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Then you should be signed up for rebarcamp Atlanta.  Tickets are only $17.50… and that is for a FULL day of learning, sharing and networking with the most tech savvy agents and real estate professionals in the Atlanta area, and from around the Southeast.  AND, there are tickets available right now for just $10, with the “Almost Early Bird” special.

Many real estate “technology events” are really commercials for their sponsors.  After paying $50 or $100, you get to sit in a room as the sponsoring vendors parade across the stage telling you about their newest, coolest techno-must-have… that you can sign up for at the table in the back for a mere $499/year.

rebarcamp is VERY different.  At an average rebarcamp event, participants share what is working for THEM in their markets.  Sure, there are sponsors, and they are talking about their products, many of the sponsors are not involved in selling directly to agents…

But the big thing that differentiates an average tech event and rebarcamp is that rebarcamp is more tuned to participation.  Attendees decide what sessions should be featured.  They lead most of the sessions.  It is built upon attendees sharing… sharing challenges and solutions… rather than being built on presentations.

So, if you are a real estate professional, and you can make it to Atlanta on October 28th, rebarcamp Atlanta is the place you need to be.

Related articles

• Xplode Real Estate Technology Conference Hits Chicago on August 19th (prweb.com)
• Real Estate Conference Agent Reboot Comes to Atlanta (prweb.com)

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WordPress is a great Content Management System (CMS).  It can be a blog, but it can also be so much more.  It can be a VERY easily updated website as well.  But in order to really get the most out of WordPress, you need to deploy a few plugins that aren’t included with the basic package.  Luckily, they are all free.  I have 40 active plugins on LaneBailey.com and 20 here.  And all of the plugins listed below are on both sites.

These aren’t limited to just real estate sites… they can be used by anyone, especially those utilizing WordPress as a business website.

Here they are in no particular order…

1. All in One SEO Pack*.  If you are blogging for business or to get noticed, you will need to be optimized for search engines.  This plugin, after it is set up, handles a lot of the drudgery of SEO.  You still need to provide the killer content, though…
2. FaceBook Share.  There are a variety of ways to do this, but the basic point is that FaceBook is second only to Google in importance for growing your site.  You NEED to have a way for readers to easily share your killer content with their friends.
3. 

   Image via Wikipedia

   MobilePress.  This is a plugin that builds a mobile version of your site.  You can tweak the mobile version so that it is faster and easier for mobile users.  And the growth in mobile web surfing is astounding.

4. TAC (Theme Authenticity Checker).  If you like to use free themes, this is a great plugin that will look through the theme for potentially malicious or junky scripts.  If it does catch something, it isn’t always completely bad code… but it is a good prompt to look into it further.
5. SoJ Tag Feed.  Turn any post tag into a RSS feed.  This is great for sending some of your content to your other sites.  It is also a great way to have a feed that is targeted for a specific audience (like maybe a different feed for buyer and sellers).
6. WordPress Editorial Calendar*.  I’m writing this post a few days before it is going live.  I usually try to have anywhere from 3 to 10 posts in queue at any given time.  This allows my blog to be more consistent.  With the WP Editorial Calendar, I can look and see at a glance when I have posts scheduled to run.  If I had other bloggers, I could also see who is posting what… and when.
7. 

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   WP-DBManager*.  This allows you to inspect, repair and optimize your databases from right within the WordPress admin panel.  But, it also allows you to get scheduled back-ups.  You HAVE to have back-ups coming in regularly in case there is a problem.

8. Zemanta*.  This is one of the plugins that I leverage more than any other.  It allows me to easily find and use images and related articles.  I can use just my own or I can use items from around the web.  One word of caution, though… KNOW if it is content you are allowed to use.  The articles are generally not a problem (they are just linked), but you CAN get into trouble with images.
9. Page Link To.  This allows you to build a “holder page” so that you can link in the menu to items outside of the WordPress installation.  If you have a squeeze page, sales page or other site that you want included in your menu, this is the way to do it.
10. Blog Copyright (by BTE).  If you don’t protect your content, nobody else will.  This doesn’t keep it from being stolen, but it keeps the reasonably honest people honest… and can make it easier to find the scrapers that steal it.

