Right now there is a small core group looking at the feasibility of a real estate bar camp in the Atlanta area.  If we can put it together, the event will be held this fall… September or October is the likely time frame.

Here are a couple of posts on Active Rain with more info about #rebcATL (that is the ‘official’ Twitter hashtag for the event).

• Should Atlanta have a reBarCamp?

• A little more about an Atlanta rebarcamp

On the second link there is a webform asking about what you might want for a rebc.  We’d love to get your feedback in order to make a better experience for everyone.  It also give you the opportunity to volunteer…  There will be lots of opportunities for volunteers from now until the event concludes… and then I’m sure planning will need to begin for the 2011 #rebcATL.

We are also putting together a FaceBook Official Page for #rebcATL.

But I’m not happy with the site conversion.  Or maybe it is that I’m not happy with the conversion tracking.  I’m not happy with the engagement.  Or maybe it is that I’m not happy with the engagement I can see.  I know that I’m not happy with the visuals… and some of the widgets/plug-ins/features…

Mostly, what it comes down to is that I’m not happy with my overall strategy. There isn’t one.  At no point did I sit down and make a plan.  It has been patchwork… and it doesn’t seem to match.  That needs to change…

Over the last few months I have managed to build a lot of great pieces.  WordPress, Joomla, Posterous, Tumblr, Flickr, FaceBook, Twitter and other services/sites and networks are all great… individually.  I’m not saying that I like all of the pieces I’ve made… just that the pieces have a lot of performance capability.  In a couple of cases, I may tap some experts on particular platforms.

I’m interested to see where everything will go…  I haven’t made the plan yet.

And that is where the next step comes in…

MindMapping.

En Vogue | Free Your Mind

I’ll be using an open source program called FreeMind to lay out my ideas for website strategy.  I have used it to put together some presentations about various subjects.  It let’s me brainstorm ideas, and then organize them into something more cohesive.  In effect, it is a ‘radial outline’.  We all remember outlining things in school.  Outlining was a great tool for organizing content, but it was very linear.

The MindMap allows that outline to become a hub and spoke.  And then the ideas on the spokes can become new hubs.  This means that it becomes very easy to see which ideas have the most connection to others…  Unlike a linear outline, the MindMap allows ideas to connect to other ideas, rather than just be a subset of one thought.

But there is another step…

Implementation.

3run – Free Your Mind

And it always involves faith.  The faith that it can be done… that I can do it (or find the right source to do it).  The faith that it will work (or that it can be tweaked to work).  Of course, the faith will be subject to measurement (analytics) and modification…  But I will be ready to step into it… into the void of the unknown.

I am in the process of MindMapping my website strategy.  I am also analyzing tools and techniques.  As the strategy emerges, I know that there will be some pain and a learning curve… sometimes it may get pretty steep.

But this is where my business comes from.

from Lane’s Active Rain blog

REtechSouth

After every conference and seminar, there comes the real challenge… implementing all of the VERY cool things I’ve learned, while living in the real world. Setting up client searches, responding to inquiries, dealing with the family, making sure everything that should be on track is on track… they all get in the way of rolling out 3782 changes to my websites and social networks.

I have found that I need to take a little time… and then I need to dive in. Diving in comes next. I have pages of notes, some vendor material and a list of websites and ideas. I have mind-mapping software on my computer… and it needs to get used.

For the last few weeks, I have been unhappy with much of my web presence. I have a great IDX, but I am not getting the most out of it. I have good Page Rank, but I don’t have the level of conversion I feel I should have. My traffic is decent.

And I focused on the sessions at REtechSouth that I thought would help me fix that…

Plenty of sessions to focus on, too…

If you weren’t at REtechSouth, you should have been.

In addition to the incredible information that was presented, the connections that were made and the fun on the exhibit hall floor… there was also the opportunity to hang out with my friends. There are a lot of folks I have been lucky enough to meet from all over the country. And there were some that I was able to meet (in person) for the first time.

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• Where do we go from here? (lanebailey.info)

If you haven’t been in Gmail lately, you might not have noticed Google‘s new toy tool.  It is called Google Buzz.  In a nutshell, Google is integrating a social media component into Gmail.

