When a consumer is relocating to a new town/state/country there is a plethora of information available on the web they can use to check out their new neighborhood.  If they want to see how “walkable” it is there is WalkScore.  If they want to see how expensive their new neighbors homes are there is Zillow.  Heck, if they want to see where to find the best curry they can just hop on Yelp.

As real estate professionals, being able to provide this kind of targeted information to consumers is of great value & can ultimately be leveraged as a differentiating factor between yourself and other agents in the same market.  As our CEO often says (and I’m paraphrasing here)  “there are two ways to make money in real estate – be the cheapest or be different”.

But what about the health of a neighborhood or city?  Wouldn’t it be nice to know if your new or prospective neighborhood has an outbreak of H1N1, Influenza, or rabies?  Now that is valuable information to consumers.

Enter HealthMap – a great mashup which combines all manner of publicly available health data with Google Maps to “achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health”.

Using HealthMap you can track a multitude of different diseases and have them sorted by country/county, severity, as well as by a the range of dates which a warning was in effect.

Another great addition to the site has been the development of an accompanying iPhone app which lets you see nearby health warning (which I’m sure will ratchet up the paranoia level of some), set up alerts to be pushed to your mobile device, as well as provide the ability to submit your own outbreak report.

Now that I think about it, having the ability to easily submit your friend’s home as an infectious disease outbreak site might not be such a good idea, but it is still a generous feature in theory!

Do you ever find yourself struggling to find enough time in a day to accomplish everything?  Perhaps you feel like you can keep up with what you currently know, but feel like you are falling behind on what’s new.

If you feel this way, you’re not alone.  I know I do.  I would wager a guess that almost everyone does at some point, in any field of work.

The other day I was talking with a co-worker about how difficult it can be at times to ‘keep up’.  We work for a software development company.  It’s almost a given that we should be hip to the newest tech gadgets, gizmos, and applications.

How does one keep up with what is new and how do we know which of the newest of the new is going to be something we can actually make use of, benefit from, and even help us save or make money?  Because, let’s face it, no matter what the economic situation is, we could always use a bit more money in our pockets.

This led me to consider some practical ways that we can manage our daily lives to prevent information and application overload.

The whole world in your hand

Well, almost.  If you haven’t already taken a look at the amazing features, tools, and apps available with most of the smartphones these days, it’s probably about time you did.  Judging by a recent informal poll we did on the Point2 Agent blog, we see that the majority of real estate professionals feel that their smartphone is the one gadget they simply could not live without.

And for good reason.  Consider that in most cases a smartphone provides you with web access, email access, an address book, a cell phone, a lockbox remote, a GPS, and a digital camera in a pinch.  Then think of how you’d ever manage to carry, let alone remember, all those individual gadgets at any given time – usually 24 hours a day.  (Note: this isn’t to say that your smartphone camera should replace a decent quality digital camera for listing photos.  We wouldn’t want to endorse less than the best for listings at Point2.)

Also becoming a more compelling reason to use a smartphone is the ever-growing list of neat, useful, and sometimes not-very-useful-but-quirky apps available from various application stores.  Of course, if you have an iPhone you can download a variety of apps for your phone from the Apple App Store.  If you have a BlackBerry, you can also access apps for your smartphone from BlackBerry AppWorld, including some of the more popular ones orginally made for the iPhone.

Walking into spider webs

Social networking and social media – a veritable web of contacts and friends and acquaintances.  Simply put, social media is the way of the future.  To be successful in any kind of business the need to be connected to your consumers is more real than ever before.  This raises the question: How do I know what is important?  And how do I keep track of it all?

Knowing what is important can be as simple as recognizing what is important to you and to your business.  Not all social media or networks will be suitable for every business.  Fortunately for you, the real estate industry is a very consumer-centric, people-oriented business.  This means that for the most part you should want to follow and participate where your consumers will be participating.  If you are able to reach them and connect with them on any level then you can succeed.

