I’ve been on a reading spree lately, concentrating on business books that focus on social networking. I have a pretty wide definition of “business” and the first book I’ve included is a work of fiction.

I read “Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom” by Cory Doctorow at the recommendation of Daniel Rothamel at Real Estate BarCamp Virginia. This is a work of science fiction, based in a time where death is obsolete and money no longer exists. In place of currency, your net worth is figured in “Whuffie” – and Whuffie is exactly why I’m recommending this as a business book. Oh, it’s a great read on it’s own, but if you’ve looked at “social media” from the outside and wondered what value anyone would see in sites such as Twitter or Facebook, the answer is Whuffie. Whuffie is just a measurement of your social worth, respect or esteem. If you provide something of value to others (in this case, educational links, breaking news, solutions to problems or just simple friendship), their good feelings towards you will increase your Whuffie points and you’ll have a higher net worth. We may not be keeping a numerical score, but Whuffie is out there. You can download this book, in many different formats, for free here.

World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott is about how to create a viral event using the power of social media. I bought the book not for it’s intent but because the book speaks very much to the way consumers view the market today. This book concentrates on advertising through means which cost little to no money, how to reach a large audience (surprisingly, sometimes by starting with very few people) and how not to alienate the very people you’re trying to reach. World Wide Rave suggests turning advertising around to solve your clients’ problems rather than preaching about what you can do. It’s about THEM. (Bonus points to the book because it features my friend Mike Lefebvre. Hi, Mike!)

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis is kind of a survival handbook for businesses that might need to evolve to better fit in our Googled-up world. (Hint: as an independent contractor, it’s a good idea to know this stuff.) You’ll learn how customer service is the new marketing, how a group of fans on Facebook discussing your product is worth a thousand ads and that when you give over control of the direction of your business to the people you’re trying to service, you ALL win. Get out there and listen to the people you want to work with!

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky explains how groups form, work together and accomplish goals. When you first join a network such as Twitter, you may see what looks like the whole world streaming by and wonder how you’d ever keep up. If you stick with it, you realize that you can follow your friends, family, associates, random interesting people, celebrities and more, and you create a little group all your own. Here Comes Everybody explains how we keep groups to a manageable size for ourselves while still having the power of a much larger community. Members of groups tend to want to help each other, following an unwritten rule of “if I take care of you now, someone will take care of me later.” The easy formation of groups makes it possible to “fail faster” so you can get past it on with the stuff that works.

A funny thing happened after I read What Would Google Do?. I tweeted that I’d just finished WWGD and loved it – what should I read next? My answer came from Jeff Jarvis himself, suggesting I read Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. As you’ve just read, I took his advice and I’m glad I did. If you’d like to follow all four of these authors on Twitter, please do:@doctorow, @dmscott, @jeffjarvis and @cshirky.

And if you’d like to suggest what I should read next and why, please do!

I recently used digital cameras in a trial run of an idea I’ll be sharing with you later to help build local blog/website readership. I was actually intrigued with using a film camera again. The suspense of not seeing the pictures until they’d been developed and having actual photographs to hold seemed nearly romantic to me in it’s old fashioned charm.

In reality though, it bites.

I dropped off the film on a Thursday and was told film only goes out for developing on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, so it would be picked up Friday and be back Monday. “But,” the cashier whispered, “You really shouldn’t expect it back until Wednesday. They’re always late.” I appreciated knowing that up front and came back Wednesday, only to find out that for some reason the film hadn’t gone out until that afternoon. Days later, back at the store for a third time, I was told my order had been misplaced and they’d call me. After no call, I stopped by again and finally collected my blurry photos of friends and floors, as you can see here. At least they took pity on me and didn’t charge me for developing.

The whole experience has made me that much more grateful for the convenience and quality of my digital camera. I love pictures, but I do NOT miss film! Thank goodness times change!

We’ve also been making some changes for the better here at Real Estate Shows. Adjustments we’re making now will enable us to serve your needs better in the future and bring you new flexibility to the way you use your Shows. I’m excited about the things we have in store and hope you’ll be pleased when new features are unveiled.

