Turner's Perspective

It's after 3 AM... how incredibly fitting

I guess it's the way it should be. Ever since joining ActiveRain on November 28, 2006, my sleep time has taken a nose dive. It's like I've been on a constant sugar high.

Tonight, per my routine, I checked email one last time before heading to bed.  I've been working on three other blogs most of the evening, so I hadn't bee paying attention to email. I saw there were some comments on a post and logged in to respond.

I never got to that post. A number - 100,074 - stopped me. I knew I was close to 100 Grand in points, but I didn't expect to go over the threshold tonight. And I wasn't going to write a post about it either, but seeing the mark, I felt compelled. 

Luckily, Jeff Belonger already did all the hard work for me today.  He highlighted all of those who have gotten to this mark before.  Thank you for compiling that list, Jeff, and congratulations to you! And to each of you on his list, I say thank you as well.

But what I really want to say at this moment is how much joy it brings me to be a part of this group. It feels like family. In a good way. :)

... 

It's now just after 3:30 AM on the west coast. (My wife is going to kill me!) I have to leave the house in 3 hours to take my oldest to school. That's going to require a cup of coffee to get me started, but I won't be eating breakfast before I leave in the morning. I'll be saving room for a little celebration with a 100 Grand Bar. Probably two - that photo already has my mouth watering.

And as I bite into the chewy caramel, milk chocolate and crispy crunchies, I'll be thinking about how sweet the AR experience has been so far. To each and every one of you who has made it so, I say thank you.

Thank you, very much!

EDIT: So, after I took my son to school I hit the nearby 7/11 for a 100 Grand Bar... 

I know I can't be the only JibJab fan out here in AR Land

After taking a moment to look at the Technorati search results, I see I am NOT alone. (I knew that already... the JibJab story is the quintessential Internet success story.) This current release from the masters of satire is sure to be a classic, like This Land, Do I Creep You Out, and Good To Be In DC (my personal favorite). I picked up on this one tonight from Robert Scoble on My Twitter Stream. Believe it or not, I've actually found some very interesting stuff from the Twitter messages alone in the past few days.

See if you can pick out the three "geeks" in this one. Hint: They're the ones who can identify where Kabul is on a map. 

Canon ESO Rebel VS Kodak V705: An Anecdote

I've written before about the beauty of carrying a point & shoot camera with you everywhere you go. I've also written about the Kodak V705, the first point & shoot camera I've ever felt comfortable recommending. This past week, something happened that surprised me.

It Misted In Los Angeles.

Yes, it's been a dry winter in LA, so even mist is news, but that's not really what surprised me. Call me sappy if you want, but I LOVE rainbows. LOVE THEM. So when I looked out the family room window and saw a full rainbow arching over Martin Rodriguez's house, I ran to get my Canon Rebel Digital SLR.

That's not surprising. I didn't run for the Kodak V705, because I assumed I'd get a better picture with the Rebel. I take the Kodak V705 with me everywhere because it's really small and the quality is plenty good enough for the vast, vast majority of what I need a camera for. I carry it because of it's ultra wide angle lens.

Here's What Surprised Me 

The Canon Digital Rebel comes standard with a wide angle lens as well. It's one of the reasons I bought it. It does a great job capturing interior shots. If you own one, you know what I mean.

But I have been shooting photos over the past few months mainly with the Kodak. When I looked through the viewfinder and snapped the photo above, a little voice in my head said, "Hey, why can't I get the whole rainbow in this shot?" My eye was saying I should be able to do that. I was surprised I couldn't.

So I went back inside and grabbed the Kodak. Then I walked out and looked at the LCD screen. This time I was surprised by how much more of the scene was available. I snapped another photo of the rainbow, which you can see on the right.

I'm not a photographer. I've had exactly zero formal training on how to use a camera like the Canon EOS Rebel.  I'm quite sure I don't get everything out of my Canon  that I should. My point here is NOT to criticize the Canon. My point is that most of us aren't photographers. What I want is good photos without a great deal of effort.

