Seattle reBarCamp is the word

Seattle RE BarCamp is being talked about all over the blogosphere… check it out!

What I Want to See at REBarCamp Seattle by Jeff Bern

RE BarCamp Comes to the Emerald City on March 3rd by Rich Jacobson

Womens Council of Realtors South King County:  Are You Curious About the next Seattle RE BarCamp by Rhonda Porter

Productivity Junkies RE BarCamp Seattle 2011 by Darin Parsinger

Real Estate Bar Camp by Babbs Weissman

Chik Quintans talks about how much he has learned by attending Seattle reBarCamps in this video (you have to check out the special guest appearance).

You can also see what people are saying on Twitter by following #rebcsea.    If you’ve written a post about Seattle reBarCamp, let us know!

Twas the Day Before Seattle RE BarCamp…and it was ROCKIN’

We are very excited that the guys from Think Big Work Small, Brian Stevens and Frank Garay, are coming to town the day before RE BarCamp Seattle.  Why?  They are doing an event (more like a boot camp) in the Seattle Center Northwest Rooms on teaching real estate professionals how to do video blogs:  the Northwest Video Marketing Summit.  The cost is $100 and this is an all day event and real estate agents may receive 3 clock hours!. Brian tells me that at the end of the day, participants will be leaving with their own fully functional video blog.   

Check out their video about the Northwest Video Marketing Summit:

If  you’ve been contemplating video blogging or you all ready use video on your blog, you don’t want to miss this event.   So come a day early on March 2, 2011 and be ready to learn.   You can RSVP for the Northwest Video Marketing Summit by clicking here.    You can follow this event on Twitter via #vmssea.

March 2nd and March 3rd are going to be fantastic days for the real estate community to learn and share at the Seattle Center Northwest Rooms (same place as last  year).  

Sign up for both events — we can’t wait to see you!

By the way, TBWS is one of the much appreciated sponsors of 2011 Seattle RE BarCamp!

iPhone App for Seattle RE barcamp is here!

If you are an iPhone owner and want to know what’s going on with the Real Estate Barcamp in Seattle, then you’ll want to download this FREE app. It’s in the iTunes store if you search “RE barcamp Seattle” or if you have iTunes installed then  just click here to launch the app to take you to the download page.

The app does not have everything completed yet, but you can follow along the Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other accounts set up for the event. Make sure to set up notifications and turn them ON to  kept in the loop about meet-ups and after-hour IRL parties on the fly.

The map function will come in handy to find discussion groups (go to Links > Pacific Center NW Rooms) and see where to go. And of course if you haven’t signed up yet, or you want to sign up a friend from your iPhone, click the “Sign Up’ link.

All of these cool features are included in the App donated to us be MobileAppLoader.com, a company that specializes in small business and organization iPhone apps. Major Kudos and Hat Tips to them! If you like it, make comments here and “Rate this” at the iTunes App Store (see below) and it will help push out the word about the event!

RE barcamp Seattle iTunes sceenshot

I’m hoping to get an update in and approved by Apple before the event to straighten out the kinks, but even if we don’t have time I think it will be a fun and useful tool for many people.

11 Reasons To Sponsor RE BarCamp-Seattle!

My week has been peppered with great chats regarding sponsoring #rebcsea.  Many of the biz owners in my sphere have had the same response:  Money is tight… WHY SHOULD I? or more simply put: What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)

I decided to surf a bit and gather together some of the major reasons why companies become event sponsors.  This may help you in identifying people YOU know (including yourself) who might be interested in sponsoring!

11 Reasons 2 Sponsor Events:

1.  Corporate ID
Companies planned to display their corporate or brand names or logos on event signs, buildings, equipment, programs, uniforms, and/or promotional materials.   

2.  Target Marketing
Many companies saw event sponsorship as a way to reach a self-selected audience, hopefully interested in purchasing the companies’ products or services.

3.  Entertainment Opportunity
A number of companies mentioned that they would use an event as a place to entertain clients.
(Hmmm… sounds like an opportunity to carpool a captive audience to the event!)

4.  Offering Discounts
A number of companies said they would use events as a way to encourage product/service trial, either by offering samples at the event, or, if that was inconvenient, by passing out coupons.

5.  Awareness
Some companies wanted to use event sponsorship as a way to create public awareness of their brands or products. If you are launching a new business – this one is for you!

6.  Image
Some companies hoped event sponsorship would improve, enhance, or change their corporate, brand, or product image.

