Two cool events are coming up in October, and I’m excited to be speaking at both of them.

Real Estate Blog World is being held in conjunction with the Blog World and New Media Expo 2009 in Las Vegas on Oct 15 – 17 (RE Blog World is the 15th).

There is a great lineup for RE Blog World and the schedule for Blog World is jam packed.

There are package deals available, and discounts end September 14, so hurry!

On October 17 (yes, I’ll have to cut out of Blog World the night of the 16th) the Phoenix Business and Professional Women’s Foundation is holding a “Dive into Social Media Symposium”.

The event is from 7:30am to 12:30pm at the Embassy Suites on the SE corner of 44th St and McDowell. Registration is $39, $29 if paid by Sept 19th.

Hope to see some of you at these events!

Lately I’ve been teaching some real estate continuing education courses on blogging and social media. It’s always interesting to me to talk to people whose experience in social media ranges from the complete novice to the grizzled veteran.

At the end of these courses, someone always asks, “What’s the point? I mean, what is the value of spending all this time on social media? Does it really help your business?”

I use social media to meet people. Meet as in real life, face-to-face meet. Not just meet across the keyboard. I don’t do it for “leads”. I do it to meet people, to grow, learn and share. And I’ll freely admit, I do it for fun. Yes, it has led to business which is a wonderful ancillary effect, but that is not my primary purpose in engaging in social media

Every Friday night, a “meetup” happens somewhere in the Phoenix East Valley. For that matter, there are meetup’s happening all across the Phoenix metro area on  Friday nights (and Thursday mornings. And for lunch. And on Sundays. And….)

Last night “EVFN” (East Valley Friday Nights) took place in Scottsdale at Geisha A Go Go. Now I’m not really much of a “Scottsdale Scene” kind of guy, but like every other EVFN, this one was a great gathering of an eclectic mix of people. Heck, even Jimi Hendrix was there in spirit…

Lots of old friends stopped by and like almost every other social media gathering, lots of new friends where there to meet.

There is something decidedly odd about meeting someone face-to-face for the first time that you’ve engaged with previously on-line. There are really no “awkward pauses” there’s no “what the hell do I say to this person?” feeling. You already know at least something about them, and meeting them “IRL” (In Real Life) is almost without fail a grand experience.

Last night I met Beverly Kidd “IRL” for the first time. We’ve interacted on Twitter and Facebook. Beverly is the Phoenix Channel 3 Evening News anchor and I have to say I was momentarily star-struck when I first met her. But literally within seconds, I found out Beverly was just another one of the regular folks out to interact and meet with people. She’s just how she seems to be on Twitter – genuine, funny and just an all-around nice person. Heck, she’s even nicer in person that she is on-line, and that’s saying a lot.

This is why you participate in social media folks. Not to generate “leads”, not to convince people you’re the greatest real estate agent on the planet. Not even to meet local celebrities.

You “do” social media to meet new people, and hang out with old friends. To interact with them. To engage with them. You do it (to use an overworked cliché) to expand your horizons. 

Does social media really help your business? Maybe. Probably. But there is no question it can help your life.

And isn’t that just a wee bit more important?

Want to participate in one of the myriad meetup events happening in and around Phoenix? Check these sites out:

Phoenix Friday Night – aggregator site for the East Valley, West Valley, North Valley, Downtown and Light Rail Friday Nights events.

East Valley Tuesday (or Thursday) Morning Tweetup. Mmmmm, Liberty Market breakfast…

Search Twitter for #EVFN, #PFN, #WVFN, #NVFN or #EVTM

You can also check Meetup.com, Upcoming and Yelp for other local meetups and events.

None of these float your boat? Start one!

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I’ve been meaning to post this video for a couple of weeks now. About a half-bazillion people have already posted it, but in case you haven’t seen it yet it’s worth 4 minutes of your time.

