Keller Williams Berkeley's RED Day Project at the Chaparral House
May 23, 2010 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Last Thursday the MEBA team, along with other members of our Keller Williams Berkeley office spent the day outside in the sun working at the Chaparral House in Berkeley. The outing was part of the second annual RED (Renew, Energize and Donate) Day, a Keller Williams service initiative dedicated to improving our local communities and it ended up being a lot of fun.
Here’s a video that I put together from our outing. If you look closely, you can see that it’s indeed true that you can take a REALTOR out of the office for a day, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t pry the phone from their head. 
Mark Your Calendars, the First MEBA MeetUp is Thursday March 4th
February 26, 2010 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Hi there!
This Thursday (the 4th) a few of us are going to get together and dig a little deeper into a few different topics & then do some socializing. The format will be loosely based upon Open Space principles & we’re calling it the first official MEBA Meetup. If you’re reading this and want to participate, we’d love to have you.
When : Thursday March 4th from 6-8pm.
Where : 900 Colusa Ave #206 in Berkeley (Cross St. Solano)
Hope to see you on Thursday.
[Help] The RE.net Help the Tornado Victims
February 8, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
A few days ago, while we were out voting and partying on Super Fat Tuesday, a series of Tornadoes left a path of destruction that killed over 50 people and left thousands homeless.
Almost immediately, Benn and Lani over at Agent Genius jumped into action and began to mobilize the RE.net to do what they help those in need.
What you can do to help:
1. Click the donate button below (thanks to Jay Thompson) and give whatever you can.
2. Help spread the word. Use all these social media tools that we have at our disposal to help get the word out. Blog about it, Talk about it on Twitter, Record an Utterz or Seesmic and ask your friends, fans and readers to do the same.
More info can be found over on Agent Genius & BloodhoundBlog
Reinforcing the RE.net Community with RE BarCamp
January 20, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
In the 48 hours since I announced the first RE BarCamp on ZebraTalk show & on Agent Genius, the RE.net community has mobilized into action and is laying the foundation for a dynamite event.
The wiki is filling up.
We have a logo. (Thanks Mike!)
People are blogging about it. and a blog for the event itself is being built now up and running (Thanks Todd!)
We have a Facebook group & we have event listings on both Facebook & Upcoming.
Benn is all over it on Agent Genius. He even posted a list of things that you can do to help.
- Check out the RE BarCamp wiki & the new logo?!
- Ask your association to donate!
- Ask Your Broker to donate!
- Blog about RE BarCamp!
- Twitter about RE BarCamp!
- Facebook about RE BarCamp!
- Commit to Attend!
Not to mention, our list of sponsors is growing quickly. All those on the following list have stepped up to the plate with a $250 commitment towards making this a momentous event.
Brainous.com
Jim Duncan/RealCentralVA.com
MLBroadcast.Com
ZillowBlog
Virginia Association of Realtors
Agent Genius
Zipvo.Com
Real Estate Zebra
MyEastBayAgent
No Blogger Left Behind
Thanks to everybody who is pitching in. Let’s keep building momentum!
Changing the Conversation Over @ Trulia Voices
January 17, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
If you look on the right sidebar, you’ll see that I’m a ‘Local Ambassador’ for the SF based Real Estate search site Trulia. Basically this means that every now and then, I take some time to answer questions from home buyers and sellers on Trulia Voices.
I used to really enjoy doing it, but over the past few months not so much.
First, agent to agent talk started increasing and taking over a forum that was supposed to focus on RE professionals answering questions posed by consumers. While this diluted the purpose of the forum, I wasn’t too worried that it would completely change the dynamics of the forum for the worse.
One thing that DID start to bug me, and many agent contributers that I talk to, was that I didn’t feel like I was getting anything in return from taking the time to give well thought out answers and that many of the professionals were giving shoddy, spammy answers.
Although I haven’t heard directly that someone wanted to work with me after reading my voices answers, I believe that my answers are contributing to my professional online reputation and they’ve also given us a voucher for a free months worth of featured placements for our listings in return for participating. (which I’ve still got to get around to using). For these reasons, I’ve decided to give them a pass on the ROI thing for the time being.
