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Watch Shannon Williams-King discuss tools and tactics to make your mobile office, more mobile and more productive

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I like the Twitter List Widget – EOM

That is CRT making sure the leaders of the YPN are well proTechted. In the following days, we will recap the sessions that were streamed live. All the presentation can be found here:

Business Tech: Office in the Cloud
Defining the Social Me – Dustin Luther (4Realz)
Google Voice – Keith garner (NAR)
Smart Phones Port desai (NAR)
Understanding the Internet Consumer Spencer Rascoff (Zillow)

The history of the Internet is a story of inverse proportion; as technology accelerates, the barriers to it—both monetary and technological—shrink. During one of my CRT presentations (Digitally Expose Yourself), I lead off by asking “Who has been using email since 1971?” Only once has someone raised their hand. And while you may be wondering who would be naive enough to think that they could h...

The 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo is upon us. If you’ll be one of the real estate professionals attending, don’t miss the information packed sessions & tech resources CRT is offering.

CRT WiFi Hotspot
In the Hyatt’s Manchester Foyer
Starting Wednesday evening, November 11 thru Monday 2pm, November 16

Bring your laptop & stay connected to your home and the office. While you are at the CRT WiF...

CRT is excited to announce the partnership with the Regional MLS of Minnesota and LiveValuation in the creation of a free/open source MLS Appraisal Tool. More details in the press release.

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These days, it seems like I can’t go anywhere without hearing about Windows 7. With that in mind, let’s take a brief look at why everyone seems to be completely enamored by the software. For Windows Vista users, the change is pretty gradual. Windows 7 borrows many of the user interface enhancements that were first introduced in Vista. For XP users, however, the change is dramatic. Speaking a...

OK – I know this is upwards of two months out from Part I — There has just been so much amazing things going on with Conference around the corner. However, I am keeping to my word, and giving you the techie details about creating a Selective Tweet feed directly into your Facebook Profile or Page.

I broke my method into two different steps. This was so I can be even a little more selective with ...

One of the big buzzwords in technology these days is the idea of “the Cloud”. While this is not really a new idea, some services that are associated with cloud computing have recently become more viable. At CRT we recently had a chance to use a cloud service for our RETS compliance tester, specifically the virtual server service, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (E2) from Amazon Web Services. ...

Lately, the term ‘computing in the cloud’ has been popping up a lot. Curious to find out what it means, I did some research. At a basic level, it sounds like many of us are already using applications that leverage data residing in the Cloud. This is what I found.

What is the Cloud?
The Cloud is still an evolving model, and it is described differently by different sources. The National Institut...

vi·sion·ar·y | noun

One who is given to impractical or speculative ideas; a dreamer.

Taqi Rizvi, Chief Technology Officer for the Houston Association, is the man behind one of the first MLS Public Websites in the country, HAR.com, which has gone on to become a model for innovation. He has led a team of 7 in the implementation of over 100 REALTOR(R) and consumer tools that have contributed to HAR...

ad·vo·cate | noun

One that argues for a cause; a supporter or defender

Tina Merrit, Virginia REALTOR(R), has dedicated countless hours to educating and training real estate professionals at every level of understanding and is nationally known through her blog, participation at Inman Connect, and through the Virginia Association. She currently is the Director of Training at Long and Foster’s Oce...

pi·o·neer | noun

One who ventures into unknown or unclaimed territory to settle.

Brandon Rodriguez, REALTOR(R) Dallas Texas, while serving on the Texas Association Politcal Action and Education Forums, was named one of the Top 50 REALTORS(R) on the Rise by RisMedia in 2006. His goal since starting in the business was to create a completely virtual brokerage, something only dreamt of in 2001. O...

in·no·va·tor | noun

One who begins or introduces (something new) for, or as if for, the first time

Ed DeRosa’s, Director of Technology for the Florida Association of REALTORS(R), future-thinking and determination has provided great cost savings to the Florida Association through his impementation of technology. Leading his staff of IT professionals, Ed continually proves that he understands the...

Google has slowly been integrating their tasks into some of their other products (GMail, GCal, etc). I have slowly been using it, especially after it popped up as a window in GMail.

I also tend to do things the hard way for a short period of time. I kept a little paper task list, that served as a brain dump. After it got scribbled on, coffee ringed, etc – I would rewrite it, archive the old...

Now that the hard part is done, let the fun begin! This year’s award reception will be held at the famous Hotel Solamar in San Diego’s GasLamp District.

Join the Center for REALTOR Technology during the Young Professional’s Networking Reception on Friday, November 13th starting at 7PM to honor these exceptional individuals.

Registration is now open. Update/Clarification The reception is OPEN for anyone to attend while their are spaces still available!!!

Please take a moment to congratulate the 2009 REALTOR(R) Technology Spotlight Award Winners!! We will be providing some more information on each of them over the next couple days! Again, please join us in applauding these exceptional technology mavens!

Advocate
Tina Merrit – Long and Foster

Innovator
Ed DeRosa – Florida Association of REALTORS

Pioneer
Brandon Rodriguez – Brandon Michael & ...

One of the great challenges when talking with people about their on-line habits is explaining the web browser and talking about which ones people are using and why. Jason Toff at Google ran into this problem when talking to his mom and put together a little video to explain what the browser is. What struck me most about his blog post, though, was the (admittedly by him) very non-scientific graph...

This PDF stumbled into my email earlier today. Its a really clear and concise breakdown of the MLS market – with pretty pie charts!

More details can be found at Goomzee Releases MLS Vendor Research White Paper

Quick Update: Updates and clarifications seem to be stirring around the twitterverse. As posted in the comments some more details and clarifications

Picture this page is my listing detail page. It has all the information about a listing. An interested consumer or another agent lands on your site, and wants to make an appointment. Typically this initiated a couple emails back and forth that usually go like this:

Visitor: Can I see this property next Saturday?
You: Does the afternoon work?
Visitor: Unfortuntely not. How about Sunday?

For those interested, the RETS meeting wrapped up yesterday. A lot of great momentum was started. Some of the sessions were live streamed and can be found at:

Technical Track – Compliance Tool, Change Proposals, Document Management System
General Session – Opening Remarks and Wrap-up.

Meeting Wrap-up

Chicago, September 23, 2009: The Center for REALTOR® Technology is excited to announce, as promised early last month, the release of the latest version of Variman – The Open Source and Free RETS Server. Variman version 3.1 is fully RETS 1.5, 1.7 and 1.7.2 compliant, as per the NAR MLS Board Policy requirement that all MLSs be RETS compliant by December 2009. In addition to being fully compliant,...

Everytime I crack the 2008 Home Buyer and Seller Profile I find another little tidbit. I also wanted to use this to try out embedding a PDF into a website. So enjoy the Report, its crammed with lots of great information – especially about the online characteristics of buyers of sellers. The 2009 version will be released around NAR Annual in November – stay tuned!

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This is exciting — we are reaching the climax of a 14 month journey – the journey to shine the spotlight on the most inspiring REALTOR family members that have advocated, innovated, pioneered and been visionaries through technology.

I didn’t know who to tell first, the loyal CRT readers, or the finalists themselves – although, I’m sure some of the judges have leaked some names out

Finally, I ...

Close to 300 nominations came in over a 2 month period. Out of those, there were close to 200 unique individuals identified on their technical aptitude. I have to say – I was amazed, impressed and excited about this!

Through the initial review of the nominations, it was clear that there were 4 categories that stood out.

The Advocate:
The REALTORS(R) and Staff members go above and beyond thei...