I’m teaching real estate continuing education classes now in “social media” and invariably I get input like, “is this stuff really all that important?”, and “what if it’s a passing fad?”

Social media isn’t anything new. Oh to be sure the tools have changed, and will continue to change – at a blinding pace I suspect. But lets face it, human beings are social animals. Always have been, always will be.

The first time I saw this video I swear the site at the very end with a link to statistic sources wasn’t there. Maybe I missed it. Here is a post by the author listing sources. I haven’t cross-checked or looked into any of them in depth, but I suspect like any statistic, some interpretation is involved. Whether or not this is 100% fail-safe accurate isn’t really the point. Watch it, and if you’re even remotely interested in business, marketing, entrepreneurship or human interaction, I bet it will make you think…

Whoopsie, somehow I lost the bottom part of this post when I first published it!

You (or your business) don’t necessarily need to “do” social media. You don’t have to Tweet, blog, Facebook or get all LinkedIn. Doing so isn’t going to lead to instant fame and wealth. It’s not for everyone. But you darn well better at least understand social media. There are too many stories of companies imploding their reputation because they don’t “get” social media. This isn’t a fad folks. It’s not going away. My suggestion is either learn it, or get out of the way…

Others Opine:
Here’s a new (to me) local Phoenix blog by Rebecca Armendariz who attended today’s Social Media AZ Conference (that sadly I had to miss). She writes, Dear Social Media, I’m totally tired of talking about you. Read it.

Welcome to the 154th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate (and apologies for the delay).

This is the fourth time we’ve hosted the “CoRE” – previous versions were #33, #37 and #93. All had catchy themes, at least in my mind.

I struggled with a theme for this week’s Carnival. There was just nothing there, nothing that was until Sunday afternoon when I watched a practically unknown golfer named Y.E. Yang win the PGA Championship, besting some guy named Tiger Woods. Yeah, that Tiger Woods who had never surrendered a 54 hole lead in a major until yesterday.

Before the broadcast was over, announcers were asking if this was the greatest upset in sports history. 

Now it was quite the story, but greatest upset ever in sports history? I don’t think so.

So here’s my take on the three greatest upsets in sports history, which I will attempt to very loosely tie into my top three picks for this weeks edition of the Carnival of Real Estate.

#3 – The Buster Douglas Award

In February 1990, Mike Tyson was on top of the boxing world. Undefeated, he routinely demolished his opponents. Then along comes Buster Douglas. A 42 to 1 underdog, he put Tyson on the canvas for the first time ever.

While it’s not entirely fair to call these two entries underdogs, they were for me, much like Buster Douglas was for many, complete unknowns.

Since I can’t make a decision, well call the #3 spot in the Carnival a draw and give the Buster Douglas award to David at MoneyNing for his post, Rental Property vs REIT. It’s a nice discussion of the pros and cons of investing in rental properties vs. Real Estate Investment Trusts. He draws with Ray (what’s with the first name only folks?) at Money Blue Book who penned the tome, What is a Good Credit Score? Nothing earth shattering here, but it’s a good primer on the in’s and out’s of the FICO score.

#2 – The Rulon Gardner Award

In the 2000 Summer Olympics, unheralded Greco-Roman wrestler Rulon Gardner faced Russian behemoth Alexander Karelin in the gold medal match. Karelin was a three-time gold medalist, a nine-time world champ and was undefeated in 13 years of international competition. He had not given up a single point in six years. Gardner’s successes up to that point amounted to a junior college championship and 4th place in the NCAAs.

Well, so much for credentials. In one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history, Gardner defeated Karelin 1-0 to bring home the gold.

While it certainly can’t be called an upset whenever Jonathan Dalton writes anything, JD is the winner of our Rulon Gardner Award. His post, What Halley’s Comet May Portend for Phoenix Real Estate, while it contains some Phoenix specific info, is for me, more of a solid piece of advice. Chiefly that it’s not wise to let expectations trump fact (or maybe even common sense). It’s a good read, but honestly I was hoping Jonathan would submit an earlier piece, Welcome to the Real Estate 1.5 Revolution. I thought that one was masterful.

