Connect with communities to build your brand

I learned today that I've been listed as one of Roost’s 50 RE people you should follow on Twitter. No, I'm not a real estate agent. Yet I'm on the list, and it's not on accident, I've been assured.

My involvement with the real estate industry is two fold. First, I've been fortunate enough to have been asked to speak twice now at the National Association of Realtors® national convention. The topics I speak about to their members are the same topics I cover here -- doing business in the digital world. My first talk from 2008 -- New Media Business Strategies for Real Estate Professionals -- is up at SlideShare. It's my goal to create a slide case out of this year's talk -- Digitally Expose Yourself: Building Your Web Presence -- but I haven't made it that far. It's on the list!

My second connection comes from the friends I've made here in the Phoenix area who are involved in real estate. Phoenix has been blessed - or plagued -- with some of the most prolific social media-aware RE folks in the country, and I'm proud to count many of them as my friends. They've even been so kind as to keep inviting me to talk at RE BarCamp Phoenix, which I'm happy and excited to do.

There's a lesson here. There are communities everywhere you look. If you can add value to that community with your knowledge, presence and involvement, do it. The RE community is rather tight-nit. I've received so many referrals -- and not just from my friends -- to do work that I've had to turn many away. That's a good problem to have.

So if you're lightly involved with a community, consider shoring up that relationship. No, don't show up at meetings passing around business cards and stories of what a great expert you are and how much they need you. Show up at meetings, make friends, join conversations, add value and get involved. Then you'll be showing them what a great expert you are, and they'll quickly realize how much they need you.

Fail Fast

The future is here. You no longer have time to adopt a "wait and see" attitude. Trying new things should still be high on your list, but only if you are ready to examine the results and react quickly. And by quickly, I mean within days; not months.

This goes against the "let it soak" approach business has taken toward the online space. Well... we were wrong. Or rather, there exists better approaches today. Adopting the Fail Fast methodology requires more effort up front. More planning. More analysis. More understanding of what you're doing. And what you expect to get in return.

It doesn't mean start small. But it also doesn't mean you have to go all-in. Size is only important if your upfront analysis indicates it might be. Yes, you can learn as you go, but you have to adapt as you go. Data puke gets in your way. Get rid of it. Focus on the goals and objectives you set forth at the start. Ignore everything else. You don't have time to spend chasing down interesting blips. Not yet, at least. First, you have to fail fast -- or hopefully succeed.

The era of learning and not doing is at and end. Welcome to 2010.

Using word clouds as reader and author

I'm a rather verbose person by nature. As a kid, I never worried much about having a 500 word report prepared by the end of the week. I usually had it done by the end of the period.

When I wrote Podcasting For Dummies, I had to learn to curtail much of that. That's a very different writing style. But I've adopted it. And I think it makes my writing more effective. I also give props to Patrick McLean for being an inspiration. Seriously, if you want to know how to write clearly, concisely and effectively, you couldn't ask for a better writing coach than Patrick.

Which brings me to the discussion of the 4322 four thousand, three hundred twenty-two (4,322) word blog post by Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President of Product Management for Google. The title was The meaning of open, a topic of some import with me. So I read it. All of it. Whew. Now I'm tired. I'm glad I read it. But chances are, you won't take the time. It's simply too long. He's approaching the halfway mark of a novella.

Luckily, the advent of the web -- speaking of open -- has provided a visualization tool that helps. Wordle is a free service that lets you paste in text and create an on-the-fly word cloud. The more a word is used, the larger it appears in the loud. There are other factors involved as well. Here's the word cloud of Mr. Rosenberg's blog post:

[caption id="attachment_51" width="500" caption="Word cloud for really long Google blog post"][/caption]

While it's a poor substitute for actually reading the work, it can provide valuable insight. Insight that helps you decide if you should read the whole thing or not. Conversely, this could be a helpful self-check measure. Create your own word cloud out of something you are writing. Does the cloud match your intent? It should. If it doesn't, you didn't use the right words.

The battle between the biggest and the best

Image by daftgirly via Flickr

It's hard to become the biggest at something. For companies, it often means understanding market opportunities, what the masses want and beating the hell out of the competition in price. It's not a field in which individuals can play without being a part of -- or leading -- an organization.

