At Real Estate Connect this year in San Francisco, I plan to give it my all to bring you an exceptional program, as the moderator for the three-day event.
To insure your investment in time and money pays off as a Connect attendee, I will be working the stage very diligently on your behalf. For those of you not attending, consider this series of articles on Connect as a way to engage on topics at the event.
I have four goals as a moderator.
1. I am on the stage representing you. I try to imagine the questions you would ask and then grill graciously (sometimes) my panelists or speakers. At times, I am on the mark, but not always. So I will be asking for your help further down in this article.
2. I try to interpret what our speakers and experts are saying, cutting through the acronyms, tech speak and blah, blah, blah. Then I try to project how this new information applies to you in some meaningful way.
3. My approach to moderating is to nudge, humor and push our speakers and panelists to apply and explain their insights and observations. It is important we have fun on the stage, to prevent anyone taking themselves too seriously. Sitting in the audience for hours at at time can be painful without a dose of entertainment.
4. As we move through the agenda over three days, I will attempt to explain what I am hearing, what the trends are at a high level and what to make of the information.
I need your help. What would you like to hear about and what questions do you want me to ask from the stage? Email me anytime, I am listening. Brad@Inman.com
A few highlights of the program are below. Before the show, we will be writing about other panels and speakers. At the bottom of each of these stories, you will be asked to send me ideas and questions for the speakers. Do not hold back.
Is the Economic Upturn Real?
Here we will try to get a handle on the improving housing market. Is it sustainable? And if so, how? Is the good news an election-year anomaly? How will the election influence the market this year and next? What can we count on? What should we worry about? Panelists include Amy Brandt, CEO, Vantium Capital; Bill Emmons, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Patrick Stone, Williston Financial Group; and Joel Singer, CEO, California Association of Realtors.
Pulling Your Listings from Aggregator Sites: Who Wins?
Why are brokerages pulling their listings from sites like Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia?
(This one should be fun, controversial and full of noise on both sides. I cannot wait.)
Venture Investing: What’s Trending
I will interview Jed Katz, managing director, Javelin Venture Partners, who had the first successful Internet real estate exit when he sold his company RentNet in the late 1990s. A savvy San Francisco investor, Jed and I will discuss what is hot and what is not and how new developments in technology investment will bleed into the real estate world.
Personalized Advertising Analytics
Jason Sosa, CEO of Immersive Labs, will teach us how to get our advertising analytics right, so we are not wasting money and pouring dollars into the wrong sources of leads.
Connecting People, Places and Photos
I am excited about interviewing Caterina Fake who co-founded photo-sharing site Flickr, which was sold to Yahoo! in 2005. She then sold her next startup, Hunch, to eBay in 2011. Her latest venture is a startup named Pinwheel that is giving consumers the ability to share their impressions of the places they love by leaving digital "notes" throughout their neighborhoods.
We will have a series of Connect downloads including "The Power of Pinterest," "Instagram’s Billion Dollar Photo App," and "Getting the Mobile Opportunity Right."
This is just a taste of the program.
I am really excited to be back and on stage with you.
See you Aug. 1.
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