The Odysseus Medal: “What would David Gibbons do?”

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This week’s winners of The Odysseus Medal Competition are all vendors, which is a lucky chance, because I’ve been wanting to talk about vendor involvement in our world, the RE.net.

I’ve written this much before: Why do we trust Michael Wurzer of FBS Systems? Because he’s one of us. He lives in the Web 2.0 world, the Cluetrain world. We believe — on faith, in some respects — that he wants to deliver his product in the same way, with the same commitment to integrity and transparency, that he expects other vendors to deliver their products to him. Why do we have this outsized faith in him? Because we know him — because he’s a part of the conversation.

The same goes for Michael Price of mlbroadcast. We know where he stands on a host of issues, and we know he stands with us on the issues that matter to us. If I have any question about Mike or his business, I know I can shoot him an email and he’ll get right back to me, usually with more information than I thought to ask for.

By contrast, Krista Baker of Realty Business Coach is just getting her toe in the water. Her approach so far has been more a matter of broadcasting information than engaging in the meta-debate.

Another marketing coach taking that same broadcast approach is Gary Elwood of the Real Estate Marketing Blog. A few weeks ago I took him to task in a comment, saying, “You don’t link. You’re inaudible to the conversation.” Gary took me to mean that he wasn’t linking as a matter of footnoting his posts, but what I meant, as I’m sure most people reading this understand, is that linking is how we talk to each other, how the larger conversation is carried out.

Now consider that I beat the snot out of a vendor just last week. I wasn’t being mean, I was just calling bullshit by its true name. Krista and Gary are coming along, but there are a bunch of preening would-be experts who presume to lecture us on this praxis we are perfecting, even though they obviously cannot possibly understand what they are not already doing. And so the question everyone should ask, when a vendor gets called out, is: What would David Gibbons do?

[”What would Brian Boitano do?” video from South Park excised, since it is no longer available. (“Dood! They killed Kenny!” “You b*st*rds!”)]

Why do I trust David Gibbons? Why do I trust Mike Price? Why do I trust Michael Wurzer? Because they live in our world. And our world is not simply the RE.net, it’s a corner of the expanding universe of web-enabled free-agents-of-the-marketplace — buyers, sellers, students, teachers, friends even when adversaries. Not your prospect. Not your sucker. Not your stooge. If you intend to try to lecture to us, I think you would be best off learning what we already know that you may not.

With that: On to the awards:

The Odysseus Medal this week goes to Michael Wurzer for Open Letter To Yahoo!, Google, Trulia, and Zillow, Encouraging Data Standards:

The goal we have is simple: Create standards that provide brokers efficient control over their listing data.  With a single standard being widely adopted across the industry, brokers will be able to enter listings once and deliver them when and where they want, including your sites.  This presents the opportunity for a classic win-win-win.  The brokers win, you win, and the technology vendors serving the brokers in their data syndication plans win.

The time is right for all of us working in real estate technology to come together. The schema being developed in the RETS community is well-developed, with the remaining pieces scheduled to be finalized this April at the next trimester meeting in Philadelphia.  This means there is an excellent opportunity for us to work together over the next few months to make sure the schema meet your needs.  The RETS community is very energized to create lasting solutions for all those using listing data, including your organizations.  Further evidence of the energy surrounding RETS is the recent adoption by the NAR MLS Committee of a new policy requiring all MLSs to adopt RETS by June 2009.  As mentioned above, the vast majority of MLSs already support RETS and this new MLS policy, combined with your adoption, will help ensure that the most efficient data standards are both developed and adopted across the industry, which, of course, is the purpose of a standard.

The days of duplicate data entry caused by proprietary data formats can come to an end if we work together for the benefit of the data creators and owners.

The Black Pearl Award this week goes to Krista Baker for 5 Steps for Planning any Marketing Campaign:

It’s easy to get so caught up in the planning stages of your marketing campaign that you never commit to action. You’ve probably heard the phrase “paralysis by analysis” which refers to getting so caught up with all the factors involved in creating the master plan that you never feel confident moving forward.

The truth is that no matter how long you brainstorm about every conceivable possibility that might happen, something won’t go according to plan when you finally do execute. Marketing is a learning process not a one time deal and the only way to know for sure whether something will work or not is to test different marketing messages, different publications, different titles, and so forth.

It’s actually pretty scientific. Just as scientists design models and frameworks for understanding the world and then create real world tests to see if their models hold up, you do the same thing with your marketing campaigns. You identify all the different variables in the equations (your target audience, your marketing message, your design, your title, your offer, etc) then start testing to see which variations work the best.

And, on the subject of trusting vendors who have made an effort to make themselves known to us, this week’s People’s Choice Award goes to Michael Price with Armchair Quarterbacking Real Estate 2.0:

I’m not privy to any inside information on Zillow’s undefined offerings or strategies. My conjecture is based on my mind’s eye concepts of the possibilities and what I know about their current products. If you’re a broker or agent that hasn’t taken the time to at least understand all there is to Zillow, you’re not really in a position to call in any plays.

In the end it’s about the the people. Look at this way, if you’re going to arm chair quarterback Real Estate 2.0, you need to pick the players for your team. If had the likes of Rich Barton, Lloyd Frink, Spencer Rascoff, Sara Bonert, David Gibbons and Drew Meyers on mine, I would feel pretty good about the chance of the “End Game” being in the playoffs. Personally I don’t think the 2005 playbook is being used. But once again, I could be wrong. If so, I will be the first to point it out.

If you didn’t check out this week’s nominees for The Odysseus Medal, you should.

We have a brand new tool for promoting the long-list of Odysseus Medal nominees. The long-list will be shown in that little gizmo until the current week’s awards are announced — meaning now — and then I’ll update it with the new week’s nominees. This is link-love back from BloodhoundBlog, but my reason for building the tool is to promote the best ideas in real estate any way I can. To that end, read this post so that you can learn how to echo the long-list on your own site.

And as always, if you catch a scent of heaven’s delight, nominate it.

Deadline for next week’s competition is Sunday at 12 Noon MST. You can nominate your own work or any post you admire here.

Congratulations to the winners — and to everyone who participated.

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