#1 – The Miracle on Ice

Ask any sports fan to name the top 5 all time upsets and you’ll get a myriad assortment of answers. But I’ll betcha that the 1980 “Miracle on Ice”, where a bunch of 20 year old college kids beat a world dominating team of Soviet Union pros, will be WAY up everyone’s list. I’ll never forget watching that game. Heck, makes me misty-eyed just thinking about it.

Now Dan Melson doesn’t exactly make me misty-eyed, but the man does have a winning way. His post on Searchlight Crusade, Two Things Sellers Need To Understand About Buyers, should be required reading for all home sellers. Dan writes longer posts than I do, but he is consistently on top of his game. SC is a regular stop for me.

On the CoRE, and Trivia!

So there you have it folks. There were 17 submissions this week. One was so full of ads it was basically unreadable. There were two very good posts from a group blog, but the CoRE rules clearly state that only one submission per blog address is allowed. The remainder were all quite well done. There were a lot of local, consumer targeted posts, which I think is great. I encourage everyone who submitted a post this week to keep on submitting — “winning” is really quite subjective and a matter of the hosts tastes and mood. And if you aren’t submitting posts to the Carnival of Real Estate, why not? You can get more info here.

And finally, have you ever wondered how the word “upset” came to be used for an improbable outcome in a competition?

Sure you have.

In 1919 and 1920, there was a legendary thoroughbred horse named Man o’ War who was considered by many to be one of the greatest racehorses of all time. Man o’ War raced 21 times, and only lost once – to a 100 to 1 long shot horse named Upset.

I like to try new stuff and gizmos. It’s just the way I am. So over the past couple of days, a few new blog experiments have been launched. As always, no promises that they’ll be permanently ensconced here.  

First up, the Wibiya toolbar. Take note at the bottom of the screen:

This toolbar is the last thing to load, give it a couple of seconds if it’s not displaying. Also, it doesn’t work if you are using Internet Explorer 6. If you’re using IE6, you’re now two versions behind and either need to upgrade, or ditch IE altogether and get a better browser like Firefox or Chrome.

This is kind of a nifty thing. It’s got an area to search (either the blog or Google), recent posts window, a random button that will pull up a random post from the archives, a photo button (pulls from a Flickr photo set), RSS feed button, sharing sites, access to the TPREG Facebook Fan Page, a Facebook Community page (please join!), Facebook Connect implementation and even a Twitter client (that I can’t get to send Tweets. Yet.).

I could, if I were so inclined, also put up “notifier” messages to all visitors as well as send messages to the Facebook Community.

If the tool bar annoys you, you can minimize it by clicking the down arrow on the right of the tool bar.

Wibiya provides some usage statistics:
 

What’s the point? Theoretically this helps increase page views, time on site, etc. Who knows if that’s really the case, time will tell. I look at it as more of a service to the readers here. The search seems to work quite well. The post navigation page could prove useful for some. “Community building” is all the buzz now, and the Wibiya system may just facilitate that.

Local Market Explorer

Speaking of community, a new Wordpress plugin, Local Market Explorer (LME), was released this week that “mashes up” real estate and community info from Zillow, Education.com, Flickr, Walk Score and Yelp.

You can see a sample page here.

I’ve set up pages for several Phoenix area communities, which you can see on this page (the Local Market info pages are accessed via the “real estate info” links).

Of note: I disabled the option to display Flickr photos. I’m not too keen on random photos I have no control of being shown on the blog. Who knows what might pop up. I’d like to see an option to only display photos from Flickr sets I designate.

Also, the plugin requires a minor edit to work with the Thesis theme used here and on many other real estate blogs.

