It seems like just yesterday everyone in the marketing department was gathered around our designer Shaynne’s desk, ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ over the latest mock ups before the site went live for everyone to see.

Since that time we have been feverishly monitoring the site to see what was working, what wasn’t, and what could be improved upon in future iterations – all to provide our users with the best possible experience.

Also – and let’s not kid ourselves here – we are looking to improve our conversion rate.  That is, the percentage of users that are ultimately moved to click the “sign up” button and start a three month free trial to check out what Point2′s swell real estate software can do for their business.

So what changed since the original launch?  I’d like to think the changes fall into two categories: fun changes & call-to-action changes.

In the category of “fun changes” we have additions like the animated syndication graphic (truth be told, this has been there for a little while now) which is just begging to be spun around and played with, or the addition of the Real Estate Confidence Index widget in the footer.

Where as in the category of “call-to-action” changes we have done things like increased the prominence of the “create your account” button or changed our sign-up process so registration takes just one page to complete.

As always, we would love to hear what you think of the changes.  Great?  Awful?  Some where in between?  Leave us a comment, or drop us a tweet @Point2Agent.

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!