7.  Usage
Some companies planned to use events to encourage purchase of their products (e.g., buy two items to get a free ticket to the event) or usage of their products (e.g., American Express will donate twenty-five cents to the local symphony every time you use your American Express card).

8.  PR
Some companies cited public relations value (i.e., the newsworthiness of the event and/or the sponsorship) as a reason why they were sponsoring an event. They expected to see their company, brand, or product mentioned in media coverage of the event.

9.  Contests
Some companies intended to use an event as a theme for consumer contests or sweepstakes… with the added bonus of gathering names at an event to develop a mailing list or database of consumers.

10. Demonstration Opportunity
Some companies planned to use an event to demonstrate or display their products/services.

11. Sales Opportunity
Some companies wanted to use an event for on-site sales or to generate sales leads – with both consumers and other businesses! 

REMINDER:  Sponsors who sign up before February 22nd will have their company website printed on our ULTRA COOL BLING this year! 

If you are now inspired to be a sponsor or you have questions on HOW to sponsor… shoot me an email: [email protected].

Check out this example of what the WATER BOTTLE will look like…
You TOO could have your company on this list!!

"Your Name Here"

Great Explanation of “Bar Camp”

When I tell people I’m helping to plan an “RE Barcamp” it’s often followed by a blank look.    “Rebar? Is there a bar? Are you camping” is not an uncommon response.    In fact, I bet many attendees of RE Barcamp may not know where “BarCamp” comes from.   I came across this short and sweet definition when I was reading Brain Picking’s post on the ”Top 10 Contemporary Cross-Disiplinary Conferences” …for the record, Barcamp came in at second on the list.

Inspired by Tim O’Reilly’s famous invite-only hacker summit, Foo Camp, BarCamp borrowed from the hacker slang foobar to create a set of guidelines for an alternative, open-to-all, ad-hoc event around a common topic or theme that anyone can host anywhere. (These user-generated experiences are also sometimes called unconferences or non-conferences, after legendary eccentric curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s experimental non-conference in Jülich, Germany, in the 90’s.)

A self-organizing community of diverse interests, BarCamp participants are also its presenters. Attendees spend the first part of each event brainstorming and voting for session subjects, and can then choose among the various breakout groups. As you might imagine, the quality of a BarCamp can vary considerably depending on who’s present — we’ve had mixed experiences, accordingly. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for; and BarCamps are typically free.

RE Barcamps are for the most part based off this premise of open sharing and peer to peer learning where the participants are also the presenters with a “real estate theme”.  Topics can be anything real estate related and tend to have had a heavy emphasis on social media in the past.   With all that’s going on in our industry today and considering the Seattle event is following the Pacific Northwest Housing Summit, I won’t be a bit surprised if Seattle’s 2010 REBarCamp participants also decide to have discussions based on the new Good Faith Estimate/RESPA, HVCC or how to market distressed properties.   The great thing about REBC’s, in my opinion, is that we are not limited to any topics–we’re only limited by those attend and participate in the event and out of all of the REBC’s I’ve attended (5 or so?) I’ve always learned plenty! 

I’m really looking forward to this REBC Seattle 2010!

RE BarCamp Seattle 2010

Earlier today, I met with some local amazing folks from all fields in the real estate industry to share lunch and to start planning Seattle’s RE BarCamp for 2010.   We are in the early phases and we welcome all who wish to volunteer their time or dollars to contribute towards this grand unconference.   REBC is successful due to the participation of all.

Here’s what I can share with you right now… Seattle RE BarCamp is being planned for mid-March.   This event will be take place the day before the Pacific Northwest Real Estate Summit (a regional event being planned by WAMP and WAR).     We’re looking at REBC most likely taking place on March 15 or March 18.   Part of the issue is ironing out the details with the venue for both events.   As soon as we have more information, we will post it here.    

Keep in mind that REBC is not only about social media, it’s about what ever the participants/attendees wish to discuss.   The agenda is decided the morning of the event from those who show up!  If you want to learn about tips on negotiating a short sale–suggest the topic the day of the event.   This is peer to peer sharing and learning.

We will have this website being modified for the 2010 event soon.  (Please disregard the 2009 info for now…)

Our Twitter hashtag is #rebcsea.    Please spread the word!   We’d love you to save the dates (mid-March), tell all your RE friends…maybe volunteer and/or be a sponsor.

I’m very excited for both events and look forward to sharing more information soon!    And again–we welcome your participation!

Photo credit:  Natalie Danielson @clockhours