Real Estate Connect San Francisco July 2010
Recently I attended Inman News’ Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco. The event put together the best minds in real estate – new and old companies, start ups and innovators – for three days of collaborating, networking and planning for a new future in the real estate industry.
I have been to many real estate conferences and I have to say that this was the best one that I have been to (or at least the most interesting). I highly recommend it to any realtor that wants to keep current with technology trends and improvements in our industry.
I came away from Inman inspired to innovate myself. I met others in new technologies that will help me explore new business practices which will ultimately serve to improve my clients’ experiences both online and in person. I also met other techie realtors that were more like me.
Some of the featured speakers included Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Alexis Ohanian founder of Reddit.com, Robert Scoble, Bradley Inman founder of Inman News and Kara Swisher technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Representatives from Microsoft and Google were also there to showcase some of their new products. Inasmuch as I’m not a champion of those tech giants, I must say that I was impressed by the innovations that they showed off including Microsoft Pivot, Sea Dragon and Photosynth. Google claimed not to have aspirations for getting into the real estate business, however, their actions seem to indicate otherwise. Some in the audience were a bit fearful of the the power Google would yield if they were able to aggregate data and make a uniformed/ nationwide/ worldwide(?) MLS system while others welcomed that possibility.
It was an extensive conference with workshops and breakout sessions for Realtors, brokers and techies. Coming from a small market like Vermont it was a great opportunity to see what others are doing who are employing technologies to improve their business models, ROI and customer satisfaction. As one successful Realtor from Los Angeles California told me, “If you aren’t a well endowed blond your not selling real estate in L.A. Unless, however, you are embracing these new technologies”.
I’m looking forward to pushing my business in new directions. Hopefully, these new tools will help me to connect with and serve more clients in new and exciting ways.
-Dan Cypress
