In the early days of the FBS Blog, Robbie Paplin commented that our development platform at FBS was “close to the metal”. I love this phrase and have now leveraged it into our strategic theme for 2009, which is getting closer to the MeTAL by Measuring, Testing, Adjusting and Learning. Here’s some of what I wrote to introduce MeTAL to our employee-owners:
Close to the metal is where life is most lived. When you’re close to the metal, you’re truly an expert in that pursuit. You know every intricacy, deep down. You know the history of the practice, its origins and evolution. With that knowledge, you’re able to evolve the practice yourself. You’re able to create.
With regard to MLS, we are close to the metal already. We are experts. We understand the intricacies and nuances of the industry and are evolving with it. One of the beautiful things about being close to the metal, however, is that you know what you don’t know. As experts, we know we have a lot to learn.
FBS has grown a lot in the last several years and I attribute that growth to the unwavering passion of our employee-owners to respond to our customers’ needs. When a company grows, however, passion and effort need to be focused. So, for 2009 and beyond, we’re focusing our passion through science or MeTAL. We’ve studied a lot of key metrics in our business for years, including things like average page delivery times (APDs), system reliability, support responsiveness, and, of course, financial results.
However, there’s so much more we can and need to do both for ourselves and our customers in terms of measuring and testing results.
There will be no stone uncovered through this process, and our expectation is that the MeTAL mantra will become second-nature to all we do here at FBS.
Importantly, we also understand measurement has its limits as we’ve all learned watching the Wall Street melt-down over the last year (if you haven’t read the linked article, I highly recommend it). Measuring is dangerous if not limited by adjusting and learning. Too often, we look at metrics as “the answer” instead of just a guide. Equally (or more) important, we believe that measurement is of actions and results, not people. As I wrote to our employees in announcing our strategic plan:
The idea of measurement often conjures negative emotions. Measurement can imply judgment and few like to be judged. As I wrote some time ago, Scott Adams has made a fortune mocking managers who pretend they are in control through their elaborate cathedrals of metrics. This is not how we want to approach getting closer to the metal. The only purpose of measurement is to learn, not to judge. Anyone who judges from measurement is a tyrant and a fool, and we’ll tolerate neither here at FBS.
So we enter 2009 with great respect for our customers and ourselves, and the expectation of constant learning and improvement in the coming years. I’d love to hear from you as to what you think we should be measuring and what you think we could do to help you understand our service and your customers better.
Back in November 2008, Mark Lesswing predicted that mobile applications would be big for 2009. The better browsers in the iPhone, Blackberry devices, and other phones like the upcoming Palm Pre all provide for more opportunities to build cool mobile applications like those announced by Trulia not too long ago. Clareity Consulting also is running a mobile applications show down at their conference in early March. I’m curious to see what applications will be shown.
What applications do you think add the most value for real estate?
What mobile phone applications would provide most value?
( surveys)
One of our products is an IDX smart-frame, which includes a photos tab. On that photos tab, we present all the photos from the MLS but we don’t auto-rotate the photos. We made this decision because we found it hard to find the right rotation speed for our taste — it was either too fast or too slow. However, some of our competitors offer auto-rotating, auto-zooming and auto-panning photo tours and we’ve heard from some customers and prospects that these are important features.
Before we add them, however, we thought it might useful to see what you all think. So, is auto-rotating the way to go?
Is auto-rotating better than manual for photo tours?
( surveys)
Also, do you think auto-zooming and panning more important than auto-rotating?
Is auto-zooming and panning more important than auto-rotating for photo tours?
( surveys)
Thanks for your feedback.
The RETS community has been busy for the last year or so trying to prepare MLSs for June 2009, when the NAR MLS Committee has required all MLSs to be RETS compliant. This is a great step forward for national RETS compliance, but I have a more incentive-based approach for promoting RETS adoption.
NRDS is the National REALTORS Database System or, more simply, the directory for all NAR members. All the NAR-affiliated Associations of REALTORS are required to keep this system up to date. For many smaller Associations (the ones NAR is trying to get to adopt RETS), keeping NRDS up to date means double-entering the data into both the MLS system and the NRDS system. So, I’m thinking NAR could save everyone a lot of time and money by making NRDS RETS-compliant. Associations would win, NAR would win, MLS vendors would win, and NAR would win. That’s a lot of winning, from what could/should be a relatively straight-forward project for NAR.
Rob Hahn is going to assemble a poll for the best American band. I nominate Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I’m not a great musicologist but I fondly recall many great parties in high school, college, and especially law school that were defined by this band’s music. When I hear their songs today, I’m transported and that’s about the best compliment I can provide.
Check out this Inman article. Very interesting. CALMLS — the entity formed by the California Association of REALTORS to create a statewide MLS in California — is looking to buy other MLSs in the state. This is going to be fascinating to watch. CALMLS has the theory that there’s a lot of money being wasted in California MLSs by redundancy, and so I guess they’re making the case to the state Board of Directors that plunking down some millions now will save them money in the long haul. That seems dubious to me and I’d love see the actual numbers they’re using, and whether the costs they’re projecting are from real MLSs or assumed.
Based on this from the Inman article, my skepticism is shared by Art Carter from CARETS:
Art Carter, CEO for MRMLS, a Southern California MLS that is a participant in CARETS, questioned the plans by CALMLS to purchase a regional MLS or several regional MLSs.