My real gripe with Voices in it’s current form, is with the pervasiveness of the anti-REALTOR sentiment and overall vibe of the forum. More often than not, I’ve left the place feeling dirty and used and that’s not going to work for me if I’m going to continue contributing to Voices. I’m not sure how to deal with this problem, and I know that the Trulians are probably actively searching for ways to fix it, but it’s not going to go away without them taking some sort of action.
Today, Trulia decided to cordon off an area for agents to speak to other agents directly, and called it Agent2Agent. This should help define the conversation a bit and also means that agents no longer will be acting outside the guidelines by engaging each other instead of the consumer.
Greg thinks this means that they’re gunning for ActiveRain. I’m not so sure about that and agree with Dustin that they’re doing this to segregate the conversation, which I think that it will help do.
Hopefully the changes that they announced today will mark the start of the turnaround and hope that more changes are in store.
I’d love to start to visiting again without feeling like I have to take a shower afterwards.
The 30 Day Challenge – The Recap & the Future
January 15, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Wow, that went by quick. The first 30 day challenge is over and it was a whole lot more fun than i thought it was going to be. During the challenge, I put out a blog post on 27 of the 30 days. Knowing that I was committed to a daily post, kept me in the mind set of constantly searching for my next post.
As a result of the challenge:
- I’ve grooved a new positive habit
- My traffic has more than doubled
- I’m rediscovering my voice & making new connections
- I’m having fun doing it.
That = a W in my book. Thanks to all who joined along and lent me support, I really appreciate it.
So what’s next? …Another 30 day challenge of course!!
I’m already feeling a little anxious about this next one, which is going to focus on bridging the digital divide.
I’ve decided that for the next 30 days, i’m going to call 30 people whom I primarily have an online connection to. I’m not the biggest fan of talking on the phone, but after having a few awesome conversations in the past couple of weeks with online friends, I’ve decided that committing to doing this for the next thirty days wouldn’t be so bad.
Plus I’m thinking that after the 30 days, I’ll either still dislike talking on the phone as much as I do now, or maybe I’ll discover a newfound love for it. The way I see it, it’s a case of ‘nowhere to go, but up.’
Who’s down for round 2?
flickr photo credit: ecstaticist tag:calendar
Looking to Build Your Business? Come and Mastermind With Us
January 10, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Over the next year, we’re going to be focusing our efforts on building our audience and turning casual readers into a thriving community. One of the ways that we’re going to be doing this is reaching out to local entrepreneurs and small business owners so that we can leverage our talents to help each other grow.
If you’re going to be in the East Bay on January 19 and want to spend a Saturday with us brainstorming ways to improve your business, we invite you to join us for a mastermind event at our office in North Berkeley.
We’re going to be teaming up with the East bay Entrepreneur and Small Business MeetUp group, led by Patrick Schwerdtfeger, for the event and after a brief introduction, we’re going to break off into small groups and spend an hour on each participant’s business brainstorming a list of ways to build each other’s businesses.
So if you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur in the area and want to make the commitment to spending a Saturday building your business, we’d love to have you join us.
flickr photocredit: andyburnfield tag:mastermind
If You Live in San Francisco and Want to Be a Good Neighbor…
January 5, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
…go to this site and help Meraki build a free wireless network to eventually cover all of San Francisco.
After noticing the ‘Free the Net’ network while at BarCamp Block last August, I did a bit of research and saw that Meraki was offering free repeaters to San Francisco residents that were willing to place them in the properties in hopes of building a citywide wifi mesh network.
Free the Net is a community-built network. Meraki provides the technology, but we rely on people to help build and grow. There are a number of ways you can help:
- If you can see the Free the Net signal, sign up for a free repeater to boost your signal.
- Volunteer to host an outdoor repeater on your roof or balcony. The outdoor units help spread the signal throughout your neighborhood and are critical to the growth of the network.
- Spread the word! Tell your friends and neighbors to sign up at http://sf.meraki.com.
- Check out the network map and keep yourself up-to-date on our progress.
I’ve been rocking one for the past few months and can attest that they are super easy to setup (plug in= done) and that it feels good to do my part to bring the free wireless interweb tubes to my neighborhood.
Check it out!
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