I have this vision of how it could be. Of everything in one place, accessible from many places. Where information and conversation meet and integrate in a way that makes sense. Where my phone doesn’t go from useful to hockey puck in 3 seconds flat.There’s all kinds of fancy doo-dads and whatnots out there, but what I really want is simplicity. I got so many USB things plugged into my laptop, I’m a veritable octopus over here.
I want my MLS to play nice with my phone – and with my website and my blog and my private client sites. I want my calendar in Outlook to play nice with my phone calendar – without having to buy a USB hub just to make room to plug in a bluetooth adaptor.
I want my clients to know what I’m doing and when without having to manually log every call and email.
I want engenu on crack. Forget FTPing or writing config files.
I want my clients to find and mark properties for discussion, and to be able to interact with them, those properties, and all their documentation from my phone while sipping Starbucks at a red light. But not in a Lexus. (I’ve heard that brand is targeted to middle-aged women. The horror!)
Simplicity. I want clean and simple. I want to collaborate online with existing and potential clients and not have to manage twelve passwords and sixteen programs to do it, while juggling a camera, an eKey, four bottles of water, and a map so I can figure out where the closest functional restroom might be for my client’s kid because all these foreclosed homes have unusable facilities and he’s really gotta go.
There’s a lot of partial solution and kludge out there. So who’s gonna put it all together?
Consider yourself challenged.
Johnny Amos
May 1, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Exactly. Imagine that times 100… or 500… (Lexus is targeted to middle age women? Huh.) or 1000. It doesn’t scale well. And the easier things are for the end user, the more complex the underlying system is.
Keeping it simple can be a complex problem.
Matthew Rathbun
May 1, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Well… hmmmm, they say it’s perfect in heaven. Do you think they’ll have compatible well running computer systems?
Bob Schenkenberger
May 1, 2008 at 10:43 pm
You are so right on the mark! It’s been the same way with CRM for 10+ years. Then, when the ultimate product comes out, there are so many “features” it renders itself useless to me! I fear it will be the same outcome once a tool is developed to bring all the social applications and communication devices into one, not so tidy bunch.
Now i’m off to try and sell my Lexus, any middle aged women looking for a good buy? No really 2005 GX470, Black with tan leather.
Kelley Koehler
May 2, 2008 at 1:03 am
I knew throwing in the the Lexus comment had great potential to take us off track… 🙂
Jacinda
May 2, 2008 at 7:23 am
What type of phone do you use now? I use an iPhone and it’s great because it does pretty much everything you described and will only get better at it when the SDK apps come out next month. The 3G iPhone is going to be released in late June most likely, so it’ll do a great job at loading large sites like MLS and other real estate listing sites since it’s faster than the current one.
I’m not sure if that’s helpful, but it does a lot of what you’re saying you want in a phone.
Michelle DeRepentigny
May 2, 2008 at 7:56 am
OMG – I so want it all also! Even more I want to do away with competing MLSs in one market – I am so tired of searching two different MLS systems to ind listings and trying to explain why one of them doesn’t allow square footages to be input! I am tired of trying to pull all the data I have available into an attractive, client ready format.
It shouldn’t be this hard to do business in a professional manner!
ines
May 2, 2008 at 7:35 pm
……and no Lexus or mini-van for me
Bob
June 13, 2008 at 9:45 am
Thanks for the humor but technology is never going to be simple for me. I just do the best I can and ask my wife to do the rest.
Susan
June 13, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Kelley, I feel your pain. I felt the strong pull towards the Lexus a year ago, but managed to escape. Instead, I decided to get something that perhaps wasn’t exactly practical, but so much more fun. I went with a 3 series BMW and its just fine.