BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Author: Greg Swann (page 119 of 209)

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

December 7, 2007

Seth unchained: Getting permission to put yourself beyond competition

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Another way of understanding the unchained idea is to envision a world (I call it yesterday) where marketers avidly sought ways to tie down consumers — with tricks, with lies, with a lack of alternatives. Consumers have broken those chains. That world is gone.

Here is Seth Godin talking about what will replace it:

The defectors know something you don’t. The defectors know that if they hurry, they can build a new monopoly, a monopoly you don’t control. They know that they can build a direct and long-term relationship with the end user, one that will survive competitive incursions and will last a long time. If they hurry.

And so, learn from these folks. You should hurry. You must hurry. If you understand that the game is radically and permanently being changed, you can go out today and start building mutually beneficial relationships with your listeners/readers/watchers. You can offer these folks something of value in exchange for their attention. You can then build a new monopoly.

More:

You have a relationship. You understand that every interaction has to benefit BOTH of you or the relationship is over. If you’re going to build a monopoly on consumer attention, you’ll need to do the same thing.

Here’s how I boil it down to as few words as possible:

  • 1. Make it easy for your happy users to tell as many of their friends as possible.
  • 2. Give away free samples early and often.
  • 3. Get permission from anyone who likes what you do to follow up with anticipated, personal and relevant messages that benefit both of you.
  • 4. If this requires changing what you make and what you charge for, fine.
  • 5. If steps 1,2, 3 and 4 mess up your current business model, fine.

The article is about the mainstream media monopolies, but it’s directly apposite to the real estate industry. Read the whole thing.

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December 6, 2007

Dancing on bridges? Watch as a master masters the steps

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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I mentioned Dancing on bridges earlier tonight. This is one of my favorite posts, and, I think, my best explication of how weblogging works as art.

Richard Riccelli is never less than stunning at anything he does, so it’s no surprise that he should write so well at his new weblog. Go see the man at his best. And, to think, he’s just getting started…

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December 6, 2007

Unchained melodies: The streets is where I dance . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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This is a Teri and Greg mash-up, which is appropriate. It was Teri who first brought up the idea of musical themes for Unchained. At that time, I wrote this to her in email:

Here is why I like Unchained:

  • The idea of free or even feral dogs
  • Unleashed implies has-been-leashed or will-be-leashed-again, but unchained can suggest never-having-been-chained
  • Again unlike unleashed, unchained has connotations of human slavery or imprisonment, and hence manumission or liberation
  • The word looks and sounds hard and edgy, promoting a hard and edgy graphic representation

These metaphors are not new to me, nor is the metaphor of dancing. I don’t actually care about dancing, but I care a lot about metaphors.

Teri cares about dancing, though, so we start with this, Fred and Ginger, George and Ira and all that jazz:

I like that talented-nebbish-gets-the-girl thing, and I like the idea of people growing into their own moral authority, and who better to express those ideas in dance than… Jim Carrey…

Finally there’s this, from the King of Soul, James Brown:

Teri found a better version, but it can’t be embedded.

Are you dancing to a different beat? Tell us what we’re missing — but be patient. I have dozens of tunes on queue and it will take a while to get to them all.

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December 6, 2007

Compassionate Conservative or Banana Republican?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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I have a tremendous admiration for George W. Bush, the President of the United States. My reasons are legion, and the rest of America will have to wait for historians to explain to them just what a great man they have so completely scorned in their well-scored chorus. But Phil Boas of the Arizona Republic gave us all sufficient reason to revere this president in just a few words:

American presidents for three decades have kicked the can of global terror down the road for some other poor sucker to deal with. George W. Bush did not. And that’s why, even when it’s utterly unfashionable to say so, I still greatly admire his leadership and courage. Thank you, President Bush.

Even so… The man is a politician, a currier of favor and a courier of tyranny. “No child left behind” will assure that no poor child will ever again get ahead. The Patriot Act should give nightmares to any patriot who can envision yet another President Clinton. Government never grows so large as it does under the cultivation of allegedly anti-government Republicans. And now… Full-blown Banana Republican bail-outs, as a reward for financial error.

From Cafe Hayek:

Today’s Washington Post brings a nice example:

“President Bush will announce this afternoon an agreement with major mortgage firms to freeze interest rates for five years for financially troubled homeowners — a plan advocates say will help forestall a major foreclosure crisis but some conservatives say amounts to a bailout of people who made bad financial decisions.”

Bush, the so-called conservative who supposedly believes in the "ownership" society where people take responsibility for their own actions and act responsibly because they bear the costs and reap the benefits, is going to bail out people who acted irresponsibly. I love the end of the WaPo quote—"some conservatives say." The implication is that other conservatives and liberals disagree. But isn’t it a bail out of people who made bad financial decisions? Would anyone disagree?

I like this part, too:

“But it appears no tax dollars will be used to subsidize the freeze on interest rates. That cost would be borne primarily by lenders and Read more

December 5, 2007

Unchained melodies: It’s all right, Ma, it’s only Dylan

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Someone suggested Positively 4th Street, but that’s much too cruel. These clips all come from the deluxe edition of D. A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back.

Johnny Cash’s cover of It ain’t me, babe is used to huge advantage in the Cash biopic, Walk the line.

It’s all over now, baby blue is another one that gets covered a lot.

Here’s a tune that no one covers: It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you’d just be
One more person crying.

