image courtesy of Brad Coy
Although Andy did his best attempt to sabotage my attendance to REBarCamp, I made it. It was an incredible event, but for those of you who couldn’t make it (or were attending one of the other excellent break-out sessions), here’s what I got out of it.
Schwag
I know this is all what you really care about. The laminates are awesome, great design, great idea and a great icebreaker. So happy I scored a killer t-shirt too because I think I may have packed a little too light. I scored a killer pen/flashlight/level courtesy of RMC Vanguard. Yahoo! provided some tasty mints. Okay, fine, you don’t care about the schwag…
Social Networking Session
The first break out session I attended was covering Social Networking. Big surprise that Teresa Boardman and Jeff Turner had lots to say 🙂 I know the people I was sitting with were all very interested in learning more about how exactly Teresa and Jeff use Flickr as a social network. I’m on there, but not very active, but after learning a few of the tips and tricks, I’ll definitely be spending some time. These were the recommendations I took away:
- Create an uber-group for your listing photos with sub-groups for each individual listing
- Take TONS of local area photos since that’s what the general public is going to be most interested in
- Tag, tag, tag! People will find your photos via search and good tags are the best way to find them
A couple of stories I heard were of people taking pictures at conferences and their Flickr photo sets showing up higher in Google than the conference web site. Perhaps we can do that with REBarCamp…
General Discussion
Next I met with Reggie, NikNik and Chad from MyTechOpinion. They did a very brief product pitch for MyTechBase.com, which is a new real estate product and service directory. Think DMOZ, but covering all the various products and services for the real estate industry. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to help out in building the directory. Then we had a great general discussion about the evolution of marketing in the real estate industry.
Blog Networks
In this session, we discussed group blogs and networked blog sites. I see brokerage networked blog sites as a great recruiting tool because many new agents I encounter would love to get into blogging, but desire a bit of help getting started, so having a company provided solution could be great.
Guerrilla Marketing
Mark Eckenrode hosted a great Guerrilla Marketing session covering a ton of free/inexpensive marketing tactics that can complement any current marketing you may be doing. We discussed setting goals and making your path to accomplish that goal as easy as possible. It was definitely a bit of information overload, so I’m hoping Mark will give even more details on his site.
My Conclusion
REBarCamp was incredible. It was a great way to spend some time getting to know a ton of people and have great, more intimate conversations about all things real estate technology and marketing. It even looks like REBarCamp Texas will be happening October 22nd! I look forward to hearing about more of these and working on getting one close to home once life settles down.
Thanks to everyone who made the event what it was.
Rich Jacobson
July 29, 2008 at 8:51 am
Nick, I totally agree. The atmosphere and enthusiasm at RE Barcamp was electrifying. It’s hard to adequately describe the environment. It felt like we were all part of some underground resistance movement, and we were meeting to plot our strategies for battle. There was a pronounced hunger and thirst for knowledge, as well as generous sharing of experiences/information. The sessions were informal and free flowing. We are planning to have a couple of events here in our area soon!
teresa boardman
July 29, 2008 at 9:56 am
I totally agree as well. I liked the kind of informal setting and the way we could just share ideas. It is rare that I get an opportunity to be with my web 2.0 peers so that I can learn from them.
Brad Coy
July 29, 2008 at 11:43 am
Nice picture 🙂
Thanks for the follow up Nick. I did not get nearly enough of what happened throughout the day and have been dependent on posts like this to occupy my curiosity. I love what Rich says above about an “underground resistance movement”. I have a feeling that this movement of Bar Camp is going to be bigger than anyone could have imagined. This could be the start of something very innovative and cool for the Real Estate industry.
Robert Luna
July 29, 2008 at 11:51 am
Bar Camp was awesome the structure, the vibe, the people this was a major Home Run thanks to all the people who put it together and supported it I can hardly wait for the next one.
Derek Overbey
July 29, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Nice recap Nick. Having attended SocialMediaCamp a week earlier (Andy was there too) I can honestly say this was by far the more useful and informative Camp in my opinion. Plus for myself, being new to this social media group, this event opened the door to the tens if not hundreds of new relationships I have now.
I also had the opportunity to use Qik during RE Bar Camp which was great for people who could not be there live. I know Poppy Dinsey of Zoomf was in London watching the sessions that I was streaming. You can check out the video at https://qik.com/event/83/re-bar-camp-beer-with-bloggers
I hope there are many more in the future and I will try with all my might to be in Houston in Oct.
Vicki Moore
July 29, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Hey – I’m still bragging about that pen/flashlight/screw driver thingy.
I think I learned as much at BarCamp as I did at Bloggers’ Connect – and it was free. I’m checking off my list of things to do – every day a little at a time.
Kim Wood
July 29, 2008 at 6:33 pm
While I didn’t get any Schwag….and arrived very late… I did find out that it would have been worth it to have been there earlier!!!
That was the first place my meet ups began…and although I know Flickr and Teresa Boardman, it was fun to sit in on her session.
No comment about Beer for Bloggers that night ??? ::grin::
Matt Kelly
July 30, 2008 at 6:46 am
Thanks for the mention of the pen/flashlight/level. I was suprised at how fast they disappeared and really glad I didn’t have to haul a bunch of them back to Houston!