learning experience. Will there be students who are offended that others are brining laptops in the classroom? Sure… However, as an instructor I desire to be the voice of the future - not of the past.
If you can’t keep the student’s attention - its you and not them.
While looking around for new apps for my Blackberry today, I stumbled on Scanlife.com . Scanelife is an application that creates a graphic, that your handheld Treo, Blackberry, phone etc… can "scan" to be sent to a webpage. When you see the graphic, you can take a picture of it and the picture will take your handheld browser to the webpage linked to the icon.
Here’s a video that opens up tons of opportunities for Realtors!
Now, you might be wondering why I would be posting about this on a Real Estate blog? My wheels are completely turning on how this can be used to promote yourself and your properties. Think about a few of the related possibilities?
A link to your blog or facebook account on your primary or company’s webpage.
How about a Scanlife graphic on your For Sale sign, outside of a listing? Imagine a buyer being able to take a digital photo of the sign, and being sent your listing’s webpage right outside the house?
It would also be easy to add this graphic to your listing flyers, in the window of the lsiting, your office or even a brochure cover in the listing.
Those are just a few quick ideas. What ideas can you come up with?
At the VAR Convention in Baltimore this year, I was introduced to Chris Koehler the President of ARE-TEC , a software company that has developed an excellent tool for consumer centric websites. Tonight I was reading Kelly Koehler’s post about what value your listing search should have. It made it really clear that one of the things that made this product so impressive to me, is that a practitioner had an influence over it’s development.
The ARE-TEC tools include graphs and charts for the more analytical clients and easy IDX searches for the folks who are ready to just search for homes. After looking at the product suite, I could see really good options for Realtors to use with their clients.
It really would be worth your time to visit the page and see all the cool tools that they have available!
I love when a celebrity talks about “rich people” as if they weren’t doing ok, themselves. Regardless, this is one of the best descriptions of the Government Bailouts, I’ve heard.
Using Wetpaint.com, I setup a site for everyone in RE.net, that is going to NAR’s 2008 Florida Convention to let us know where you’re going to be. It’d be nice to actually "meet" some of you. I’m going to leave this up as a message board for others to update places to meet and cool things happening in Florida!
Please use one line entries (unless you’re giving details)
We want to know if you’re speaking, sharing in a forum or just hanging out. Have you found something cool to share? Let us know!
www.Qwitter.com - Sends you notifications when someone un-follows you; and what your last twit was before they did so.
www.TwitterGrader.com - Tells you where you stand compared to the other twitter’er accounts
www.TweetStats.com - Shows you your twitter trends, when you’re twittering, who is @’ing you the most etc…
Recently I’ve engaged in a few conversations about when you should unfollow someone on Twitter and what parameters I use to decide if I want to follow back, those who are following me. With Qwitter you can now signup to find out when someone stops following you and what your last twit was, before they unfollowed.
I’ve found great value in my friends on Twitter and highly recommend this tool. However, in some rare occasions I’ve found that I really need to unfollow a Twitter’er because they were simply ruining my experience and frankly I don’t have to tolerate it on Twitter.
So when do I unfollow?
Excessive Vulgarity
General Abuse (example: one twit after another of "decoding a bug", t"transfer of gig-frame quadry cypher geek talk")
Lying about anything
Using twitter to perpetuate cyber-bulling
Generally being inappropriate
Really I’m fairly laid back and in a year’s time, I’ve only unfollowed and blocked three people. I found out later that LOTS of other Twitter’ers did the same to this folks.
Reciprocal Followers
The easy part is who to unfollow. The harder part is knowing who not to follow, in the first place. I get tons of follow requests every day, just as most of you do. Some are pretty easy to decide to not allow to follow, some others will require you to read the past 24 hours of posts, first.
Here are my clues that a Twitter User is not worth following back:
They have one single comment and its a link to their webpage
They haven’t updated in six months
The series of comments are related to some male enhancement drug
Some female is telling how "ready" she is for you to visit her site (for a fee)
Anyone, in general, who’s sole purpose is to sell me something
The follow requester has 2,500 people that they are following and 10 people are following back
So, now that I’ve shared, what clues do you use to ensure that you’re Twitter time is enjoyable?
I am a huge fan of politics, mainly because it makes for some of the funniest SNL skits. There is always a little bit of truth in humor - that’s why I think this is the CNN clip that should have been shown:
