Kit Mueller runs REConnect, featuring an on-line networking and events for Chicago real estate professionals. Mueller and also holds twice-yearly SPARKt conferences on Real Estate and technology. The second Chicago SPARKt conference was held April 29 in the Volcano Room at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago's West Loop, with a half-dozen relatively quick high-quality presentations. Muller kept the proceedings on-target (with occasional coaching from the peanut gallery) and the atmosphere upbeat, casual and informative.

There was a good sized crowd, made up primarily of Real Estate professionals, including agents and brokers as well as various online real-estate related web sites and a handful of other service providers. Highlights included
- Matt Dollinger from @properties on Real Estate use of online social media
- Michael Berger, 37 Signals' iPhone geek talking about mobile applications for Real Estate
- Christian Sterner of Welcomemat.com demonstrated how to make online video effective
- A discussion on "Privacy and Social Media" from lawyers Glenn Manishin of Duane Morris and Brock Meeks from the Center for Democracy & Technology
- Eric Bryn talked about how he uses Web Analytics to help realtors come up with blog topics.
- Adrian Holovaty from Everyblock talked about the future of Everyblock and its local data technology.

Matt Dollinger's blog, The You Factor, helps Realtors understand how to use Social Media. The crux of Dollinger's message is to put yourself, personally, out there. Dollinger puts a Real Estate frame around some of the concepts discussed online by Social Media thought leaders like David Armano and Peter Kim (both of whom he referenced in his talk). When you are online, you are not "selling", but building a "personal brand" that shows you to be someone who can help people when they need to make a complex and emotional decision.

Christian Sterner expanded on Dollinger's "personal branding" message, showing how Realtors can use online video not just to show homes, but to become an online presence for all things local. Post videos on YouTube & Yahoo for search engine optimization (SEO) effects. Sterner also suggests using Social Media sites to announce and embed your videos, as an opportunity to connect with people where they are online.

Michael Berger, a former "Apple Genius" who focuses on mobile applications at 37 Signals, demonstrated mobile applications on the iPhone that Realtors can share with clients. Apps from Zillow, Trulia, and Everyblock take advantage of the iPhone's GPS capabilities to show local real estate information on maps. You can see your current location and nearby homes for sale, and other local community information.

Brock Meeks from the Center for Democracy and Technology was perhaps the highlight of the afternoon. A former big-league journalist, he and Glenn Manishin discussed some of the legal issues around on-line social networks. Meeks talked about the process of hiring a Social Media Manager for the Center for Democracy and Technology. He looked at their Facebook and Twitter posts; many candidates demonstrated an "personal brand" that was not consonant with the mission and values of the Center. They also warned that what you say on Facebook or Twitter could become a binding addendum to any existing contract. So be careful out there!

Eric Bryn showed how to use Google Analytics and a few other tools to capture new audiences on the web. He manages several group blogs for realtors. He looks at the blog contents and uses Google Analytics to discover the "organic" search keywords that are used to reach blog entries. If he sees a spike in activity, he knows that there is a good opportunity to use those terms again. Google Analytics also reports if site visitors read more than one page or register for email newsletters.

Bryn also looks at the terms used in entries, and finds synonyms through the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator. This shows synonyms and approximate value for those terms if one was to advertise on the topic. Microsoft offers adlabs.microsoft.com, a tool that shows keywords and relative intent-to-buy associated with usage of those keywords.

Once a valuable keyword that drives traffic is found, Bryn encourages his clients to write "variations on a theme" using the keywords as topics. He used a visual of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. "7 tips for...", "What not to do when buying...", video and photographs.

Adrian Holovaty talked about the Everyblock iPhone app. With iPhone GPS capabilities, you can see crime/health/news reports for your current location. Holovaty also talked about how Everyblock.com was created under a grant, and under the terms of the grant, the Everyblock code, built on the Django platform, will become open source this June.

There were a lot of very practical gems in the SPARKt conference. With the exception of Meeks & Manishin's talk, the focus remained solidly on Real Estate, though the advice was easily transferrable to other high-touch services. Photos from the event are at SPARKt website. Mueller continues to run frequent RE-Connect events.

Labels: chicago technology, real estate marketing, social media

Web 2.0 and How It Can Promote Your Business Chicago MIT-EF: Jason Fried (37 Signals), Harper Reed (Threadless), and Howard Tullman (Flashpoint Academy) Talk About Social Media and Your Business

Chicago MIT-Enterprise Forum, Tuesday, March , 2009

Introductions
Fried's 37 Signals provides personal and business productivity tools through a Software-as-a-Service model. Fried describes this as "freemium," basic versions of the tools are available for free, and people can buy enhanced services.

Reed is CTO at Threadless, which uses a "crowdsourcing" model to produce t-shirt designs. Each week, there is a competition of designs and the winning designer gets his shirt made, some cash and store credit percentage of sales. They have developed a community of designers and consumers over the past ten years.

Howard Tullman is CEO of Flashpoint Academy is an entrepreneur in the field of education. Tullman says that properly run, education can be productive and profitable.

What is Web 2.0?
Fried: The Web 2.0 concept emerged in 2004 – 2005, as a buzz-word centered around user generated content and small team development. There was a Web 2.0 aesthetic: gradients, pastels, and reflections.

Reed: All of our products and content are developed by our community.

Fried: We are very focused on small business tools, all are web based. Our products do a few things, do it well, and get out of the way.

Tullman said he sees Web 2.0 as being search driven, with the next step from there being user generated content.

Further reading: see Tim O'Reilly's definitive 2005 article.

37 Signals & Threadless: Web 2.0 Practitioners
Fried was concerned that one aspect of Web 2.0 was business models. He pointed out that 37 Signals and Threadless represent two profitable web-based companies. Reed said that's because they offer something for sale, an important step toward profitability.

Fried pointed out that their "freemium" model (a term coined by Fred Wilson, VC from Flatiron Partners) starts with free services and adds paid modules. "Start free, then charge." Basecamp, a collaborative project management tool to help organize stuff you might otherwise email, has 3 million users. The majority of their customers only use free services, the minority is paid and they are profitable.

Reed described the relationship between Threadless and its community. Many of the Threadless designers have grown up with the company. They have interacted with the customer community. The interaction between customers and designers has resulted in sales of 100K shirts per month, one million registered users and 200K active users. Their community recommends new features and helps identify bugs as they enhance the software that runs the site and design tools.

Web 2.0: Beyond the Web Site
Reed had a presentation showing how Threadless uses other sites as opportunities for interaction. They have found that their community likes to interact with the Threadless development team. One of the Threadless team, Charlie, has a video blog on Vimeo, where he will have a video blog entry and results in interactive discussions in comments.

Reed pointed out a competitor's advertisement on the Threadless video page on Vimeo, a competitor that is owned by Viemo's parent company. Which may explain that while 37 Signals was kicked off of Vimeo for posting "commercial content", Threadless is allowed to post new video content that talks directly about the company, its products, designers, and community.

Threadless also uses Flicker to promote their site and products through user-generated content. Customers get a point, worth about $1.50 in store credit, for every picture posted on Flickr of someone wearing a Threadless t-shirt.

Web 2.0: Twitter and Customer Service
On Twitter, Threadless was "somehow put on the 'suggested users list'" and in two weeks went from 9,000 followers to over 150,000 followers. These people receive messages from Threadless in their Twitter message stream.

37 Signals has been on Twitter for a few months and figures they have around 11K followers (Fried has 8.5K at this writing and the Twitter account 37signals has 13.3K).

The value of Twitter is that its search mechanism is open and real-time. This gives access to what people are saying right now. It creates an opportunity to quickly respond to people, and they will respond to your postings.

A quick response is most effective at winning people over. Tullman talked about the value of "fixing" the situation when a customer has a bad experience. The staff at Threadless hangs out on Twitter, monitoring the term "threadless", and responding when appropriate.

When asked by an audience member about the term "community", and if it is "a real community" or just another buzzword, the panelists acknowledged, in jocular fashion, that the term has become a Web 2.0 buzzword. They also illustrated that there is substantial value that comes from the interactions between consumer and supplier. 37 Signals gains insight into how their products are being used. Threadless has developed a thriving and successful community of designers, along with a very loyal consumer base. Consistency of interaction and sales indicates that there is a value to the "community" these companies have developed.

Other Web 2.0 Tools
Both 37 Signals and Threadless use Campaign Monitor for Newsletters. They like Survey Monkey as a low-cost source of customer attitudinal data. Reed likes Google Apps for collaboration outside Basecamp. Both are making use of Google Analytics and Fried's team is using Google Web Site Optimizer.

None of the companies on the panel has a dedicated analytics team, nor do they employ a Social Media manager. These duties fall to the team to pick up organically in the course of their other duties. For example, monitoring Twitter conversations becomes a part of everyone's job at Threadless, and Reed gave an example of how he got a call from one of their warehouse managers over a weekend, informing him that a feature on the site was broken.

This speaks to the scale of the ventures presenting. When asked by the audience what potential they see for automating the interpretation of semantic data from social media, it was not on their map. For these companies, interacting with the audience is one of the most important part of their business models, but is so ingrained into the corporate culture that there is not a formal process for these interactions.

The Next Big Thing
Tullman asked "What's the Next Big Thing" and Fried took exception. Our industry is too focused on change. He recommended that people focus on things that don't change. Chasing "The Next Big Thing" leads people to lose sight of what is important and successful in their business. Two constants for or his web-based applications: Speed and Ease of Use.

What Are You Investing in?
Fried said that they are not focused on new products, but are improving speed and integrating a suite of their products. Reed said that they invest in their users, focusing on their users and developing use cases that describe the users' needs.

The Threadless parent company "Skinnycorp" has built a new site http://nakedandangry.com/, where they make products like handbags and umbrellas using patterns created by their design community. He discussed the challenges of expanding to new products, that their core competency was in developing software, but expanding product lines has meant sourcing products from China, working on product quality issues, and managing longer lead-times for the supply chain.

Labels: 37 signals, chicago technology, flashpoint academy, internet marketing, threadless

The MIT-EF White Board Challenge gives emerging companies and entrepreneurs in the Chicago area an opportunity to give a five-minute presentation on an innovative business concept, with over $5,000 in prizes going to the top three presentations.

There were 67 applications, from which 13 finalists were selected to present at tonight’s event. The finalists showcased innovation from a wide range of technologies, from a better spray bottle to a "smart" electrical outlet that can prevent electrocutions and home fires.

The first prize, $ 3,000 and a business model study from the Coleman Center, valued at $ 1,500 went to the Guardian Angel Outlet, presented by Dan Masterson. Masterson was easily the best presenter of the group. He opened with some “shocking” statistics: 2400 children are treated each year for electric shock. Hundreds of them die. And 3300 household fires start at electric outlets. Masterson presented the “Guardian Angel Outlet”, a “smart” electric outlet.

The Guardian Angel Outlet contains a microprocessor that uses a capacitive sensing technique (Masterson name-checks the iPhone for using this technique). It senses that a hand is near and turns off the power. The outlet can identify safe/unsafe conditions: the nearness of a hand, excess heat, or an arcing situation.

This is the same technology licensed to Fellowes for their Safe Sense shredder, which won the 2007 Chicago Innovation Award and was Fellowes biggest selling item ever. They hold four pending patents on the technology.

They estimate the 16 Million dwellings with children under three years old as being a market that is emotionally ready to purchase their $10 outlets. They are currently negotiating to license the Guardian Angel technology to the top outlet manufacturers.

Second place went to MagDrive, presented by Igor Stamenkovic. MagDrive has patented technology that makes electric motors and generators more efficient. This is basic electric technology: fixed magnets, copper coils and a spinning core. The folks behind the MagDrive used sophisticated physics and numeric analysis to optimize the configuration of the electric motor or generator.

Over 15 million electric motors of varying sizes are sold every day, and the motor/generator components represent a $500 Million per day spend. The MagDrive’s efficiency makes it less expensive to operate. The design is modular and can scale up or down depending on the size and power requirements. The MagDrive component retrofits easily into existing equipment.

What was missing from Stamenkovic’s presentation was a clear statement of how much more efficient the MagDrive is compared to current technologies. I have no idea of the expected savings, or payback period for investing in a MagDrive. Nor was it clear what stage of development the MagDrive has reached.

RevStor, presented by Russ Felker, was the third place winner. RevStor uses existing corporate data resources to build a secure computing cloud on your premises. RevStore ties together an existing network to provide systems management, backup, archive, and security.

This provides an internal alternative to the external “cloud” or “on-demand” computing solutions offered by Google, Amazon, or Seagate; the (antiquated and possibly expensive) tape-based solutions offered by the likes of HP; and the (expensive) SAN solutions offered by the likes of EMC. RevStor shares CPU, storage, and network resources inside an enterprise in a secure managed environment. RevStor was also a finalist in the MIT-EF “Below the Radar” event last month.

The panel of judges for the Chicago MIT-EF White Board Challenge included Raman Chardha from the Coleman Center at DePaul University; Bernadette Freeman, Admin Law Judge from the City of Chicago, Adam Masia, Partner at Bell, Boyd & Lloyd; and Bill Myers, Director of Business Development at Motorola’s Early Stage Accelerator. David Weinstein was unable to attend due to an illness in his family. Attendees were given a vote as well, calling a toll-free number and entering their choice. The attendee votes counted as one judge, and I was told that the crowd choice coincided with the judges’ winner.

That’s the winners in a nutshell. I’ll share my notes on the well-deserving runners-up tomorrow.

Labels: chicago technology, innovation