Progress is a good thing!

I had the pleasure of moderating a panel made up of Jim Cronin (Real Estate Tomato), Dustin Luther (4Realz.net), Daniel Rothamel (RealEstateZebra.com), and Nicole Nicolay (MyTechOpinion.com).

If you missed it, here’s the video from Inman.

My country,’ tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims’ pride,
from every mountainside let freedom ring!

My native country, thee,
land of the noble free, thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
thy woods and templed hills;
my heart with rapture thrills, like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
and ring from all the trees sweet freedom’s song;
let mortal tongues awake;
let all that breathe partake;
let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God, to thee,
author of liberty, to thee we sing;
long may our land be bright
with freedom’s holy light;
protect us by thy might, great God, our King.

Words: Samuel F. Smith, 1808-1895

Videoblogs, or vlogs, are relatively new to the real estate industry.

But there is a growing community of experienced videobloggers outside of the real estate industry. They make up the bulk of the users on the “by invitation only” Seesmic.com. After spending a few days on the site, my gut told me this community would be a good one to tap into to jump start a conversation around the theme of “Beyond The Written Word,” a panel I am moderating at Inman’s Bloggers Connect conference in NY.

The Bloggers Connect panel will consist of Douglas Heddings, Senior Vice President, Prudential Douglas Elliman; Rachel Natalie Klein, Founder, IntoTheBox.tv; Daniel Rothamel, Realtor, Strong Team REALTORS; Blogger, RealEstateZebra.com; and Mike Price, President, ML Broadcast.

We only have 45 minutes to discuss a very hot topic. So let’s start it early.

To help us, I asked the seasoned videobloggers on Seesmic what they might have to say about the potential upside and possible downside that video blogging and podcasting might have for real estate agents looking to use it to grow their business. This 14 minute video is an edited version of the discussion.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

The goal of this video is to generate further discussion. The questions and comments you leave here will help move this discussion forward and may very well end up being part of the panel discussion in New York. So, comment away. If you’d like to add your video comment, you can upload a video anywhere you choose and include it as a link in the comments here, or you can add your video comments to the discussion the discussion video on Viddler.

Here are links to the full comments used for this video.

Jeff Turner | Real Estate Shows

• http://seesmic.com/VxW9jHhM95
• http://seesmic.com/YudjEHC5cP
• http://seesmic.com/COp2rZCILR

Deek Deekster | DeekDeekster.com

• http://seesmic.com/7iLwyHdB7u
• http://seesmic.com/ZyqkRZJnmB

Adam Jochum | Cafn8ed.tv

• http://seesmic.com/dqrVKHFMcG
• http://seesmic.com/6sirvwQqNX
• http://seesmic.com/uo7ayvUTPv

David Jacobs | TheConnectedWorld.net

• http://seesmic.com/AfUBDFSjdr
• http://seesmic.com/FuJnMVS4Ui

Nicole Spagnuolo | NicoleSpag.com

• http://seesmic.com/CvPvpZk5hu

Victor Cajiao | TypicalMacUser.com

• http://seesmic.com/zaKipGp6NV

Daniel Rothamel | RealEstateZebra.com

• http://seesmic.com/JQgRL9hmt9

Andy Kaufman | MyEastBayAgent.com

• http://seesmic.com/KliOhLXHoV

As further commentary, this video took a ridiculously long time to edit.

I often hear REALTORS talk about themselves as professionals.

Usually they do it with a Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect” attitude. They sound defensive and angry. “Why doesn’t the world acknowledge me as a professional? And why don’t people understand that real estate is a profession, just like medicine or law?” Almost always, the focus of their anger is external. “Why doesn’t NAR do a better job of promoting us? Why don’t people realize my skills and training and dedication? Why doesn’t somebody (not me) fix this?”

But what is a profession? Webster defines a profession as: a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science. They also define it as: any vocation or business. By the second definition all of you are hereby and forevermore designated as members of a profession. If only it was that simple.