Here’s what has to be done to get LME to work in Thesis:

1) Open the plugin file lme-client.php in a text editor (NOT Microsoft Word)
2) Find this line (Line #36): include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/page.php’);
3) Replace it with this: include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/custom_template.php’);
4) save and upload the edited file to the LME plugin folder on your server

I’ve also noticed the plugin conflicts with plugins and widgets related to recent posts. If you have a recent posts plugins (or the Thesis Killer Recent Entries widget) installed, you’ll see an error in your sidebar (or where ever you have these plugins out-putting information).

This plugin dynamically generates some pretty useful information. It’s not going to help you in search engines, but if you run a real estate blog, you ought to be posting material for your readers, not Google. I’m pretty certain some will label it a Zillow link love fest. But I’m liking the compilation of a lot of city specific information all on one page. I’d like to see the ability to get even more specific – down to the zip code level or even subdivision level. Perhaps this will be available in a future release.

As always, thoughts – good, bad or indifferent – are welcome!

Our humble abode here on the Internet was named several weeks ago as a finalist for the Inman News Most Innovative Blog Award for 2009.

Yesterday on the last day of the the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference I was surprised and honored to be selected as the winner.

The other finalists are all great blogs, and more importantly, there are amazing people behind them. I’m proud to be able to say I’ve met them all and consider them friends. Without fail, they are some of the best minds in real estate, and are all decent, genuine people.

The other finalists were:

IanWatt.ca – Ian Watt’s video blog
MyTechOpinion.com – Reggie & Nicole Nicolay’s blog
Trust Me I’m a Realtor – Frank LLosa’s blog (And congrats to Frank for winning Inman’s “Innovator of the Year” award!!)
Clean Slate Blog – Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate blog

Now I know for a fact there are those out there that think this award is silly and meaningless, that there is no “innovation” happening on this blog (or any of the other finalists for that matter). One has written as much and two mentioned it to me after the announcement. I’ve said myself that “influential” might be a better word for this blog than “innovative”. But to be brutally honest, I don’t really care what those people think. I’m proud of winning this award. The cheers from the crowd when it was announced was an amazing thing to me, and I’ll never forget that experience.

Here’s a list of all the 2009 Inman Innovator Award winners:

Innovator of the Year: Frank Borges LLosa
Most Innovative Brokerage or Franchise: Nest Realty Group
Most Innovative Technology: Closing.com
Most Innovative Web Service: Ubertor
Most Innovative Blog: The Phoenix Real Estate Guy
Most Innovative Media Site: Breaking News Network (Domus Consulting Group)

I could not have won this award without the support of my readers, and all the other real estate bloggers out there who are so generous with their time and are so smart. To my too many to mention friends in and out of the real estate space, thanks for your support, you all mean a lot to me. For the clients we have that found us here first, thank you all for putting your faith in us. You are why I do this. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank the real driving force behind Phoenix Real Estate Guy – my wonderful wife Francy. She puts up with a lot, is my sounding board and reels me in when I get out of line. Simply put, she rocks my world.

After spending a week at not one, not two, but three conferences in San Francisco last week, here I sit at “Laid Off Camp” Phoenix.

No, I didn’t just get laid off from being a real estate broker. One of the beauties of owning my own business is the only person that can fire me is my wife. I’ve come close a couple of times…

I have however, been officially laid off from Corporate America, and as my good friend Vicki Moore once said, “I’m a real estate agent. Every day I wake up unemployed”.

But Laid Off Camp isn’t just about being laid off. It’s about small business entrepreneurship, and it’s about networking, and it’s about learning, and it’s about sharing, and it’s about… a lot of cool stuff.

So here I am in Day 6 of “conferencing”. 20 minutes into it, I’ve already met new people and learned new things.

It’s going to be a good day!

Just for fun, and as a way to explore the very cool Posterous publishing platform, I decided to set up a mobile photo blog at PhxPics.com.

