I put together an image tribute on AG and everyone is sharing their stories of where they were when the planes hit. Please go share yours.

God bless the survivors and those who lost their lives.

Who Wins the Prizes?

Remember the MTO Vlogging Contest I recently wrote about? No? WTH? Yes? Oh, good- you get a cookie. Well, MyTechOpinion.com hosted a vlogging contest about what the most useful real estate tool is in a real estate/mortgage professional’s business and after 12 entries, here are my thoughts (and some awesome impersonations of contestants):


MTO Judging Reactions from Lani Anglin-Rosales on Vimeo.

Okay, But Who Wins?

Yeah yeah, I don’t know since I was just one of several judges. I sent in my submission in writing as to who I think should win, but it’s up to the other judges and the 8 lb. 6 oz. baby God now, tune in to MyTechOpinion.com tomorrow to see who takes home the big prizes!

What’s a vlog? It’s a video blog. Why do people vlog? For several reasons ranging from home tours, humorous videos (even if not meant to be funny), to blogging via video because some consumers are too lazy to read (what? It’s true!). Seriously though, with the advent of simple to use cameras, vlogging is becoming increasingly popular and more highly demanded in the real estate industry.

Oooh, Contest??

So what’s this contest (that I’ve already been told I’m not allowed to accept bribes for) that MyTechOpinion.com is hosting?

Your Task: Create a video that answers the following question: What technology product or service has made the biggest impact on your business? And why? (EX: blog, social network, mobile device, transaction management, lead generation tool, etc.) Then send us the link to your video. We will be featuring all entries on MTO. Be sure to get your video in by midnight August 31, 2008. Your video will be judged by us, as well as four celebrity expert judges (Lani Anglin-Rosales, Mike Price, Daniel Rothamel and Jeff Turner).

The Rules:

* You must be a real estate or mortgage professional.
* Answer the question in 5 minutes or LESS.
* Be creative
* Be professional
* Be yourself
* Prove your point!
* Submit a link to your video by midnight August 31, 2008.

AND there are PRIZES!!!

The winner will receive:
(1) A Flip Ultra ($149 Value)
(2) Obtain a Featured Video Section on the MTO Homepage for 6 months
(3) Score Custom Video Blog Integration (offered by Chad from DravenCreation Web Design)
(4) Video Broadcast Set Up and Distribution via MLBroadcast ($78 value)
(5) RealSeekr Premium Membership for 1 year ($249 value) and Logitech Quickcam for Skype ($35 value)

From the desk of NikNik:

One of the most amazing parts of blogging is the connections that we make with other people be they clients or fellow bloggers. Benn & I have had a friendship with Jeff Turner (President of Real Estate Shows, a product we do actually use) and Rocky Turner (Founder of Mothers Fighting for Others) and got a phone call the other day from Jeff that lasted about 30 seconds. Benn: “Hello?” Jeff: “Hey, we’re passing through Austin in a few hours, want to do dinner?” Benn: “It’s on!”

We arrived at Green Mesquite BBQ in Oak Hill (south of Austin) because it was on their way and there wouldn’t be a wait. Oh, and when I asked Jeff about dietary needs or if they were like vegan or something, he’s a self-proclaimed “opposite of a vegetarian” and would love to eat a slab of cow. So slab of cow we all had!

When Jeff & Rocky arrived, Benn met them at the car where each kiddo hopped out and impressed Benn by introducing themselves. I waited inside with Little B (because we still don’t have outdoor air conditioning installed yet). When the fam came inside, I got up to hug Jeff then Rocky (uh, we don’t do handshakes here in the South) and was met with the warmest, biggest, most sincere hugs I’ve had in ages- it was like family came to visit that we hadn’t seen in a long time! Their 4 boys and 2 girls who have been cooped up in the mega-truck for 12 hours all got settled and the boys commenced to very seriously studying the kiddo menu then creating art while the little girls impressed us with how sweet they were (”I’m hungry” one said with a cocked head very matter-of-factly to Benn as she sat next to him).

We all ordered various meats and talked about everything from real estate, blogging, the upcoming Inman Conference, meat, where each of us lives and I’m pretty sure the word “gas” was used at least twice (maybe by me, maybe by others, I’ll never tell!). When the time came to part ways (they still had quite a drive left for the night), we were sad. Like really sad. The whole fam functioned so well (we talked in awe about it all night!) and the Turners are ridiculously easy to get along with.