I Still See A Lot Of Photos Shot Without The Benefit Of A Wide Angle Lens.

I know this story is anecdotal, at best. It's certainly not a controlled test of both Camera's features and benefits. I wasn't standing in exactly the same position. So please take this for what it is... one more example of the benefit of a wide angle lens. If you're shooting your photos without the benefit of a wide angle lens, you need to consider a change. You're photos will be better for it.

I'm sure there's an analogy to a pot of gold in here somewhere, but that's just way to obvious. :) 

If this is a slow Project Blogger news day, then perhaps you'll read this. :)

Today, I had the very distinct pleasure of having lunch with Joseph Ferrara and Rudy Bachraty from Sellsius, Dustin Luther from Move.com and Rain City Guide, and Pat Kitano from Transparent Real Estate.

It was a true pleasure to spend time with a group of guys as jazzed about real estate blogging as I am. The energy at the table was great and the food was amazing as well. Pat Kitano suggest we all meet in downtown Los Angeles at his favorite Korean Restaurant, Sa Rit Gol, on Olympic Boulevard. I had never eaten Korean food, so my first experience was authentic and wonderful. At one point I was full and had moved into the "eating as sport" realm. I'll be back. I wish I could say the company was better than the food, but that might be a stretch. :)

I was impressed with each of these guys for different reasons and we've all determined we should do it again. If you ever get the chance to spend time with any of them... do it.

Pat, thank you for the food suggestion and Dustin, thank you for helping pull it all together.

Rudy and Joe... next time in NY?

Two days ago I posted about Jott.com, a new service that transcribes voices messages into text.

I told you my head was spinning with ideas.

Well, in our little world here, we (in this case, Steve Zehngut And I) like to run with ideas until they die on their own. So, in that spirit we set out to test whether or not Jott.com could effectively be used to write a new kind of blog content delivery system that would allow blog posts to be "written" in real time. The notion of "in the moment" blog posts intrigued me. 

Well, it worked.  

Every post in The JotBlog Experiment was created by using Jott.com's ability to transcribe your voice messages into text.

Jott.com's John Pollard and Shree Madhavapeddi were extremely responsive to our requests for input on how to make it work correctly. And John their CEO spent a good deal of time on the phone with me today bouncing ideas back and forth. In the end, we had to find out own solution, but as Mariana Wagner said in a comment on the previous post, "I cannot stress how impressed I was with Mr. Pollard and how he dealt with this."

This is not flawless.

Jott.com is still in beta and the transcription is not always 100% accurate, but we think it's close enough even in it's present form. The added benefit of this kind of content creation is that the voice that created it gets linked to the content. There's an added personal connection value to that! 

This was painless once we got it configured correctly. My head is still spinning and I plan on keeping The JotBlog Experiment up and use it to blast ideas on it's use. Feel free to peak in! 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this little experiment? 

Sellsius did an excelent post this morning on GrandCentral. GrandCentral gives you one phone number that rings to all of your phones and provides all of your voicemail messages in one inbox. Incoming calls are free and unlimited. 

It's feature packed, that's a fact. 

I'm not going to rehash the Sellsius post, so do yourself a favor and click the links to check it out for yourself. What I AM going to do is demonstrate two of the features. The first you can see illustrated below my photo to the right. The "Call Me!" button is a free WebCall button, similar to the one offered by RealPing, only I think the extra options make it more valuable by a long shot.

One of those features that make it more valuable is the ability to record any call that has come into you by simply pressing the "4" key on your phone. 

I had Julie Ferenzi call me to discuss her Plainfield Real Estate Blog, and I recorded the part of our conversation around GrandCentral's call recording feature. I just hit the number "4" on the telephone keypad and then hit it again when I wanted to stop recording. It not only records the call to an mp3 file that can be accessed from their control panel, it generates the embed code for the player you see here. Voila! instant podcasting feature.  