And what is a professional? Webster’s says a professional is: someone engaged in one of the learned professions.

Those dictionary definitions of profession and professional do not connect to the real issue. The real issue; what most people want when they refer to themselves as professionals working in a profession, is status and respect.

When we shift the focus of the term professional from what we do to how we are perceived and treated, the definition and the entire concept of the designation “professional” changes.

In that context of status and respect, what exactly is a professional? I believe that a “professional” is someone who takes what they do, whatever that happens to be, and transforms it into an art form. They make the mundane look magnificent. They make seemingly impossible things look drop-dead easy. They cover all the details, all the time. They master the subtleties. They silently acknowledge that they have a gift for what they do and they give that gift to the people in their world respectfully and compassionately. They know that they have never “arrived.”

They are never content with their present body of knowledge. They live with a constant, silent fear of becoming obsolete and irrelevant. They address that fear by continuously learning and growing and changing. They remain their own harshest critics, always looking for ways to be and to do and to deliver something better. They are consciously aware of their Values and they always strive to live them.

Becoming and remaining a “professional” is not bestowed on someone by virtue of a degree or a certificate. “Look at me, I took these courses, I spent this impressive number of hours learning all this stuff and I have this piece of paper to prove it. That makes me a professional. Bow to that.” No. That’s not how it works.

In the course of my life, I have known professional mail carriers, trash collectors, gardeners, housekeepers and baby sitters. And I have known amateur doctors, dentists, attorneys, judges and accountants. I bet, if you take a moment to think about it, so have you.

Because being a true “professional” is a purely personal pursuit, I believe that there are no “professions.” What we conventionally call professions, such as medicine, law, or accounting, are businesses with an extra layer of self-governance. Some of the people who practice them are professionals; some are not.

Designating a field of endeavor as a “profession” (in the context of conveying status and respect) is, to me, two things:

• It reflects society’s need to attach significance and importance to groups as a way of making individuals in those groups less accountable;
• and it’s a device for artificially elevating the stature of individual members without demanding the requisite performance.

But you might argue: Wait. Professions have tests and standards and rules and by-laws and continuing education requirements and licensing and self-policing and other neat stuff that sets them apart from, say, auto mechanics.

That’s true in theory. But do you know how often an attorney has to dangerously screw up before he or she can be disbarred, or how many trials a judge must sleep through to lose his office or how many people a doctor has to maim or kill before he or she can lose his/her license? The professional standards set forth in the rules and regulations sound fine, but the performance bars for enforcement are set so low that a warm cadaver could easily maintain a license. We are a society that sometimes elects dead people to Congress. We treat our “professions” with equally tough oversight.

So being a true “professional” is an individual choice. Taking some courses, passing a State licensing test and joining NAR cannot make you a “professional.” You don’t get that designation by posting your credentials and declaring yourself a “professional” on your web site or business card. Clever tag lines in your ads don’t get you there. But all those tactics can fool people for a time.

The measure and stature of one’s professionalism is defined by behavior and Values – the ones you live by; the real ones. Anyone can set their performance bar at the height he/she chooses. You don’t need a society or a licensing body to tell you how to behave or what it means to be a professional.

It’s a matter of personal choice.

The truth is worth digging for, even if the ground is hard and your shovel is dull.

Late last night I put up a post entitled, “Craigslist Delivers Viewers In Large Numbers.” It was based on server data that I collected over a week ago and I had been staring at ever since. The numbers indicated more incoming links from Craigslist than Realtor.com and Trulia and other Web 2.0 search portals. The numbers were so cartoonishly disproportionate that they left me scratching my head and asking a lot of questions.

So I decided to put the numbers up and ask the questions in public.

The answers, in part, were staring me right in the face and I was just too close to the data to see them. Jeff Weir, from Tour The Triad, pointed out what is now obvious about the numbers. The way Craiglsist displays information automatically generates a referring link, because all of the information is being pulled from our servers. This is not true of Realtor.com or Trulia. They provide a good deal of information about a home that is coming from their servers, not ours.

