June 2016 - Vendor Alley

Halftime

June 30th, 2016

Like many of you we started off the year with a plan. We made some goals, both product-wise and financial. We hired, we fired and made tweaks to our org chart to help steer our company towards those goals. One of the best things I’ve done in the past few years is having monthly meetings and go over our how we preformed in comparison to our goals month over month. Every month those metrics are tracked and we can see the progress over time. Looking back at those slides tells a story.

And now, quickly enough, its June. It’s Halftime.

Time to look at what went well, what didn’t go so well, ponder on any surprises and to see what (if any ) of our assumptions were wrong or right.

Whether you run a big company, an association, MLS or hustling for some sales, now is a good time to reflect. I’ve been doing that for the past couple weeks. You should try it.

Looking for a new gig?

June 29th, 2016

The Williamsburg Area Association of REALTORS® is looking for a new AE!

Association Executive

“This highly visible AE will work with an energized volunteer membership and lead the staff to enhance the public’s perception of the industry. The successful candidate must have proven leadership experience, strong management skills, and political acumen. S/he must be an energetic worker, strategic thinker, leader, organizer, administrator, manager and communicator.

Find out about this position and more at the Vendor Alley Job Board

Rick Trevino heads new RESO Workgroup to handle data payload standardization

June 28th, 2016

New RESO Workgroup Tackles Data Payload Standardization

“Rob Larson, head of the RESO Data Dictionary Workgroup and Chief Information Officer for CRMLS, remembers vividly that day. Initially, his Workgroup looked into the issue raised at the conference. “While the Data Dictionary Workgroup completed the first payload, IDX, it was clear that this could take away from the Workgroup’s primary function: the fields, lookups, data types, lengths and their definitions,” Larson said.
“Because a payload is a group of Dictionary fields — and the decision about which fields belong to a given payload is driven by business rules — having a Payload Workgroup focused on this goal helps keep the Dictionary Workgroup focused on its goals,” he added. Thus, the Payload Workgroup was created and Trevino was tapped to head up the new Payload Workgroup.”

MetroList Services, where Rick works, was the first MLS to be platinum certified. Rick may have to deal with some political issues here but setting standards are important. Congrats!

CMLS Vegas 2016

June 27th, 2016

Only 85 days till CMLS Vegas. Have you registered yet?

Glanceability

June 23rd, 2016

At the recent Apple WWDC keynote they announced a few tweaks to the new watchOS 3. After a year of feedback the focus of these changes is about “glanceability”. By their definition the user had to get the information (usually coming from some sort of notification) of what they needed in about “2 seconds”. And keep in mind this information was being delivered on a display the size of a watch face.

2 seconds.

This made me think of the process we went through when designing the email listing alerts being delivered in Cloud Streams. Here’s what one looks like on a smart phone.

Look and feel are important but design is also how it works. So deliverability and having a clear call to action on these types of notifications is also very important.

Now here’s a recent one from Matrix.

Is there a word for something that is the exact opposite as “glanceable”? And trust me, this is pretty on par with most MLS systems out there now. If you are running an MLS or brokerage and think your members/agent deserve better, drop Katie a line. She can help. : )

And it looks like the portals are paying attention to this glanceabilty issue as well. Trulia just recently updated the look and feel of their listing alerts.

Looks a bit familiar to my eyes, but I guess imitation is the best form of flattery. : )

But they did make an interesting design decision. If you were given the choice of having a bigger property photo, or a smaller photo of the property and a map, what would you choose?

For me? I like big property photos and I cannot lie.

CoreLogic’s Trestle nominated for Inman Innovator Award

June 20th, 2016

CoreLogic Nominated for INMAN Real Estate Innovation Award

“We’re honored to be nominated for this prestigious award,” said Chris Bennett, general manager of real estate solutions for CoreLogic. “Helping multiple listing organizations achieve RESO certification was the catalyst for developing Trestle, but the vision has become so much more. For multiple listing organizations, Trestle provides data standardization, distribution control, contract management, and fee processing. We’re already in discussions with several third parties who want to deliver their content via the Trestle marketplace and API. For brokers, Trestle offers a single source for all their listing data, as well as access to unique CoreLogic property content that the big portals don’t have. For technology providers, Trestle provides access to a national data source and the opportunity for greater innovation. The idea is to make working with real estate data easier than it’s ever been.”

Congrats to CoreLogic on this nomination. I still think adding some sort of permissioning default would make it a homerun.

Annie Ives Profiled in Angeleno Magazine

June 16th, 2016

News: CEO Annie Ives Profiled in Angeleno Magazine
A fabulous looking Annie Ives was profiled in Angeleno Magazine. She was listed in the “Power Players” section. Annie really has an incredible story. Below is a quote from the profile.

“The MLS (TM) has undergone incredible changes under Ives’ 20-year leadership. In 2002, with her guidance, the company evolved from a full-service site being managed by a software company to a turnkey, fully independent entity with internally developed and wholly owned and operated systems:THEMLSPRO Member Site and TheMLS.com Guest Site.”

I will also add their new product, MLSPLUS, is getting a lot of buzz locally.
Go get ’em Annie!

Cloud MLX named as finalist for Inman Innovator Award

June 16th, 2016

2016 Inman Innovator Awards

“The Inman Innovator Awards are given each year to recognize and celebrate industry innovation and accomplishments.

Who qualifies?
In some cases, a specific app, technology or business process qualifies someone for consideration. In other cases, the company as a whole consistently tries new things, adopts new technology or creates a new culture or approach to real estate.”

Super stoked that Cloud MLX made the cut as one of the most innovative technologies in real estate!

Lauren Hill joins Clareity Security

June 15th, 2016

Speaking of Clareity Security I’m very happy to hear that Lauren Hill has recently joined Clareity Security as their new Senior Account Executive. Lauren was previously at ListHub as a Regional Account Manager for over 3 years. I think Lauren has an amazing career ahead of her.

Clareity Security receives patent

June 15th, 2016

Comparing users handwriting for detecting and remediating unauthorized shared access

“A method of using handwriting input on a touch screen device to verify the identity of a user. The user writes a profile word in an input space provided on the touch screen. Features of the handwriting are captured and sent to a server, which stores the data in a data record associated with the authorized user. When a user subsequently writes a challenge word, the handwriting features of the challenge word are compared to the authorized user’s handwriting data record and given a rating of similarity. If the rating is within a prescribed range, the user’s identity is verified as being the authorized user and permitted to access a given asset. If not, the user’s identity is not verified and that user may be denied access to the asset or other action taken. This biometric feature of authentication may be used alone or in a multi-factor authentication environment.”

This sounds super cool. Congrats Matt and team!