Jott to self on Sunday, March 18, 2007 8:13 PM

I was just reading Robert Scoble's blog tonight, and yesterday he wrote a post about a killer app for cellphones called Jott and I thought that I would write a post about it for ActiveRain by using it. I am actually right now just leaving a message on my cellphone at the Jott number and its gonna transcribe it and send it to me in an e-mail. I am just gonna copy and paste it right into the post so you can see how it works.       

Listen to audio

Follow up post to this one is here. 

One year ago today, my wife, Rocky, started blogging at Muthahood.com.

It was just over one year ago that Brooke Shields was captured walking around Los Angeles in one of my wife's Muthahood Ain't For Sissies shirts. At the time, Rocky had given up on the hopes of turning that into a full fledged business, Muthahood.com was sitting idle and she had turned her focus to other things, including finalizing the adoption of our sixth child. But when the photo of Brooke Shields hit the news and celebrity sites, the phone started ringing and emails started coming in, she had a decision to make. I think she made a good one.

She decided to turn Muthahood.com into a blog.

She was tired of trying to run a business, which brought her no joy, and decided simply to share her experiences as a mother with other mothers. She had long since stopped custom production on the shirts. But with people wondering about them, she decided to turn it into a charitable endeavor. She moved the designs to CafePress.com, to get rid of all the production and distribution hassles, and started funneling 100% of the profits to Kids Haven, a school for street children in Africa. 

Along the way, she has been an inspiration to me. As you can imagine, running a house with six kids is work all by itself. Her passion for Muthahood.com and the brand new MothersFightingForOthers.com, is not swayed by the demands of the day. She writes from her heart. She writes from her personal experiences. She's authentic.  And she connects with other Mothers in ways that surprise her every day. It doesn't surprise me.

Yesterday she shared an email with me. It was from a Mother who had been sexually abused as a child. The Mother had turned to Rocky for advice on what to do now that she had found the man who abused her over 27 years ago. She was proud to be able to be there for her. Rocky was proud that somehow she had connected so powerfully with a complete stranger. I am proud as well. And it was a great note to end her first year on.

So, please allow me this moment of indulgence. Considering how many blogs fold after just three months, I think I'm justified in my pride. I am the proud husband of one tough Mutha and one pretty darn good blogger.

Muthahood Aint For Sissies. She is living proof.

You want the proof? You can't handle the proof!

Less than 2 weeks ago I wrote a restaurant review post about Romano's Italian Restaurant in Essington, PA. I did it for several reasons. First, because the original stromboli they serve there is truly a taste bud treat. Saliva is filling my mouth as I type. Second, I wanted to illustrate to Julie Ferenzi how to use RealEstateShows.com to add value in local content. And third, I wanted to illustrate how this can help build solid relationships. I didn't do it to prove the SEO benefit of a blog post.

I sent the link to Pete Romano, the owner, and he loved it. He loved the post. He loved the Show. He said that he was practically brought to tears reading and watching. If I had been a real estate agent in his community doing this, I think the relationship part would be solidified! As complete strangers, we now had a bond. And it is a real bond. And I'm thankful for it.

As fate would have it, I was asked to fly back to Philadelphia just a few days after posting that review. I knew I was going to have 90 minutes free, so I told Pete I was going to stop by again and get another Stromboli. He was as excited as I was, it turned out. He wanted me to meet his father, his son, his aunts, his girlfriend. I was floored by it. And honored. My post was printed out on the wall by the cash register when I walked in.

Why I Carry A Camera With Me Everywhere 

When I arrived, he took me into the back office and introduced me to his family and then we sat down to talk and eat. What transpired surprised me. He said something to his son, Danny, about his Google page rank that caught me off guard. I asked him to repeat himself and I quickly turned on my video camera. This is not award winning footage, but it's in the moment.

He had been hounding his webmasters for three months to improve his page rank. One ActiveRain post moved his site to number one for the search terms he had been checking every day. It was the first time that this had happened for him. The ActiveRain post was number two. He was shocked. In a good way.