It’s true, some social networks have the potential to fizzle out without much success or following.  Because of this, some may be hesitant to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ because they don’t want to invest time or energy in building up a network on a service that may we useless in a few months.  Sound like you?  That’s okay, just take things a bit slower.  If you are interested in the potential of a specific service or tool, give it a few months to ‘prove’ itself in the flurry of all the other social media services.  It’s probably safe to say that if the social network or social media tool has made it into the mainstream successfully (i.e., mentioned in the news frequently, celebrities use it, etc.) then it is likely to remain for at least a little while and could warrant your participation now.

I can’t hear you!

As new services and tools arrive on the scene you’ll probably need to start managing all your profiles and networks.  The whole point of being involved in social media and networking is to connect you with other people, those who may be potential clients, and to help build your brand and reputation.  In order to convey this about yourself, you actually need to participate.  Setting up profiles at every social networking site is not going to net you business if you don’t actively participate there.  The more you have to say the more people will want to listen.

There are applications available that allow you to manage multiple – more popular – social networking services in one place.  Consider testing these applications out to find out which one best suit your needs and your social networks.  One that I’ve personally tried with some success is AlertThingy, where I can manage my Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and Yammer accounts all in one place.  It won’t allow you to do everything you could normally do on each of those services independantly, but it does make life a bit easier.

There are also applications and services (such as Ping.fm or HelloTxt) that allow you to update multiple social networks with one post or entry.  If you are truly too busy to add a personal tweet or status update to your individual profiles, consider utilizing one of these automated services.  However, don’t neglect to post and update with real words and thoughts as often as possible.

You are busy.  We all are busy.  Sometimes it feels like we can’t ever keep up.  Hopefully with these few suggestions you’ll be able to relax just a little and feel like you are in better control of one aspect of your busy lives.

What do you think?

I tried to think of this with the real estate professional in mind and barely skimmed the surface of managing time and energy.  No doubt, since I am not out there buying and selling real estate on a day-to-day basis, I have missed some valuable tips or suggestions.  Please join in the discussion and share your practical advice with the rest of us in the comments below.

We’ve already had some great meetings, attended a couple of strong sessions, and are proudly showing off one of our new ‘toys’ – an application that I believe will add enormous value for Point2 members without costing them a dime extra.

If you’re here in Orlando, give me a tweet at @felty – we’ve got a packed schedule, but we’d love to say hello to any and all of the Point2 faithful here in Disneyville.

*bonus points and maybe even a free air freshener for catching the reference in this post’s title

More to come . . . 

The purpose of BarCamp is to connect our fledging tech community members and companies in the spirit of sharing and learning from one another; and after attending with our 15+ Point2 delegation I would say without hesitation, it was a great success.

There were a number of fantastic presentations on subjects ranging from iPhone software development (without breaking the developer NDA of course) to sharing of womens stories in technology – each one spurring valuable discussion.

Personally, my favorite session(s) on the evening would be a toss-up between the excellent User Interface talk curiously titled “Manipulating people via their eyes, but not literally” or Point2’s very own Zach Scott and Aidan Rogers’ presentation on Agile programming – the methodology which drives Point2 Agent’s development.

In addition to the great presentations, conferences like BarCamp are also a perfect way to meet people, expand your local network, and advertise your business. To help facilitate this, the organizers even went as far as to compliment the generic “Hi, my name is:” nametags with “Hey, my Twitter name is:” Needless to say, this morning I had to spend a few minutes adding people to my following list and accepting follows from fellow attendees who I had met.

In terms of advertising, Point2 took the guerilla marketing route by equipping attending team members with some irresistible Point2 branded air fresheners (vanilla scented if you must know), and distributed them to people they met throughout the course of the event.

Since I volunteered to help with distributing t-shirts at registration (that’s right – complimentary shirts), I made sure to give an air freshener to everyone that I handed a shirt out to.

To see if there is a BarCamp happening in your area, check out the main site – and if there is a camp happening I would recommend it to anyone, technically inclined or otherwise. It is a great learning experience, and there all almost always to a session that piques your interest, no matter how discerning your tastes.

Oh, by the way. If anyone wants an air freshener drop me a comment or send me a tweet – there are still a few left!