My Life as a Dog – Author 12

by Kris Berg

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

As Teri continues her march toward the prize and is no doubt putting the finishing touches on her acceptance speech, I have reached a milestone of sorts myself. It has officially been five months and one day since my smiling likeness was added to the sidebar of the Bloodhound. Why choose this random milestone to reflect on my contributions here, rather than a more logical breakpoint on the Greg-orian calendar (say, five months and seven days)?

Just maybe, I am messing with Greg. This being Monday morning, I am sure that what he really wants on his front page is the link to the Carnival or an update on SB 1291. I have always suspected that this sort of fluff post really riles Greg, he being the Big Thinker. While he is trying to have meaningful dialogue on issues of national import, I invariably pop in at the most inopportune time with my vacation journal or a picture of my client’s cat. I always envision him pounding furiously and red-faced at the keyboard to bury my contributions with something more worthy of a site with Authority. “Fox News? Greg Swann here. I will be a little late to our interview. She’s posting again”.

Okay, I confess I am not clever enough to be that ornery, at least not intentionally. You see, I have no master plan. I have no plan at all. The fact is, I’ll just never be as global or deep in my reasoning and analysis as our Top Dog. I often imagine Greg posting from a home office which is a scale model of the White House Situation Room, complete with a host of monitors displaying feeds from around the globe. Conversely, my workspace involves a computer, mounds of steaming contracts, the cat’s most recent hairball “offering”, and the Hawaiian Death Idol acquired on our 2004 vacation. (Don’t try to cross me, the Idol has tremendous get-even powers).

And, the Real Estate Tomato says I’m doing it all wrong. They recently talked about the biggest blogging blunders one can make. Reading their top ten mistakes list, I could give point by point examples of my blogging crimes against humanity, but that would just further the crime. I’ll just focus on the biggies.

Writing about whatever pops into your mind is not going to comfort your audience that it is worth giving you their email address to be notified of future content.

Oh-oh. Big trouble here. My “recipe” for posting is this:

• Move jammie-clad body gently from bed to coffee pot.
• Drink huge amounts of coffee while typing whatever is on my mind. (At 5:00 AM, this is not a whole lot).
• Hit the “publish” button.
• Repeat act of consuming caffeinated beverage in massive quantities.
• Read latest post and shake head in amazement. “I said what?”
• Think about a do-over, but recognize that I’ve got nothin’ else. The post stands.

Giving the impression that there is an audience that is concerned about your personal affairs can alienate those that are attracted to your blog by your relevant content. Those that appreciate and encourage you to continue writing about your life are not business prospects… they’re called friends.

Double oh-oh. The readers of my “home” blog (which, to my knowledge, consist of the Bawld Guy and one 14-year-old in Toledo who thinks there is a housing bubble) know the names of my children and pets, what I had for dinner on Thursday and the color scheme of my family room. I just can’t help myself. All of that irrelevant drivel is part of who I am. In the words of Randy Jackson, I’m just keepin’ it real, for better or for worse. The alternative would be to pretend I am someone who I am not, and I think the results would be far worse. (I might alienate my Toledo “friend”).

The fact is, I’m a blogging train wreck. My content is so schizophrenic that no one ever knows what to expect, myself included. While my fingers are typing away, my brain is on a seven second delay. Yet, we are currently working with three clients who found us through our blog. Go figure.

Just maybe the Real Estate Tomato is wrong. Or, maybe it just depends on what you expect to gain from your efforts. I don’t have any delusions of national recognition, and while I get the periodic Redfin bee in my bonnet, the depth of my true understanding of Web 2.0 and the Realty.bot revolution wouldn’t fill a day pack. While the heavyweights are out there changing the world and establishing credibility on a national scale, I am still just a working girl, meeting the Termite Guy, stuffing the flyer box, and just generally trying to make a decent living.

Most days I just feel outclassed here, playing the role of the loopy out-of-town cousin, Author 12. So it was that I found some comedic irony when I took the call from the reporter at the San Diego Business Journal this week asking for my reaction to the month end numbers released by the California Association of Realtors. “I would have called you sooner”, she said, “but I read on your blog that you were out of town”.