So I pulled the post down.

I’m not interested in sensationalism or jumping to conclusions based on opinions. And I’m definitely not interested in making false claims about anything. The numbers, interpreted incorrectly, could have cast a bad light on Realtor.com, Trulia and others. I’ve never pulled a post down before, but I want to be accurate. Even if I look stupid (like a dull shovel) in the process.

The way Craigslist pulls data from our servers doesn’t answer all of the questions, however. For example, why are the number of referring hits so low for Trulia and other Web 2.0 portals? But more importantly, the questions that need to be answered may never be answered by looking at anyone’s server logs, let alone ours. They can only be answered by you, the real estate agent.

If one website generates more traffic than another, what does that mean?

• What are the likely effects on visits to the home?
• What is the likely impact on contacts with the listing agent?
• Does this increase the likelihood of sales or new client prospects?
• Does this mean anything to the bottom line?

I’d love to find out. For that, I’m going to need some help.

If you post listings to all of the above, Realtor.com, Craigslist, Trulia, etc., I’d like to hear from you. Which sites are moving the needle for you? Tell us what is working and what is not working and why. I think the information is worth digging for.

Last Wednesday, Jeff Turner, three of his sons and I were having lunch at Jerry’s Deli in Marina Del Rey, CA. Jeff’s boys were slurping down multiple chocolate milks and that meant multiple trips to the Men’s Room. If not for that, this story could not have been written.

On his third trip to the Men’s Room Jeff noticed a framed advertisement hung on the wall just outside the door. It didn’t register on his radar screen during his first two trips. Inside the frame were 6 listing flyers for nearby homes from a local REALTOR® team.

Each flyer was an 8 by 11 sheet, so you had to be within 2 or 3 feet from the page to read it. It was hung on a wall that was not visible until you were standing just outside the Men’s Room, an area visibly separated from the restaurant. If you didn’t need to use the rest room there was no earthly reason to go there.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I need to use the rest room, my mind is focused on my mission. Im not likely to be distracted by anything, much less a REALTOR®’s ad. And when I’m leaving the rest room, I’m not likely to want to jerk my head 90 degrees left to look at a flyer, throw my neck out of joint and require a trip to my chiropractor.

Jeff and I could not let it rest. We called the manager over.

“Do people have to pay to put up ads like that one?” I asked him, pointing to the REALTOR®’s ad.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Its all handled by the agency that prints our menus.”

“Do you know how much?” I asked.

“No, I dont,” he replied. “But its probably not cheap.”

Whether its cheap or not, the question for me is this: Why do REALTORS® (or anyone else, for that matter) spend money on frivolous, ill-conceived, ineffective advertising gimmicks that don’t work?

Is it just ego? After all, Jerry Buss (the Lakers owner) sometimes shows up at that restaurant usually wearing jeans and a Laker Girl.

Readers, please help me understand why so many people continue to spend money senselessly while ignoring solid marketing programs that get good results over time.

Why? Why?

Alan Alda, in his new book, “Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself,” quotes a famous rabbi in explaining what makes a good talk: “What comes from the heart goes to the heart.”

That’s powerful stuff.

It also relates to your Values. There too, if it’s not in your heart, in other words, if you don’t believe it, you cannot own it. And if you don’t own it, you cannot convey it to others through your actions, the most authentic form of communication.

If you try to fake it, you become inauthentic, a phony, hollow. The best you can hope for is that you might be elected to Congress.

If some of your Values are around professionalism, integrity or service then those Values should impact what you bring to the party with your Internet marketing (along with everything else you do).

I heard a speaker at the last Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco. His name is Hugh McCleod. He’s a talented, creative, out-of-the-box, guerrilla-marketing consultant. He’s also a good cartoonist. In talking about effective communication, he said it most profoundly. “A story without love is not worth telling.” That statement lit me up like fireworks on the Fourth.

His simple message, I believe, needs to have a presence in every visual presentation, every narrative, every description, in all aspects of everyone’s marketing program but most particularly on the Internet. The Internet lends itself perfectly to that kind of expression.

