There’s always something to howl about.

The Odysseus Medal: Our own style of disintermediation brings us all closer to the liberty that is self-reliance

I’m not going to award an Odysseus Medal this week. The Short List candidates were very good, but nothing killed me, and I want for this award to celebrate work that is beyond excellent. But: I do want to cite two Honorable Mentions, two posts that I thought were very good, and which took us in directions we will need to travel as we come more and more to be our own sources of arcane information.

It’s funny actually: Our relationship as webloggers to the mainstream media is very much like our clients’ relationship to us. They want to take on more of the work that was once exclusively ours, just as we seek to take on more of the work that was once hidden behind the walls of print and broadcast outlets.

The two posts I am citing, The Proposed Solutions Are Going To Be Worse Than The Mortgage Crisis by Doug Quance and Barack Obama’s Mortgage Reform Policy by Morgan Brown, illustrate the kind of depth of understanding we can achieve when we apply ourselves. By now it seems likely that our presidential nominees have been chosen, and I look forward to this kind of thoughtful analysis of the real estate and economic implications of the candidates’ proposals.

Black Pearls we have, though, and more than just a few. Choosing one was a problem. The Black Pearl Award this week goes to Jim Cronin for Blogging Etiquette – The Blog Comment Policy – Do You Need One?:

Blogs are meant to be a two-way street.  We are blogging for an audience.  Engaging that audience to participate is a huge part of the the motivation and an element that can define a blog’s success.

So where do you draw the line?

What do you consider acceptable behavior by the audience, on your real estate blog?

For a lot of real estate bloggers, their blog is an extension of their business.  This means that their reputation, credibility, personality, works, message and even their career are potentially on the line with every article published.

What are you doing to protect the above?

The following are a number of items that range from mildly unacceptable to extremely offensive when it comes to the behavior of those leaving comments on your site.  Setting a proper comment policy for your real estate blog can be used as a deterrent and for piece of mind when choosing to edit or delete offensive comments left on your business blog.

This week’s People’s Choice Award goes to Mike Farmer for Folk Music, Blame and Fundamental Solutions:

Blame tends to lead the mind in wrong directions and use up energy better spent on fundamental solutions. Every day I’m given what is, and I can recognize it and work with it or complain about it and avoid it. Knowing the causes of the RE bog is useful information, but it doesn’t help me deal with how it affects my business if blame is as far as I get.

Joe and Jane Smith, sitting at their breakfast table in Hoboken, NJ, are reading about bankruptcies (symptomatic problem) blaming the situation on the ignorance of home buyers biting off more than they can chew, feeling intellectually and financially superior to the dunces facing foreclosure, yet Jr. Smith, their 15 year old son, has every video game game known to man and has never been taught the value of a dollar or the definitions of “no” or “wait” (fundamental problem).

A big bank is foreclosing left and right or delaying the inevitable with extensions (symptomatic solution) while everyone is blaming and covering their butts and no one is talking about the mental models within the organization that need to change in order to prevent this from happening in the future (fundamental solution).

When I hear people getting too caught up in blaming, it always comes across as defeatism, a cop-out, avoidance or a form of puffery to feel superior. On the other hand, simple “positive thinking” and “will power” as mental gimmicks to create unrealistic expectations seem futile and superficial as well.

So, next time I’m expending unproductive energy complaining that media hacks are “killing my bizness” or bluster up like Norman Vincent Peale on steroids, I’ll go visit the guitar man and get centered where only the daily pursuit of fundamental solutions matters.

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. 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.

The Long List also has its very own weblog, a link blog of the latest Long List nominees as they are nominated. Feel free to visit, but probably the best way for you to keep abreast of the best in real estate weblogging is to subscribe to The Long List RSS feed.

And as always, if you see one of Clio’s daughters shambling by, drop a dime on the girl.

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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