Hopping around REBar Camp DC – Literally

As some of you may already know, I recently broke my ankle skydiving.  Trust me, I’ve heard the “Now why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” comment more than enough.  The truth? It is fun.  You can check out my videos at www.youtube.com/dcrealtorgirl and see for yourself.  Anyhow..I’m halfway through the student program, have jumped 11 times, and was back flipping through the air during free fall before I had a slightly cross-wind landing and rolled the ankle.  Either way, I had surgery to insert a plate and several screws (Chris Cooley, I know how you feel!) and finally got my cast off on Monday, October 26th.  I now have a boot and am starting physical therapy this week, but am not allowed to put pressure on it and am forced to use crutches for another four weeks while it heals (and my crutches are Dallas Cowboys blue by the way!) Despite the drama, I’m getting around quite well.  I’ve already started showing property again, although I’m a little slower than usual, and I’ve managed to jump right back into work full force.  If you know me, you know I’m a tough cookie…

So Tuesday, October 27th, I had the pleasure of attending my very first REBar Camp at the NVAR headquarters in Herndon, Virginia.  If you were there and I didn’t get to meet you?  I was the broken girl on blue crutches.  If you follow me on Twitter at @dcrealtorgirl, I’m SURE you were wondering what the heck all of that tweeting was about!  Allow me to explain….REBar Camp is a free one-day “non-conference” organized by a bunch of real estate celebs in the world of social media. It is a great learning environment for Realtors and affiliates to share ideas and tips in an open forum.  Agents gather and participate in various break-out sessions on topics such as blogging, Twitter, Facebook, video virtual tours and more.  It is a fantastic way to help Realtors connect even better with their clients in today’s tech world.  If you’ve read my blog before you know that I consider myself a pretty connected person..now, I’d say even more so.

First session of the day was with Daniel Odio, who taught us how to never have to listen to voice mail again!  You know those people who you call and leave messages for, but always see your number on the caller ID and call back asking, “What did you want?” This is a great tool for those people who really do not enjoy listening to messages (I admit, I have to make myself do it because sometimes those messages are important)!  We had an option of setting this up through Google Voice, which is a free service, but one you must be “invited” to, or using Phone Tag, a subscription service.  The whole setup only took a few minutes and before you know it, my messages were getting delivered to the inbox on my Palm Pre.  This is a great function to use when you might be in a meeting and can’t answer a call or listen to voicemail, but have a moment to read an email and can respond quickly to a client or colleague.  This was probably my favorite session of the day because a tangible change was made immediately to the way I do business!

The rest of the day was filled with informative and fun sessions led by some real superstars in the online real estate world..I can only hope to be as “geeky” as these guys and girls one day!  Some highlights:

*Brian Block’s sexy whistle app on his phone – trying to calm down these crazy ReBAR campers is no easy feat!

*Sarah Stelmok’s “Red Light District” presentation on your online reputation.  This is one session that was particularly interesting to me because I often wonder if I let the public see too much of the real me.  I hope that the transparency actually lets people really see how I do business.  I’m a straight shooter and always professional, but I try to make the experience fun for my clients.  It should be.

*The mid-day Starbucks run – proof that social media works to get things done…someone tweeted that they were going to Starbucks, I tweeted back asking them to please pick up a caramel latte for the broken girl..success!  Afternoon coffee to fight the food coma.  Thanks Maya, Judy & Bill.

*Lynchburg Squares game – I’m definitely now scared of Bill Lubin (I have a guy).  The panel cracked me up with their answers.

*Beer for Bloggers happy hour – what a great way to wrap up the day (despite the rain!)  Nice to hang out with like-minded people in your career field and not talk about work for a change.

All in all it was a great REBar Camp.  I am really looking forward to implementing some of these new ideas and becoming a “geek” myself.  I will see many of you Realtors at future ReBar Camps…although I’m really hoping the only hopping I’m doing is figuratively, between all of the exciting sessions!