We hope they’ll come back soon (maybe on their way BACK through Texas next weekish?)! It was a rockin’ good time and we look forward to next time!

For Ines, Mariana, Matthew and Dan, the photo above is made specially for you. As you can tell by the posting volume here, no time is made for memes (you have wikipedia, look it up), but I don’t want any more “when are you going to do the meme?” emails with sad faces, so Benn and I will stop the world for a moment just for you guys….

[Who is your favorite musician?]

BENN | John Lennon, most notably his song, Imagine.

LANI | I’m torn between Jay-Z and Nicole Nordeman- what do y’all think?

[Who is your favorite artist?]

BENN | Michelangelo.

LANI | My dad, hands down. Comics, tiny tiny pencil drawings, elaborate paintings, 3d art pieces, environmental graphic design and more. I didn’t get the art gene but I do admire it! (click image for larger view)

[Who is your favorite blogger?]

BENN | Teresa Boardman on AgentGenius.com.

LANI | The founders of ichc that brighten my every day. I’m not even kidding.

[If you could meet anyone dead or alive, who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them?]

BENN | St. Thomas More because he stood by his principles.

LANI | The Pope. He’s the only living disciple and the closest thing to Christ in the flesh. I would LOVE to meet him!

[What did you want to be when you grew up?]

BENN | A CEO of a major company. There was nothing sexier.

LANI | A ballerina and teacher by day, a lawyer by night. Still seems doable, right?

[What's the most interesting piece of trivia you know?]

BENN | Drinking 16 oz. of water requires your body to burn 17.5 calories.

LANI | In Texas, it’s illegal to carry wire cutters in your back pocket. Seriously.

[If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why?]

BENN | The 1950’s because people cared.

LANI | Also the 50’s because it was so cheerful and everything was sparkly clean. Call it naive, but I love a time of idealism.

[What's the most interesting job you've had?]

BENN | Oh! I was a census bureau interviewer one year, that was fun.

LANI | I worked at my aunt and uncle’s independent children’s bookstore every summer growing up. I loved doing the window displays when I was in high school and I particularly loved when people came in and said, “I’m looking for a book about a dog and a boy. There’s a dog on the cover.” Uh, okay so we’ve narrowed it down to about 25,000 titles, anything else you remember? “Yeah, the dog is blue.” Oy vey.

*************************
Okay, it’s been fun! Time to go back to playing office now!

Image Courtesy of Flickr under CCL

Jim Duncan asks everyone at AgentGenius.com what they would change if they could start their blogging career all over again. So instead of writing a ridiculously long comment, I’ve written it out for you here and supplemented my list of changes with MAJOR CONFESSIONS about my career as a blogger.

Confession

I didn’t know what blogging was as of January 2007. Seriously. Yes, I’m 26 years old. Yes, I knew about Facebook and YouTube. Yes, I took a college course on email and forum etiquette. Yes, I learned Dreamweaver when I was 17. Yes, I watch Family Guy. Yes, I’d heard the word “blog” but thought it was reserved for the likes of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin (did I just reveal what news station we watch?).

No, I had never heard of Active Rain. No, I’d never heard of Word Press, Blogger, TypePad, Jay Thompson, Bloodhound, Perez Hilton, bubble blogs, server outages, Twitter, Jott or anything like that.

That means that between March 2007 when I wrote my first blog and today, things have changed significantly- I manage several hyper-local blogs, the corporate blog for Single Pointe, have my hands all over AgentGenius.com, write at LiveMom.com, used to write at Bloodhound Blog, RERevealed is my own baby and I overload Twitter with my microblogging efforts daily. Talk about big life changes.

What I WOULD Change

• I would be brave with my identity. Some of you remember I had an array of names while commenting- my maiden, my married, our company instead of my name, just my first name… I wasn’t sure how to market myself because I didn’t feel that I had any authority as a non-licensed real estate insider. Now, I consistently use “Lani Anglin-Rosales” which has allowed old friends and new friends to find me easily (and I DO have authority).
• I would have skipped RealtorWives and just done RERevealed. I never imagined that I was the only wife involved in their husband’s company- I never successfully recruited ANYONE to co-author with me which is why it died/evolved. Most of you know that I have a knack for recruiting, but RealtorWives never panned out the way I wanted. How’s that for honest?
• I would change how intensely I felt when attacked personally. I’ve been the target of some vicious people and now realize that they are vicious if it’s my side their fangs are in or another’s. I would have less heartache over their pathetic nature and ignore it. There was one time that our lawyer was actually paid for a few hours of his work looking into pursuing a real estate blogger but we decided they weren’t worth the effort (although we had a great case).
• I wouldn’t be scared to just say “NO” to over-widgetizing my sidebar. This has been rectified but y’all remember on Blogger when I had every widget known to man/computer.
• I would have been an earlier adopter of Twitter had I known it existed. Grr.