In Buzz, users can strike up public or private conversations with integrated video, photos and links.  Kind of like the Status Updates on FaceBook.  In that regard, it is a step above Twitter… the king of the micro-blog/status update world.  Twitter doesn’t allow inline photos and videos, so when users share them, viewers have to leave Twitter to view the associated content.

I haven’t had a lot of time to play in it, but it seems kind of like “Google Wave Lite” to me…  Google Wave has many of the same types of features… of course it adds a LOT more integration with a wider variety of tools… and isn’t tuned to automatically pull in content as sites like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube are updated.

OK, they are very different, but I see the same type of collaboration available with Buzz as there is with Wave.

But there is a big picture here…

The big picture is that you NEED a Gmail account.  Google Buzz, Google Wave, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Voice…  Are you getting the big picture?  There is WAY more than that, but those are a good start.

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But it isn’t the only platform.  In fact, before there was Posterous, there was Tumblr.  And they are very similar.  Similar enough that many think that Posterous took direct aim at Tumblr when they introduced their platform.

There are some things that Posterous has done VERY well… to start with, the emial post capability of Posterous is amazing.  I’m not going to run over all of the options… it is another post… but let’s just say that you can upate any combination of Flickr, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, your own blog and/or Posterous with one email.  In fact, I would say that Posterous is one of the best syndication tools available.  With just a couple of clicks from your mobile phone, you can syndicate content all over the web…

Tumblr has moved the other direction.  It is a great aggregation tool.  You can pull in content from 5 or more sources to one place.  That is a very nice option.  It is one of the best aggregators available.  But there is something else that Tumblr does better than Posterous (although there is erosion there).  That comes down to “the look”.  Tumblr has great theme options.  Posterous has made their platform (kind of) compatible with the Tumblr themes, but they aren’t quite there yet…  yet.

The bottom line is that both platforms are pretty cool.  They both do much the same thing, but they do it differently and with different strengths and weaknesses.

Are you planning on hitting REtechSouth in Atlanta?  As usual, I have a discount code for tickets.  Brad Nix gave me the hook-up to deliver a 10% discount (affiliate link… that is where the discount comes from) on all ticket levels.  Here is how it breaks down:

• All Star Admission $134.10 + $3.35 EventBrite fee.  This is normally a $149 ticket.  It includes event access on both Thursday, Mar. 25th and Friday, Mar. 26th.  It will get you in to all of the learning sessions…  You can see folks like Jeff Turner, Amy Chorew, Brad Carroll, Ilyse Glink and Heather Elias… and WAY more.
• MVP Admission $179.10 + $4.48 EventBrite fee.  This is normally a $199 ticket.  This includes everything in the All Star package, as well as special seating, access to the MVP/Speaker’s Dinner on Thursday evening and access to the MVP Lounge.  Those that went to New Media Atlanta had a blast in the Rock Star Lounge hanging out with the speakers.
• 10 All Star Ticket bundle $891 + $9.95 EventBrite fee.  Yep, you get a discount on the discount.  This is 10 $149 tickets for just $89.10/each.  The bundle normally sells for $990.  Grab some folks from the office and get a discount.
• 25 All Star Ticket bundle $1687.50 + $9.95 EventBrite fee.  That brings the price down to just $67.50/each.  Brokers, bring the WHOLE office. Ramp up production with technology and social media marketing in the new year.

I will be there!  I can’t wait.  Brad has built REtechSouth into THE event in the Southeast for real estate technology and social media marketing.  In just a couple of years, this event has become one of the premier conferences to attend, regardless of where you live and work.  Atlanta is an amazing place in the Spring.

Last year I had the opportunity to attend the speaker’s dinner.  I HIGHLY recommend the MVP Admission for that reason.  Imagine yourself standing in on a conversation with Jeff Turner and the Notorious R.O.B.  At the previous REtechSouth I was able to spend some quality time talking with Pat Kitano and Tom Royce.  The luminaries of the re.net will be there…

Don’t forget, these tickets will likely sell out, especially the MVP tickets.  they are limited by the size of the dinner venue.  Don’t miss out.  Here is the link again to get the discount.