He won't get those same results today. One post won't create lasting Google juice. But it clearly illustrates the power of blogging, both to position yourself on the internet and to establish relationships. The SEO benefit, in my opinion, is secondary. I don't even think about SEO. I don't blog for SEO. The primary benefit is building connections with real people. It's about helping others grow their businesses. Again, if I were a real estate agent in his community, I know I'd be the one getting referrals if he overheard someone thinking about buying or selling a home. There is no question in my mind! That one post may not create lasting Google juice, but it will create some lasting relationship juice.

The real juice is the relationship juice, not the Google juice. It's all about relationships. 

If you're not connecting with local businesses in this way... start. The benefits for both of you are huge.  

I can't help but wonder what role the real estate community should play in supporting solar energy initiatives. 

c|net News.com had a great photo essay this morning on a new power plant opening it's doors in Boulder City, Nevada. Nevade Solar One is a 300 acre field of mirrors that collects thermal energy from the Sun and heats tubes filled with oil to 400 degrees. The oil is then used to create steam, which turn a turbine to create electricity.

How much electricity? Nevada Solar One will produce enough juice for 15,000 homes or 25,000 hotel rooms. It goes live on the grid in a few weeks and will deliver most of it's energy during peak periods when electricity is most costly.

What does this have to do with real estate?

Maybe it's a stretch. Maybe I woke up with my rose colored glasses on today and just haven't found a way to pry them from my head yet. I don't know, but it seems to me that this is a movement the real estate community should rally around - and not just because getting energy from this plant reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 200 million tons each year!

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil, providing cheaper, cleaner energy, utilizing natural resources in our Sun Belt, educating consumers on the value of energy efficient home improvements,  all of these things contribute to the health of our economy. In the big picture, that contributes to the health of the real estate industry. And, yes, I know I'm looking at this in the simplest of terms.

The Solar America Initiative

President Bush signed the Solar America Initiative (SAI) in February of 2006. It was supposed to promote "widespread" use of various solar energy sources all over the US by 2015. Jeanette Fisher, wrote a great article about this at the time. It was entitled, Will Solar Energy Initiative Affect The Real Estate Market. She looks at the potential impact of tax incentives and the growing demand for solar energy options in new home projects. I think one of her conclusions is accurate, "In time, home buyers will undoubtedly begin to insist upon having solar technology built into their real estate packages, but for now, the Solar America Initiative should be considered just the first step in moving the United States toward energy independence and greater economic stability." Is it working?

Adding solar roof tiles and tankless water heaters to new home construction would not increase the cost of building dramatically, but would dramatically impact the cost of living for the homeowner. I've seen a few new home builders off this as an option, but why aren't more home builders making this standard? I don't know. But it's an area that the real estate community can have an impact on!

In October, Business 2.0 ran an article entitled, Go Green, A Smart Home Improvement. "Considering a remodeling project to boost the value of your home?" Michael Copeland writes. "Before you drop $40,000 or more on a new kitchen or master bath, consider the newcomer on the renovation block: a rooftop solar-power system that not only will lower your overhead costs and insulate you from a volatile energy market but will likely add just as much to your home value over the long haul." It's worth a read. If it's even half true, it's certainly worth telling homeowners in Sun Belt states about.

So, is it just my rose colored glasses or is this something the real estate community should be focusing on? 

"Never give a party if you'll be the most interesting person there." - Mickey Friedman

Even if I'm not giving a party, I still don't want to go if I'm going to be the most interesting person there. That's why I accepted the Project Blogger invitation. Look around at the other invited guests. I may just be the wall flower of the group! Yeah, that's my kind of party. That's why I'm here.

I'm here because I like a challenge. I'm here because I have some ideas that I'd like to try. I'm here because having a guinea pig to try these ideas on is always better than trying them on yourself. It hurts less when they fail and you still get to take credit when they succeed. Talk about win-win!

I'm here to prove that good blogging will work to bring you business, even if your are a brand new real estate agent. Not just someone who hasn't gotten a lead from their blog yet, I mean a brand new real estate agent.

I was told by everyone I asked that this was a bad idea. Literally, every person said, "Jeff, you are going to be putting yourself at a huge disadvantage if you pick someone who is new to blogging and new to the business." But if blogging is all we think it's cracked up to be, then it has to be able to work for the inexperienced as well as the experienced real estate agent. If it can't work for a brand new agent, then it has no staying power.