It’ll be pretty thrilling stuff folks. PhxPics will be nothing but photos taken with my mobile phone. Most photos will, naturally, be of people, places and things in and about Phoenix. For this week however, you’ll see stuff from San Francisco and the Real Estate Bar Camp and Inman Real Estate Connect Conference. (We will however, abide by the no photos after 10:00pm policy).

Posterous makes it ridiculously simple to feed photos (and text. And video.) to a Wordpress blog (and elsewhere). Just snap a photo on the phone and email it to Posterous. It’s really a pretty freaking amazing publishing tool.

PhxPics.com – just what I need, another place to hang out on the web. . .

If you were paying any attention to “social media” yesterday, then you heard about a real estate property management company in Chicago by the name of Horizon Realty Group.

Yesterday morning I wrote an article about Horizon filing a $50,000 libel suit against Amanda Bonnen, a Twitter user with 20 followers that sent out a Tweet in May. The end of that piece said, “Just watch. The carnage is going to be ugly.”

And ugly it was. A company spokesman saying, “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” tends to get people talking.

Within a few hours, Horizon Realty became a “trending topic” on Twitter. For those not familiar, that means that Horizon was one of the most talked about topics on Twitter, a service that has millions of users.

You can see the 1,500 most current Tweets about Horizon Realty here.

“Big deal,” you may be thinking. “So a bunch of nerds on Twitter let some company have it. Who cares?”

Horizon Realty should care. Anyone concerned with their companies reputation should care.

However, unless you’re Michael Jackson, and you’re dead, trending topics on Twitter tend to be short lived. Horizon has already fallen off the top trending topic list. In a few days, no one will be talking about them on Twitter.

But the reach of social media goes beyond Twitter.

Let’s take a peek at what else has happened with Horizon Realty in the last 24 hours.

Google “Horizon Realty Chicago” or “Horizon Realty” or any of several variations and you’ll see their (nice) website sitting in the number one position. And you’ll also see 4 to 7 other first page results that refer to Horizon’s propensity to sue first, ask questions later. If you are looking for a property management company – looking to be their client – this may just sway you to look elsewhere.

Go to Yelp, a community-based site where people leave reviews. Yesterday, on the review page for Horizon there were three reviews. Not exactly glowing, there were only three. Today there are 21 reviews, and Horizon is solidly a one star affair.

Google Blog search now shows there are 3,814 blog posts indexed about Horizon Realty. 477 about Amanda Bonnen, and 1,410 pages are indexed that contain the term “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” (up from 56 at the time I wrote my article yesterday).

Horizon Realty now not only has a mention in Wikipedia on the Streisand Effect, they’ve got their own page on Wikipedia.

Twitter comments may be fleeting. Google never forgets.

To be fair, Jeffrey Michael, a Horizon spokesman / co-owner (and now the proud owner of 2,870 mentions on blogs) issued a press release where he said the “sue first” remark was a “tongue in cheek” comment that was “not in line with our philosophy towards property management and was taken out of context”.

That’s too little too late Mr. Michael. And let’s not blame your incredible PR gaffe on someone in the media taking a “tongue in cheek” comment out of context. You blew it, plain and simple. Your one page press release issued after the shit storm had already blown up – a press release that really tends to blame the Twitter user – was largely ineffective in stemming the groundswell of negative press your company is receiving.

It wasn’t the original Tweet that damaged Horizon’s reputation. That was seen by a couple of dozen people, tops. And while many feel a lawsuit for a single Tweet is ludicrous, that wasn’t the main factor in tens of thousands of negative comments being made about Horizon. It was the asinine “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” statement, and the glaring lack of timely follow up and sincere apology that crushed Horizon’s reputation.

Here’s an idea. Short of hiring a social media reputation expert (for which if there ever was a need, this is it) why aren’t you reaching out in the social media space to try to fix this? Obviously you can’t respond to every comment. But you could respond via Twitter, via blog comments, via a prominent, sincere, non-finger pointing at the other guys statement on your own web page (the press release is nowhere to be found if you go to horizonrealtygroup.com).