The plugins with a “*” after them are the ones that I think EVERYONE needs to have on their blog.  These are the ones to grab first.  I would have a hard time blogging without these…

Image via CrunchBase

What do you think?  What plugins do you find essential?

Related articles

• 8 Essential WordPress Plugins for the New Blogger (thenextweb.com)
• WordPress Plugins Wishlist – Plugins I Would Like To See Created & Working (digitalvegetarian.com)
• Speeding Up WordPress (noupe.com)
• WordPress: The Free Software With a Big Economy & How You Can Get Involved (thenextwomen.com)

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I like perfection.  In fact, I have a reputation as a bit of a perfectionist.  What about you?

But, in blogging, perfection is the enemy.  We all want it, but if we wait for it, NOTHING will get done.  Maybe a word here or there needs to be changed.  If we wait until tomorrow to read the post again, we might want to change a sentence here or there… or rearrange a couple of paragraphs.  Then we should probably wait another day to read it and get impressions again.  Maybe we need to send it to a few friends and incorporate a few changes that they think are needed.

Instead, while we SHOULD strive for perfection, we have to let go and get things done.  Checking spelling is imperative.  Having good sentence structure is important.  Knowing that the photos aren’t being used without permission is a pretty good idea.  A good post topic is something that we can’t skip.  And a catchy title is essential.

But, sometimes we need to “settle” for good.  Or maybe really good.  OK, really good.

Related articles

• The ImPerfectionist (reallyrega.wordpress.com)
• Mostly good might be good enough (chrysalisjourney.wordpress.com)
• Good Enough (lionhairedgirl.wordpress.com)
• Perfect-Shmerfect! Things I wish I would have know when I was fifteen. (janelleevans.wordpress.com)
• Is Perfection even desirable? (psychologytoday.com)

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The app has been sitting on my phone for months… and months… and months.  I got the phone back in October, 2010, and Vlingo was pre-installed.  But I never took the time to figure out how to use it.  I just shoveled it off to the side and ignored it. And then I decided a few days ago that I needed to go through all of my apps and use them or kill them.

I have long been interested in speech recognition for blogging and to replace typing while driving.  To start with, I don’t type that fast… and I often have my best blogging ideas when I am on the move.  And while video can be a viable option, it isn’t always the way to go.  Typed posts are easier to scan for interest, as opposed to videos that may only be watched if the prospective viewer already knows they want the information.

I took the opportunity to try it out on a few different tasks…

• Text Messaging – I sent a few texts.  It was as easy as it could be.  The speech recognition and spelling were spot on.  The messages were short, so punctuation and paragraphing weren’t an issue.  The only annoying part was that I had to select which of my contacts numbers it needed to go to… instead of defaulting to mobile.
• Emailing – This didn’t go quite as well.  The message was a lot longer, and needed paragraph breaks, but Vlingo didn’t seem to know where they should have been.  There were also a couple of spelling snafus.  Depending on the email, going over it and tweaking the formatting before sending it would be a pretty good idea.
• Voice Search – This was great…  I asked for a particular restaurant and the result was a list of their locations, based on the distance from my location.  Simple and accurate.
• Navigation – Again, this did an acceptable job.  I asked for navigation to an address and the phone fired up the Nav app and gave me the right directions.
• Note to Self – I didn’t actually try this one out, but I think it will be a nice option.  When I can type on the phone, I often email post ideas and other items to myself.  NtS should send me a nice reminder and place an item on my ToDo list.

One of the ways I would like to use this is to post to Posterous.  Since it is VERY straight-forward to email a post, complete with pictures and/or video to Posterous, it seems like it should be a slam dunk to dictate a post, add a few pictures or a video, and easily create nice content.

Give it a rip.  Vlingo is a nice way to bridge between sitting down typing a post and video blogging or podcasting.  For Android, the app is free.  They also have apps for iPhone, BlackBerry and other devices.  And isn’t this why we get the groovy-cool mobile devices… to make life easier and a little more efficient?