That's why I chose Julie Ferenzi as my "apprentice."

Julie is a mother of four and just recently, February,  received her real estate license in Illinois. She was recommended to me by my wife. They had connected on CafeMom.com. My wife talked about this "Julie" from Chicago all the time. I had no idea she was in real estate and I had never spoken to Juli, via email or otherwise, until I got her on the phone to ask her if she was up for a challenge. 

Julie had never heard of ActiveRain. In fact, She didn't even know blogging was something you would do relative to real estate. She thought is was just for personal journals.  

Athough Julie is a new real estate agent, she is NOT new to real estate. "My first real experience in real estate was when I was 17-years old," Julie told me. "I ordered the Carlton Sheets program for $100 and charged it on my very first credit card! I bought it after watching an informercial. LOL" 

Life got in the way of her initial real estate interests.  

"I became interested in real estate again when my husband and I bought our first home. We could barely afford it at the time," she said. "But five years later we made $100,000 profit on it"

I'll let Julie tell you the rest of her story. It's an interesting one. She's passionate, motivated, articulate, and willing to learn!

She has written a few posts on ActiveRain already.  I wish I could tell you I told her to do so, but I didn't. They day after I asked her to sign up, she posted. She said, "I just couldn't wait!"  Her second post, It's All In The State Of Mind, was featured and the AR community did it's job of helping her work through a tough listing decision. Her third post, Can You Help A Newbie Out? FSBO..., was featured as well. Again, you were all there for her, just like I knew you would be. I may be her "coach," but it takes a village. I don't think she could have imagined how helpful this ActiveRain village was going to be. Thank you!

I'm excited to be working with her and believe that this party is going to be worth the effort! I have a profound level of respect for the other coaches. We're all bringing various skills and backgrounds to this "competition" Julie represents the newbie. In many ways, so do I.

Hey! There's a party going on. I hear music in the background. Anyone care to dance? 

Sometimes the problems of the world seem so large and overwhelming that it's hard to wrap my head around where to begin.

Stopping the destruction of our ecological systems is one of them. Where do you begin to solve a global problem. One of my favorite quotes is by a man named Frank Tibolt: "We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."

Anyone who has ever worked with me will tell you that I've always had a fire - ready - aim philosophy. It's not something I learned, it's just how I am. It's how my brain is wired. As a result, I have witnessed firsthand how action generates inspiration.

Here's a perfect example.

Peter Kazanjy was eating lunch at an an In-N-Out when he noticed how he, and everyone else, was approaching the napkins. If you've ever been to an In-N-Out, you know the napkin dispenser is in a center island with the ketchup. Peter writes, "Well, the thing is, because the ketchup and the napkins are centrally located, and you don't want to have to get back up to get more, you typically end up taking more than you really need."

Yep, that's exactly what we do every Sunday. We eat at In-N-Out every Sunday for lunch. With 6 kids, we like to divide and conquer, so one of the kids is always tasked with getting the napkins. What do they do? They grab a whole bunch, of course. Pete noticed that everyone did the same thing. 

So what did Pete do? Well, he just acted. 

On February 19th, 2007, he wrote the first post on his These Come From Trees Blog. It describes his lunch experience. Each post thereafter details the birth of an idea. At the end of that first post he says, "As I started noodling on it, I resolved to research how extended this problem was, and put my mind towards seeing if there were any good ways to deal with it." It is the perfect illustration of action leading to inspiration, which leads to more action and direction. He made his thought process public. He acted. And the simple action of writing about the issue turned into the inspiration behind what he calls "the world's first guerrilla public service announcement." Go read about it. It will inspire you.

The Green Is Red Hot, This Sounds Like Fun Contest is really no different. Of course we could argue all day about whether inspiration or action came first for JaneAnne. Or, as she invited us to do, we could just act.