It's hard to become the best at something. Becoming the best often means relentless dedication to excellence, innovation and detail. Here companies and individuals are on more of an even field.

But becoming the biggest and the best at something? It seems those two things are at odds with one another. And if you take stock of the companies that purport to be one or the other -- or both -- you'll see how rare it is.

The brand of beer that outsells all the rest by orders of magnitude? That doesn't make it the best. I'd argue all the ones in my refrigerators (Yes, I have more than one. I like beer.) could vie for the best, but they are a proverbial drop in the bucket when sales volume is examined.

The author making the rounds on the talk-circuit with a book that's burning up the charts? Neither are the best. But any that hard-core book fans would agree is the best is likely unapproachable by the masses.

Though it's argued often, biggest is a quantitative measurement that leaves little to interpretation. I understand that best is subjective, but it's a demonstrable qualitative characteristic. So while companies often say "we're the biggest and the best", they aren't. They may be one or the other, but it's difficult to be both.

Or is it? Here are a few examples of where I think the biggest is also the best. I'd love to get your opinion on these as well as some other examples.

• MP3 players - The iPod reigns king in sales and in usability.
  
• Ketchup - Not that I use it, but I have it on good authority that Heinz is pretty tasty.
  
• Blizzard Entertainment - I'm no gamer and I understand there is a wide-range of opinion on this, but WoW seems to be one of those waves that didn't quit. And when Diablo 3 hits the stands, it'll do it again.
  
• Search engines -- Google. No further discussion required, though I'm sure some of you are Quixotic enough to try.

There have to be others. Please discuss in the comments.

A Simpler Way?

Sometimes you have a good idea. Then the your goals change. And that first good idea isn't important.

Or is it?

Maybe the kernel of the idea was good. Like... the name?

And here we are. More in a moment.

The missing revolution

Image via CrunchBase

What if you threw a revolution and no one came?

Contenture is shutting down. No, you probably never heard of them and probably won't miss them. And since I didn't even know of the company until I saw notice of their demise, I won't presume to offer cogent reasons why their business model never got off the ground. But here's the key reason they gave on their blog:

[W]e were unable to get any big publishers to use the service, which was going to be the key to our success. Without any large publishers, the economics just don’t work.

I bring this news up here as a cautionary tale in two parts:

Labels are important.
Contenture billed their service as "The Micropayment Revolution". That phrase was part of their logo on their blog. That revolution lasted exactly 192 days from launch-date to shut-down announcement. And as they say above, the revolution wasn't adopted by key entities. Revolution is a pretty serious word. It brings up serious connotations.

Lesson: Be sure the words you use match the reality of your intent.

Don't ignore the Convenience Arrow
After reading the links above that describe the business model, it seems to go backwards. Sure, blocking ads would be nice, but it does little to enhance convenience. And it's certainly not worth paying for. At least not to me. And obviously, not a lot of other people either.

Lesson: There exists a difference between annoying and intruding. One I'll pay you to get rid of. The other I'm really good at ignoring.

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Little changes, little rewards

Image by abakedcreation via Flickr

This post inspired by a nice soak in the steam room, my little reward for breaking my 1+ year sabbatical from working out.

None of us have it figured out. No one has achieved perfection. Supreme enlightenment is at best unattainable and at worst a scam.

There always remains a stone unturned. A nook unprodded. A path unexplored. For all of us. Even for those who always seem to be first, there was a time when they didn't know about it either.

We all fall short of our goals. We take missteps and often time make mistakes. Occasionally we screw up royally and get embarrassed by our own ineptitude.

So when you figure something out, celebrate. When you discover something new, have fun with it. And when you crawl back on the wagon horse, ride on.

Go ahead and reward yourself. But keep the scale of your accomplishment in mind. Somethings are worth shouting about. Most that I've mentioned above are not. Yes, they are important. Yes, they can lead to bigger things. Yes, you should feel good about what you've done. But little changes deserve little rewards.

When you're done, go work toward something truly big. You can scream about that.