Most sellers have lived in their home for some period of time. They’ve created and stored important memories there. If your strongest message about your value to your clients is “I can save you $4,000 on commissions,” please go shoot yourself.

Tell compelling stories, in words and pictures. Communicate love. I think that, today, love is an endangered emotion. Put some back in the world. We need it.

What do you think?

If you lose something that you never knew existed in the first place, what have you lost? And how will you ever know that you lost it?

If a potential client or buyer doesn’t connect with you because they don’t know you’re there, what have you and they lost?

These situations illustrate Opportunity Costs – measured by the lost revenue and profit resulting from inaction. We incur those costs by NOT seizing on a situation, an event, an opportunity.

I call it the cost of What If?

What if I had done…? Would it have led me to seize an opportunity that I didn’t know about, or knew about but ignored? How would that have changed my results? Would my income have increased? Would my reputation be stronger, my referral network larger? Would I have made new friends?

Opportunity cost is rarely tracked or recorded, by companies or by individuals. It’s difficult to measure the result of a non-event.

So why try? Because awareness of opportunity costs often reveal great potential gains by implementing changes that can achieve dramatic improvements in our incomes and in the quality of our lives.

Most of us stay busy in the comfort of what we’ve always done. We fill our available time with the same things. We never step back and ask, “Wait – let’s look at what I’m not doing, that I could be doing to improve my results.” And, “What am I currently doing that I should stop doing because my results suck?”

Here, near and dear to my heart (otherwise known as bias), is a case in point – Internet marketing.

Here’s where, ostensibly, the dots don’t connect:

• More than 80% of buyers begin their home searches on the Internet.
• But only 20% to 25% of the homes shown on the Internet (depending on your information source) use home tours and/or multiple photos.
• This disparity indicates an unfathomable gap between market behavior and Realtor behavior. It suggests that Realtors are not listening to the market. It indicates apathy, arrogance, negligence and many other bad words.
• But the homes all sell anyway.

How can this be?

Why aren’t buyers refusing to buy homes and sellers refusing to list their homes unless and until Realtors provide professional, engaging, attractive Internet presentations? Why do they continue to work with Realtors who seem to blatantly refuse to give buyers and sellers what they need?

Because sellers must sell their homes and buyers must find a place to live. And buyers will endure all the crap, indifference and shoddiness they have to in order to find their castles of choice. And sellers believe that eventually, they will find a buyer.

So is the message, “Forget the Internet; it doesn’t matter what you do, the house will eventually sell anyway?”

No, no, no. For in this sea of seeming consumer indifference lurks Opportunity Cost. And for those who act, there’s money to be made and reputations to be enhanced.

The Opportunity Cost is your lost commissions and profits that will result if you do nothing beyond the minimum (an MLS posting and one photo of the home) with your Internet marketing presentations and presence.

But if all homes eventually sell, how can doing the minimum result in lost commissions?

The answer is also the opportunity. It’s this: Even though all homes sell, the best presented ones sell first. And the Realtors who represent them will earn more money.

Buyers who use the Internet first want to visit the homes whose presentations capture their emotions and give them sufficient, but not too much, information. Only after they rule out those homes do they go on to the next wave and the next. With a 10-month inventory of unsold homes on the market, there is a huge advantage in being seen first. To state the obvious, being seen first also means you get to meet many of these potential buyers before they have chosen their Realtor. Opportunity.

I know that much of this sounds pedantic. I apologize for that. But what drives me nuts about all of this basic as breathing stuff is: Why are so few Realtors doing it? Can someone please explain that to me?

The bottom line is this. There is a significant opportunity to earn more and grow your business by having a strong Internet marketing program. If you don’t do it you are incurring an Opportunity Cost. While it’s true that buyers will go through pain to find their home, they will gravitate to presentations that capture their emotions first.

When you plan your Internet presentation, mentally and emotionally become the buyer. Ask yourself what a buyer wants to see and to feel? Create presentations that deliver that.

Success will not come every time, but over time.