This is NOT the post I intended to write on this subject. I have a very angry post about newspapers rattling in my head. Other things keep getting in the way. The action of researching that post is what lead to the inspiration for this post. Unintended consequence? No, it's just the way it works.

Yes, the challenge we face in ending our conspicuous consumption is overwhelmingly large. We all have a choice to make around that obvious truth. We can sit around waiting for a great wave of ecological inspiration to kick us in the butt, or we can simply, locally, actively begin doing something... anything. If we do, inspiration will find us.

In case you've missed it, USA Today launched a complete redesign to their website. And it's not just cosmetic.

I few days ago, I saw a preview of the redesign in a screen grab.  Initially I thought it might just be a graphic redesign. I've gotten used to that. But it's much more than that. It's a new vision. "Our website has a new look. But the real change is in the approach, not the appearance."

"Engage our site in a whole new way," the editors exclaimed. So, I did. And I saw something on a major news site that I've never seen before... the ability to have a conversation. Go to any major news website - CNN.com, New York Times, Los Angeles Times -  and you can send a link to a story, you can bookmark it, you can print it, but what you can't do is comment directly on it. As of today, at USAToday.com you can.

In terms of enabling conversation, that would be huge all by itself, but there's more. You can also sign up for a blog (here's a link to mine), post photos and recommend articles. Is it revolutionary? No. But I'm sure you can imagine the possibilities. If a link from ActiveRain can help your Google Juice, imagine for a moment what becoming well read on a site like USA Today could do? 

I won't go into all of the new features here. They do a good job of explaining them without my editorial. But I will tell you that it was simple to sign up for one of their blogs, edit my personal profile, set up my blogroll, and upload images. The focus has shifted to "you." Clearly their new "personal space" is a major advance.

"Personal Space: When you become a member, we automatically establish a personal profile page. As you interact with the USA TODAY community, your comments, recommendations and other contributions are automatically appended to your page. Your profile page includes a place for you to upload photos, write a blog, and the ability to send messages to other users. These pages allow readers to get a better sense of the site’s most active contributors."

I have a lot of opinions about newspapers, most of them not very good, but this change is a breath of fresh air. My opinion? Well,  my opinion doesn't matter... you need to check it out for yourself.  

Several people (and one of my favorites) have questions about just HOW to add a YouTube video to their posts. Not everyone is familiar with HTML or embed code, so I thought the best way to help is to actually create and embed a video to demonstrate. I'm using Veoh.com for this, because their quality is better for viewing the text. [ the process for embedding from Veoh.com is exactly the same, by the way, but see my warning below ] Edit: If you can't see this top video, keep reading. It was uploaded at 9:05am PST.

For most uses, YouTube is fine (and certainly faster). Hopefully this will help. 

If you don't know how to copy and paste, we built a little tutorial to help. I know some of you reading this will be saying, "Seriously, someone doesn't know how to copy and paste?" Yesterday I was reminded not to assume anything. I was on the phone with a new client and said, "just" copy and paste. They then said, "I'm sad to say this, but I don't know how to copy and paste." So, if you don't, don't be ashamed. Just click on this link... How To Copy And Paste

Here is what the same video looks like on YouTube.

I want to give you one warning about Veoh.com. As I write this, the video you see above is not finished loading - after 2 hours. You can imagine how much fun I'm not having waiting to take this post live.  The YouTube version was ready for viewing in 10 miinutes.

OK, another 30 minutes have gone by... so, I tried another service, vimeo.com, to see if the text was crisper. It was and here's another sample for you to view. Maybe Veoh will finish soon and I can post this thing. One of the things I liked about vimeo was how they updated me on the status of the video. Imagine why I'd be happy about that right now! Here is how they update you. 

OK... well, as much as I hate to do this, I'm posting this as is. It is now 12:28pm PST. As of this second, almost 3 1/2 hours later, the Veoh.com video is not done uploading. The quality, when done, will be excellent. Perhaps when you get to this post it will be there and all of this rambling will seem humorous. Or not. :) 

UPDATE: Some folks are having trouble on the PC, though I don't understand why. Nick has a work around posted here.