Go ahead, stick your head in the sand. Blame everyone else. Hope the Twitter stream dies down (it will, although there have been 87 new Tweets about Horizon in the 30 minutes it took to write this). But again, Google never forgets. And if you are a business – especially a service-based business – and you think people won’t use Google to check you out, think again.

Others Opine:

CopyBlogger – What the Horizon Realty Fail Can Teach You About Social Media

Photo Credit: fireflythegreat on Flickr. Creative Commons License.

From deep in the “how to royally screw up your reputation via social media” files comes this gem.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday that Horizon Group Management LLC, an apartment leasing and management company, has filed a libel suit against former tenant Amanda Bonnen.

Apparently Ms. Bonnen sent out a Tweet on May 12 that read in part:

Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.

Horizon Realty Group didn’t like that, and has filed suit.

Here’s the real kicker in this whole thing

Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for more than 25 years had this to say:

"The statements are obviously false, and it’s our intention to prove that."

He said that while she moved out recently, the company never had a conversation about the post and never asked her to take it down.

"We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”

My emphasis in bold.

That bears repeating… Horizon Realty Group goes on the record in the mainstream media as a “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of organization”.

Un-freaking believable!

They are seeking $50,000 in damages.

Well Horizon Realty Group, you just did far more damage to your reputation than Ms. Bonnen could have dreamed of.

CBS2 in Chicago reports that the suit contains language that because Bonnen’s Twitter account was set to public, “everyone following on Twitter can view the defamatory statement”.

Well yeah, if they happened to be viewing the public Twitter stream at the moment the Tweet was sent. Ever watched the public Twitter stream? Things fly by in nano-seconds, only to be lost in a sea of a bazillion hourly Tweets. In reality, the only people that had a real chance of seeing this Tweet would have been. Ms. Bonnen’s followers.

Podcasting News reports that Ms. Bonnen had all of 22 followers in her now inactive Twitter account.

So at best, 22 people saw the Tweet that Horizon Group Management claims, “greatly injured its reputation as a landlord in Chicago”.

And how many are seeing now that Horizon is a “sue first, ask questions later kind of organization”??? Hundreds of thousands, easily. (Could, literally, be millions. This is now a “trending topic” on Twitter.)

What we have here is an epic fail on the part of Horizon. By their own admission, they never had a conversation with the complainant, they never asked her to delete the Tweet. Apparently they did nothing to mitigate this problem other than file a libel suit that is now being discussed across the Internet.

Fifty grand?

You just cost yourself a LOT more than fifty thousand Horizon. If you think Amanda Bonnen hosed your reputation with a Tweet seen by a couple of dozen people at best, then you haven’t seen anything yet. Your “sue first ask questions later” mentality may soon be in business school case studies about how to completely and utterly blow it when it comes to new media /social media PR.

Just watch. The carnage is going to be ugly.

Update: One hour after posting this, the count on a Google blog search for “Amanda Bonnen” has gone from 74 to 112 results. A Google search on “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” has gone from 56 to 146 results. Posts, including this one, are already on page 1 of Google for search terms related to Horizon Realty Group, Horizon Group management, etc.

Update 2: And now the mainstream media heavyweights are weighing in… Wall St Journal here and here, USA Today.

Here is the actual Tweet that started this whole thing:

Here is the actual law suit filing (via Chicago Now).

Update 3: Horizon Realty has issued a press release in response to the, uhm, let’s say “overwhelming” response to their lawsuit. From Jeff Michael, of the now infamous “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” quote.

Others opine:

The Consumerist
Mashable
Chicago Tribune Blog
The Inquisitr
Chicago Now

A Google Blog Search for “Amanda Bonnen” yields 74 results. And counting…

A Google search of “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” yields 56 results. And counting…

Hat tip: @evo_terra

Photo Credit: Damien Basile on Flickr. Creative Commons License.