What I WOULD NOT Change

• I linked out a LOT and I commented TONS on other people’s blogs in the real estate blogging community (REBC). This was no accident, I knew exactly what I was doing and no one told me to, it just was intuitive to me to network (always has been).
• I have always had a lot of offline interaction which is the true secret to running the blogiverse. I spend time over email and the phone conversing with other bloggers and get dibs on them when they come to Austin.
• Others said they would read other blogs first, but I jumped right in. And it worked. I’ve always had a Web2.0-ish tone to my writing, just ask Deanna Roy who was my high school journalism teacher (and now blogs also, so meh).
• I would NOT change that I wrote at BHB. It was a great experience back in the day, and was a great learning ground for me on how to handle myself on a big stage. I would NOT change that I am active on Agent Genius despite it not being what pays the bills.

Head over to Agent Genius and tell everyone what YOU would change if you could start over again today (and please feel free to act really shocked at my confessions)!

photo credit

There are several ways that marketing is getting greener like this and this (how clever!).

For example, at Single Pointe, we use business card sizes over full page any chance we get and we limit printing altogether (although it can be a cheaper, easier solution over the more creative ways of going green).

How are YOU going green?

Dear Texas REALTOR Magazine,

I want to publicly thank you for your current issue’s article entitled “Want to waste some time?” by Michael Parker (principal at the Blackwater Consulting Group who takes people’s money for advising REALTORS about online marketing and SEO secrets) published on the second to last page, almost as an afterthought.

The final paragraph made me smile bigger than the last time I ate at Luby’s:

“I respectfully suggest that if you want to be a successful Internet real estate agent, put all this talk about social networking, Web 2.0, and the rest of it aside for another day. Concentrate on the basics right now. If you do, Internet buyers will beat a path to your door.”

Thank you so much for (1) reinforcing the belief that social networking and blogging is a “waste of time,” (2) implying that social networking is exclusively for “teens [and] young singles,” and (3) stating as fact (not as opinion) that social media usage is “not overwhelmingly successful for a high percentage of people who use them.”

The reason I thank you is because the more you perpetuate these beliefs and the more you sell your static webpages as superior to blogs and interlinking social networks, the more us stupid social networkers will flourish by building content and unparalleled interactivity while the ones who blindly follow advice given in your article will pump thousands of dollars into companies that promise them success online the easy way (by them not doing anything other than paying for a landing page).

Thank you for guiding people away from blogging and social networking- this makes our competitive edge ridiculously better. You’re right- having a virtual happy hour where clients come to YOU and you don’t have to hard sale them (since they don’t want that anyway) is really oh so terrible.

Clients who want to find us dumb social networkers online will have no problem because we’ve left a huge imprint (Google us and find THOUSANDS of pages proving our credibility and expertise) while those who buy “the basics” as a philosophy to getting “buyers [to] beat a path to [their] door” will find their wallets quickly shriveling (as Google only produces ONE page for them which comes up on the 23th or 24th search page). Thanks, Texas REALTOR Magazine, you’ve thinned out the competition FOR us!

———
As a sidenote, I am aware that I’ve gone on a tirade with my post, but for the most part, Texas REALTOR Magazine is typically an extremely resourceful, insightful, useful read, which is what makes THIS article stand out as a terribly sore thumb.

The new, shiny version of WordPress has been released and I’m still on the fence.  This is the best review I’ve read so far, what do you think?

(h/t to my twitterfriend @CoolB)

For those of you who don’t own Lupe Fiasco’s most recent CD, please go buy it now, listen to it from beginning to end and watch how it changes your life. I’m being serious. One of my favorite songs is crucial in this blogiverse we are all so dedicated to. It is tempting to write about what’s popular and it’s easier to regurgitate others’ materials, but take a tip from Lupe Fiasco… refuse to dumb it down!

Some lyrics are definitely NSFW (not safe for work OR children under 18):



My favorite quotes:

• “They’re starting to think that smart is cool, Lupe!”
• “Robots and skateboards? GQ Man of the Year award?”
• “I flatly refuse.”
• Oh, and don’t forget the Star Trek references!