“It seems like they’re using money to go after member assets,” Carter said. Why not be supportive of what’s already there?”
He also noted that MRMLS “is not among the regionals that they’ve approached” in seeking an acquisition.
“From our standpoint it’s a little disappointing that (CALMLS representatives) have basically gone to the leadership — the directors at CAR — and asked for the permission to go out and create something new,” Carter said.
Last week, Carter shared the stage with Joel Singer, executive vice president for the California Association of Realtors, during an MLS panel discussion at the Real Estate Connect conference in New York City, and Singer said he was hopeful that CARETS would play a role in the statewide MLS initiative.
The MLS panel referenced in the article was one of the panels I moderated. The discussion was very interesting but it came down to a single issue: Everyone agreed that a single data repository was the way to go, but they all thought their repository would be best.
Given that CARETS already exists, that first mover advantage has to mean something, but this is going to be very interesting to watch. How much money will CAR members be willing to spend to allow these powers that be sort out the politics? Or will cooler heads prevail and pick a winner from the start? Or will this end up being a colossal waste of money? Stay tuned.
Coming out of Inman last week, there are several people talking about “natural language search” for real estate, presumably based on MRIS’s new consumer-facing web site with this search format. The idea is simple: we all search Google, Yahoo! and other sites from a single text box, so why shouldn’t that same approach work for real estate?
Answer: Because it doesn’t have to! The reason Google and Yahoo! search the way they do is that they’re organizing unstructured data. If the data is structured, providing the consumer search options in that structure is much easier for them.
Need proof? Look at the way Google designed their real estate search, structuring elements like price, bedrooms, bathrooms, and area:
Of course, providing non-abbreviated search terms and searching remarks and other unstructured data is important, and MLSs could do a better job of that, but the idea that users want to type in things like 3-4 bedrooms, 3000-4000 square feet, etc., rather than using structured controls, seems to me to be making something that already is easy more complex. What do you think is natural for real estate search?
I’m on a panel called “MLS In Your Face” at the Association Executive Institute meetings in Colorado Springs, March 20-24 (my panel is on Monday, March 23). The description of the panel provided by NAR provides:
MLS in Your Face
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.Facilitator: Marilyn Wilson-Lund, Founding Partner, WAV
Group, Arroyo Grande, CAPanelists: Errol Samuelson, President, REALTOR.com,
Top Producer Systems and the Enterprise, Richmond, BC,
Canada; Mike Wurzer, President and CEO, FBS Data
Systems, Fargo, NDThis panel will share with you the most recent endeavors
to display MLS listings on a public-facing website. You’ll be
introduced to new and innovative websites, blogs, and other
2.0 Web formats that invite public and REALTOR® feedback
on members and listings. Learn what is happening with the
exposure of the MLS listing content to the public, the legitimate
and improper uses of MLS listing content, and an explanation of
websites that are destination, channel, and more.
Honestly, I’m aware of very few “Web formats that invite public and REALTOR® feedback on . . . listings.” There are several agent rating sites out there, but listing rating sites? When Redfin tried this, they got in trouble. The only sites I can think of that even ask for comment on specific listings are Zillow, Trulia, and FranklyMLS.com (I thought dwellicious might do this but, in checking today, I had to login first, so I don’t think it’s public comment). Anyone else know of any other sites inviting public comment on listings?
Of course, plenty of sites allow visitors to ask questions of the agent, but those questions or comments are not public. Also, there are listings portals, such as flexmls Web, that allow for consumers and agents to discuss listings in private but that’s quite different than discussing the listings in the public. What are your thoughts on public comment on listings? How about rating listings?
Lastly, what are your favorite agent rating sites?
The other night I had dinner with Dan Woolley and Greg Robertson, two friends who are serial entrepeneurs now working on building their third business, Dwellicious. During dinner, we had an excellent discussion on the pros and cons of an ESOP and employee ownership. When I got home from dinner, I cruised through my feed reader and came across Glenn Kelman’s post A Free Call on the American Economy, which I think summarizes the issues quite well (in my words): owners are inclined to survive and entrepreneurs need to strive.
Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to step up and out in order to create something new. The emphasis is on something new — they want to create that new business and will do whatever it takes to make it grow. Owners, in contrast, are more conservative. They’re looking long. They already have something they’re looking to grow and build upon, and not lose. These are entirely different perspectives, whether you have your own money on the table or not.
During dinner, Greg asked why I turned FBS into a 100% employee-owned company as opposed to going it on my own. My response was longer than I want to write now, but a decent summary is that I’m an owner and not an entrepreneur. I don’t want to take huge risks but I want to grow FBS with like-minded people. Making employees owners is all about risk distribution, creating accountability, and building a company designed to last.
At the same time, this from Glenn’s post resonates with me: “So while ownership is an important virtue, the willingness to take risks on a big idea is too.” There’s no doubt risk-taking is important to every business, otherwise you stagnate and likely die. This is the challenge we have before us, how to maintain our ownership mentality while taking sufficient risks to grow.
There’s a self-inflicted meme going around about the web sites you use most. I like this idea, so here are my favorites/most used, in no particular order:
I don’t use Facebook or LinkedIn enough to warrant putting them on the list. I also could mention my Blackberry Pearl as a tool, but that’s sort of like saying oxygen is a tool. What are your most used sites?
