The First Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference was held today in sunny Mesa, Arizona (very sunny — it was 112 outside and not much less than that inside), with 25ish (I should have counted!) in attendance. I had the pleasure of speaking about aspects on the "business side" of blogging, and Greg Swann (pictured left) told us all about the shiny new RealEstateWeblogging101.com as well as many other aspects of blogging in the RE.net.
In attendance we had agents, stagers, lenders, marketing guys, and title reps. We had a nice contingent of Active Rainers as well as some of the best of Phoenix real estate bloggers. It was a veritable smörgåsbord of real estate professionals!
Attendees, watch now how I gently and delicately squeeze in this set of good local keywords…
The location of the conference was in the midst of the sprawling Dobson Ranch master planned community in Mesa, Arizona. The Ranch House Restaurant, which sits right next to the Pro shop for the Dobson Ranch Golf Course was gracious enough to host. (note to The Ranch House — get a/c serviced).
I appreciated the attentiveness of the audience, and all of the *great* questions. Hopefully everyone there gleaned a few nuggets of wisdom.
Not only did I fail to count the attendees, I wasn't very good with the camera either — neglecting to take any crowd shots. I'm such a numbskull sometimes.
In homage to my former life in semiconductor engineering, I made a PowerPoint presentation for my talk and as promised, here it is, for what it's worth. (big PowerPoint file. Should have optimized screen shots…)
Greg and Cathleen will have some video and/or audio up at Bloodhound in the next day or so. The video likely suffers from a great deal of back lighting due to the previously mentioned brutal first day of summer sun.
I'd like to thank the conference sponsors — The AZ Mortgage Guru Shailesh and his lovely bride Aimee Ghimire of CTX Mortgage, and Greg Heineman and Tara King of Commerce Title.
Two of our sponsors, Aimee (foreground) and Tara (background):
Socializing and "beverages" after the presentations.
Left to right: Back of Barbara Lasky's head, Dave Smith's knee and Hawaiian shirt (Dave and Barb came up from Tucson!), back of Francy Thompson's head, half of Doreen McPherson's face, Christoph "All you have is Budweiser?!" Schweiger, Shailesh Ghimire, I can't recall his name but he was a really nice guy, Steven Groves, half of sponsor Greg Heineman's face, Jonathan "Sure, I'll have another if someone else is buying" Dalton.
Here is a nice crowd shot, supplied by Cathleen Collins. Thanks Cathy!!
Others Opine: Calie Waterhouse, Greg Swann, Jonathan Dalton, Shailesh Ghimire, Steven Groves, Christoph Schweiger
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Sounds like everyone had fun. Wish I could ahve been there. Is there anything planned for the future for another get together?
Stayed up late last night reading Real Estate Web Blogging 101. Well throught out, very informative, and must reading.
Nothing *planned* yet Doug, but it will definitely happen. Rumors and thoughts of doing something quarterly..
Others have reported similar late night experiences with RE Weblogging 101.
It was awesome to see you and Greg sharing with those in the room and I was able to meet some of the other local lumiaries in the Phoenix blogging scene.
Great job Jay and I look forward to the next adventure…
Has your arm recovered from having it twisted to take a second drink, Jay? Could have sworn I wasn’t alone …
After watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L38wthA4Ld0 I got a little worried about the possible side effects drinking the “King of Beers”.
There must be something in it? This is why I am rather partial to German brewsky: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
It was truly a pleasure having finally met you, Francy and all the other guys ang gals.
Oh by the way, the really nice guy is Greg Gotcher.
Let’s do this again!!!
Jay,
I’m sorry I missed it but at 3:00 I was at Tara King’s office picking up a commission check (small world) and then to Sky Harbor to pick up my son after 5 weeks in China.
Next time.
That’s OK John, we talked about you….
Seriously. Most of it was good
5 weeks in China? I spent a week there. Fascinating place. What was he doing there for five weeks?
It was a trip sponsored by the ASU Honors College. He’s studying bio-engineering and just finished Freshman year. I think he gets 6 hours of college credit after completing 2 15-page papers.
I’ve never been to Asia but he really enjoyed it. I can’t wait to here all the stories!