Related articles

• The Next Evolution in Mobile Search Will Be Built on Voice (gigaom.com)
• Mobile makers experiment with input methods (theglobeandmail.com)
• 4 Innovative Ways to Dial A Friend on Your iPhone (iphone.appstorm.net)
• Top 5 Android Apps for Journalists (mobilejournalists.wordpress.com)
• These Apps Will Add Android-Like Voice Commands To Your iPhone (businessinsider.com)

Here is the real Title…

Don’t Worry… Even If Your Grade School Grammar Teacher Reads Your Blog, She Can’t Go Back And Change Your Permanent Record…

Blogging is part art, part science, and part determination.  And the most important part is the determination, because if you don’t make a decision to write on your blog, and follow through with actual writing, nothing else matters.

In order to write a blog, you have to write.  And the biggest issue that keeps people from blogging is a desire to produce perfection.  Don’t worry about perfection… it is elusive.  Worry about getting something written.  Kill the mistakes later.

I have NEVER written a blog post without a mistake…

And I likely never will.  It isn’t that I don’t want to, but that I know that the posts NEED to get done.  When I go back through posts, I almost always find a word misspelled, a comma misplaced or a syntax error.  So I fix the errors.  I use spell check (usually).  I get emails from friends and other folks I know telling me where there is an error.

Oddly, sometimes I am the Grammar Police.

I read a lot.  It is one of the best things I can do to be able to write better.  Heck, if someone had told me in 3rd grade that writing would be incredibly easy if I just read a couple hundred pages every day, I would have been a much better writer (that is NOT true, because I wouldn’t have been willing to do all of that reading then).

So, as Nike says, “Just Do It.”  Post up your first blog.  And then do it again.  And then some more.  When you find a mistake, fix it.  If you don’t find any mistakes… find someone else to look, because there is likley a mistake or three hiding somewhere. It isn’t like you spent a year chiseling the post in stone… you can go back and fix it pretty easily.

And as you write, several things will happen:

• It gets easier.
• It gets better.
• You’ll find your “voice”.

Enjoy.

Some of you might know that I blog on a couple of other platforms…  In addition to my Active Rain blog and ‘Outside Blog’, I have a couple of WordPress blogs, and a couple of Joomla sites.  I try to produce around 15 original posts each week, spread across my 6 sites.  I also ‘re-purpose’ some content from one site to another.  All in all, I put up around 23 posts (originals and re-purposed).

The ONLY way I can do all of that is by maintaining a serious “To Do” list, and (where possible) a detailed editorial calendar.

Previously, I was using MS Outlook for the To Do list, but have moved to Toodledo (web) and Got To Do (Android).  They sync together, and help keep me on top of the list.

On my WordPress blogs, I have WP Editorial Calendar.  There are a couple of reasons that I use it…

• It gives me a visual representation of my post scheduling.  Unlike looking at a list of drafts and scheduled posts, I can also see what day of the week the posts are to appear.
• Moving posts from day to day is VERY easy.  It is drag and drop.  That means that even if I have a bunch of posts set up for the next week, if there is breaking news, I can easily re-arrange the posts to work in the now one.
• I can draft posts directly from the calendar.  Honestly, I don’t… I prefer the full editor over the one that pops up for posting from the calendar.  But, if I wrote shorter posts, I might utilize the pop-up editor more.

These seem like simple things, but being able to conveniently schedule posts in the future, and efficiently move them around as needed is huge.  The time savings, and organizational value from the editorial calendar much higher than I expected.

It has pushed me to a goal of having my posts laid out up to two weeks in advance.  With the flexibility of being able to move posts around quickly and easily, I don’t feel locked into the the schedule.

To really make (blogging) life easier, being able to deploy this tool over several sites would rock.  In fact, even being able to use this kind of tool on Active Rain (with future post scheduling) would hit the level of ‘rocking’…

Related articles

• Editorial Calendar – WordPress Plug-In (savvyblogging.net)