Catch #retso on FaceBook, too.

from Lane’s Active Rain blog

1 : a group, body, or mass composed of many distinct parts or individuals
2 a : the collecting of units or parts into a mass or whole b : the condition of being so collected

source

Aggregation is one part of a social networking and social media strategy. Simply put, in order to keep up with the rush of information, we need to collect, classify and filter it.  This allows us to spend the most time on the most important information, and skip the rest.

With Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr and a zillion other networks, aggregating feeds can be quite challenging.  There are some tools that can help, though.

To start with, within some of the applications there are ways to bring in other info…  Through tools like FriendFeed and Ping.fm we can get a lot of our monitored feeds into just a few places.  I think that FriendFeed might be the best of these tools. Plaxo is also an excellent way to stay on top of multiple networks.

Specifically with Twitter, tools like TweetVisor and TweetDeck are great for keeping up with large numbers of followees (the people we follow) so that we can interact with them.  TweetDeck, for example, can allow us to run various streams at the same time with different groups or hashtags (like #activerain).

Finally, there is another tools that can be used to aggregate more feeds than any of the others I have run across so far.  It is also more effective as a filter, allowing the user to determine how much they want to see, although it doesn’t filter based on actual content… it filters based on the user’s input.  It is called Gist.

Keep in mind…

Any of these tools would be worthy of a write-up longer than this whole post.  To find out more, it would be advisable to check out their sites and see what they are about.

Feel free to share YOUR experiences in the comments.  Your fellow Readers would love to see opinions other than mine…

from Lane’s AR blog

Back Noise: baak_noiz,  1. Useful tool to gauge reactions to speakers or other aspects of an event, allowing event participants to freely exchange information with each other during the event. 2. A cross between twitter and a convention of hecklers, often snarking just to snark.

Please note, it is often rude, and the language might make a sailor blush.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a useful tool.  It just needs to be understood for what it is…  And I probably saw it differently than most of the people that were watching it at New Media Atlanta.  Most of the viewers were the hecklers event-goers.  A much smaller group were the targets actual presenters.  Since I spent much of the day in the Rockstar Lounge… where the speakers gathered… I was able to listen to the speakers conversing as they read the BackNoise (I just checked and the conversation has expired… so I can’t link to it).

Some were a bit nervous about what would be said.  Others ignored it.  Yet more watched it unfold ravenously.  Chris Brogan put it up on the screen behind him and occasionally addressed the noise during his presentation.  I would say that Chris did two very important things by embracing it and publicizing it…

• He was obviously confident that his presentation would go well… allowing the detractors to share the stage.  It kind of removes the power from the snarking.  It also helped establish Chris as a real “Trust Agent” because of his transparency.
• It was live feedback…  It was the first time he had seen this back channel in operation, and he was able to use it on the fly to adjust his presentation…

So, it gave the event participants the power to change the flavor of the presentations in front of them.  Like a comedian on stage, there was instant feedback.  A presenter that chose to accept the feedback could use it to make their presentation better… keeping the snarkiness in perspective.

There is one other thing…  The snarkiness came largely from anonymous posters.  They could jab without revealing who they were…  Many participants did share their identities, but the most virulent didn’t.  One can make two arguments…

1. If anonymous posting were removed, the conversation would certainly be friendlier.
2. If anonymous posting were removed, the conversation would be less honest.

I actually agree with both of these statements.  But… I come down on the side of the second camp.  The conversation is often rude and crude, but there is raw honesty.  By removing the anonimity, people would tend to be more polite rather than more honest.  While it would get rid of the comments about a speakers clothing choices for the day (which really don’t matter) it would also lose some of the real criticism of the event or the presenter.

Snark has a place…

Could you imagine a politician having a back channel during a speech?  I think THAT would be the hallmark of a politician that was truly transparent.  If they made a false statement, the back channel would publicize it immediately…  Fun thought…

He ran through several genres of topics, and even addressed the “Back Noise” channel… by putting it on the screen for all to see.  (Be aware, there is a bit of profanity, and while Chris didn’t “drop the F-bomb”, PLENTY of people on Back Noise dropped it all over the place)