In the past couple of days I have read a few hundred blog posts. My interests are pretty eclectic.
The blogs I read cover real estate, local blogs, national news, science, photography, art, marketing, humor, writing, blogs and technology. There is more . . .there are 90 million blogs . . .
I am not sure how to say this. This post has been in draft format for a week now and keeps getting changed.
There is an echo in the re-bloggoshere. I small group of people who all interact with each. There is a kind of common wisdom that we all write about and talk about concerning blogs and various web 2.0 tools. It is nice to share a brain with so many others but I sometimes wonder if we would not be better off it we connected to people outside of the real estate industry.
I enjoy interacting with my peers, and plan to continue, but I need to interact more with people who live in St. Paul if I want my business to grow. If I want to expand my mind I need to interact with people in other industries and those who offer fresh perspective, or better yet a different point of view. As I read blog posts I hear my own thoughts being echoed back to me, and I crave a new conversation.
When it comes to educational opportunities I face a kind of dilemma. I greatly enjoy the interaction with others in the industry but I end up listening to a presenter echoing the same ideas I have had and tried. I sometimes pick up a new idea or thought but usually gain more from talking to others and asking them questions than I do from the seminars or panel discussions.
One of the people I share a brain with apologized for sounding arrogant and then went on to tell me that he is not finding much value in some of the educational offerings because they echo what he has already learned. He did not sound arrogant and I was relieved to hear that there are others on the planet who share my desire for education and new information.
My point with this is that I think it is good that we learn so much from each other, and it is nice to share a brain, as a friend of mine said recently "my best ideas come from other peoples brains", But the world is much bigger than the collective and we should not limit ourselves. We need to branch out a bit and learn more from other industries and from consumers and share our brain and collective knowledge with them.
Please see a related post by Todd Carpenter: I Fear you’re underestimate my geekiness sir Since Todd confessed on his blog I can say that he is the friend who apologized for sounding arrogant. Todd is not arrogant by any stretch of the imagination. He is a geek though . . and I am not. 🙂 LOL
Hey T. That post I promised you about this is up on the Fiesta. When are you going to start that geek group on Facebook? It would be my honor to join, then never visit it again. 😛
Todd, nice post I just read it.
Hi Teresa.
I enjoy your blog. I think I know where you are coming from when you say you need to connect locally to grow your business.
I’ve been blogging in one form or another since October of 2004, and I came to the conclusion that some of what I did in the past didn’t have quite the right local focus. I think I’ve started to fix that with my new blog and what I’m calling my Mlog – media log.
I never jumped into all the social media stuff like Twitter, Active Rain, and the like. The thoughts that always kept me from those sites were “What does this do for my clients?” “How does this help me sell real estate?”
I was hard-pressed to come up with solid justifications for participation. My target audience isn’t agents. It’s people who want to buy or sell real estate in Chicago. Sure, I still read the interesting industry blogs, but for the most part, my business strategy has nothing to do with them.
I sort of touch on the idea in a recent post about why I’m not on Facebook.
Let me know what you think.
David – I have never had a problem staying local on my st. Paul re blog and it really does work. You have a point on the social networking but I have been able to make some great local contact because of it so don’t rule it out, it can help.
Kinda resembles my brain (http://bobsbraindump.com)
There is only so many ways you can say the same old stuff… I hear what both of your are saying. There has to be more I agree… I don’t want to do more social networks…just want to understand the big ones that are here now. The problem all of these blogs that we read…they don’t have the one answer we are looking for… We have to find it collectively but separately…What? I know what I am trying to say but just not relaying well.
Yeah…I can relate what you are saying.
Hi Teresa,
RE isn’t the only industry having this problem. I’m heavily dialed into the cutting edge tech scene out here in the Bay Area and there’s the same type of ‘Echo Chamber’ fatigue in that industry as well. It’s even getting to the point where people are boycotting TechMeme so that they can escape the echo chamber effect that it encourages.
Sometimes it’s good to take a step back and evaluate your overall online strategy from a broader perspective. If you’re not getting the value you’re thirsting for, it might be time to shift your strategy. Sometimes even the slightest change can bring vastly different results.
–Andy
http://twitter.com/andykaufman
Andy – I never really thought about it but you have a pint it isn’t just the re bloggosphere. It is easier in any industry to just keep reinforcing each other and echoing that it is to try something new. I like the idea of a slight strategy shift too, I have been thinking about that and think i know what I want to do. 🙂
It’s entirely impossible to try something you when you are hooked to the collective Borg. I pity your echo-ness. 😉