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know Read more

December 4, 2007

Inman Bloggers’ Disconnect: Absorbing the priceless wisdom of brilliant speakers who are not doing what you’re trying to do…

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Here are a couple of salient facts, evidently unknown behind the Rust Curtain of the Inman Empire:

  • To the extent that Glenn Kelman is a weblogger at all, he is a corporate weblogger. He doesn’t know anything about real estate weblogging, as he made plain in his sweet, charming, engaging keynote address at last summer’s Blogger’s Connect.
  • Lockhart Steele publishes real estate porn. I’m told Curbed is a fun read (I don’t read it), but it’s not real estate weblogging as we understand it. As with Kelman, I’m sure Steele knows many interesting things. They’re just not the things real estate webloggers might hope to learn by attending Blogger’s Connect.

So: Inman runs an event, Have a Cigar as far as I can tell, and delivers speakers who know nothing about the topic.

This makes sense to whom?

The logical choices for the keynote address were me, Dustin Luther, Brian Brady or Joel Burslem. Brad Inman seems to carefully identify and recruit coveted audiences so he can spit on them, but, in this case, I think the man simply doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Come to the Blogger’s Connect keynote address and learn how to… what?

Truly stoopid…

A big bonus for BloodhoundBlog Unchained, in any case. We were going to kick ass anyway, but the contrast will be that much more telling.

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December 3, 2007

The Odysseus Medal: “We can see the bottom through clearing water”

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Actions have consequences. When we became a group weblog, I set my sights on the very best writers. We haven’t recruited actively until recently, but, even so, a lot of the most talented voices in the RE.net have ended up writing here. Three of this week’s short list of thirteen nominated posts came from BloodhoundBlog, and I cut mercilessly to get down to three. Worse (better!), four more of the thirteen were written by BloodhoundBlog contributors working from their home weblogs. And this week — for the first but probably not the last time — all three winners come from the Bloodhound kennel. I would apologize for that, except that would require me to apologize for having the wit to pick out good writers in the first place!

All that said, The Odysseus Medal this week goes to Brian Brady for 2008 Housing Market Outlook For U.S. Investors:

While astute investors will have a virtual plethora of homes to buy, in the first half of 2008, they shouldn’t be PAINFULLY picky. Investors should be judicious but painfully picky is a sure-fire way to ensure that no deal will ever make sense. The shift in housing next year will put an upward pressure on rents, over the next five years, as the percentage of home ownership declines from its national high. It is conceivable, in the transition markets of Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, that rents could rise as much as 20%, in the next five years, as those former homeowners lease homes. The long-term fundamentals of these markets still make sense. More people move to those locales than leave each year so steady population growth is on an investor’s side.

While the forecast for 2008 is grim, there are silver linings amidst this black cloud. Investors will have opportunities to own great properties if they understand that while we may not be touching the bottom, we can see the bottom through clearing water. Investors should analyze property investments and consider purchase offers with both economic and utilitarian values in mind. In the aforementioned Phoenix example, digging your heels in and proclaiming that "the Read more

December 2, 2007

Unchained melodies: My way

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Daniel Rothamel offers up Frank Sinatra’s version of Paul Anka’s My way, citing these lyrics:

For What is a man? What has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who yields. The record shows, I took the blows, and did it my way.

Okayfine. For my own part, I’ve always thought this song lays it on a little too thick, as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll at his thickest makes plain:

Sid Vicious gave it a pomo send-up, but the tune just might be beyond parody:

I do like the idea, but I worry that the first-person protagonist might be too much a Walter Mittyesque legend-in-his-own-mind. And so I end up here, with Limp Bizkit, to me a more convincing expression of the sentiment:

What else is out there?

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December 2, 2007

The Odysseus Medal competition — Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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A baker’s dozen this week. Vote for the People’s Choice Award here. You can use the voting interface to see each nominated post, so comparison is easy.

Voting runs through to 12 Noon MST Monday. I’ll announce the winners of this week’s awards soon thereafter.

Here is this week’s short-list of Odysseus Medal nominees:

< ?PHP $AltEntries = array ( "Marlow Harris -- Iggy's House Iggy’s House and B.S. Realty”,
“Jeff Brown — Lenders lend Lenders Clearing Deck To Blink, Uh, Lend — What Will They Think of Next?“,
“Robert Ashby — Credit crunch What Should be Done About the Continued Credit Crunch? How About Nothing?“,
“Jim Duncan — NAR speak Why use a realtor – decoding nar-speak“,
“Chris Johnson — 2011 Why 2011 might not even be the end“,
“Michael Wurzer — Advertising Everything Is Advertising“,
“Brian Brady — Market outlook 2008 Housing Market Outlook For U.S. Investors“,
“Kris Berg — Real estate blogging The Real Reason Your Agent Should be Blogging“,
“Jim Watkins — Foreclosure Sad Story of a Family in Foreclosure: Some things You Hate to See“,
“Mariana Wagner — RE agent You know you’re a real estate agent if…“,
“Geno Petro — Serendipity Serendipity, straight up“,
“Jay Thompson — NAR COE 7,373 Words – The NAR Code of Ethics“,
“Cathleen Colins — Memories Memories of my Dad in the house he never got to see”
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    Deadline for next week’s competition is Sunday at 12 Noon MST. You can nominate your own weblog entry or any post you admire here.

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