Thinktanks, Progress and Change

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Think-tanks, Progress and Change

• Roadmapping the internal changes of the National
  Association of REALTORS

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The Center for REALTOR Technology

• CRT we like acronyms
• ... serves REALTORS and REALTOR associations as
  an industry advocate, implementation consultant
  and technology information resource
• CRT is a member resource!

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Advocacy

• Helping the industry, while advancing it.
• Standards
• RETS Real Estate Transaction Standard
• IDX/VOW
• Data Exchange

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Implementation

• Proof-of-concept to Production Ready.
• RETS
• Variman MLS Data Exchange
• ezRETS MS-EXCEL Data Plugin
• REALTOR Secure Security Audit
• Messenger VOIP Message Server
• Many, Many More.
• http//www.crt.realtors.org/crtprojects.html

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Information

• What we discover, we give back.
• Website/Blog
• Online Whitepapers
• Convention Tech Sessions
• Blogger/Wireless facilities/discussions

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A Brief History

• Established in 2001 by NAR
• A place for REALTORS to come to.
• Mark Lesswing Vice President of CRT
• Dedicated team of Technology Evangelists

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Solid Foundation

• Core values
• Open and Free
• Dedicated to the greater good

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Understanding Technology

• Obsession with technological advancement and
  nowness makes utility hard to derive

• Harold Innis
• Canadian Historian
• 1894-1952

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Clarity for the Masses

• Envisioning Information -Respect the
  audience, they are precious

• American Designer
• 1938-
• Edward Tufte

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CRT is born

• Never reinvent the wheel
• Understand the effects of the medium
• Understand the needs of the audience
• About CRT

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4 Course Tech Meal

• NRDS National Real Estate Database System
• Ecommerce
• Escrow Services
• Geo-Info

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NRDS

• Homegrown membership system
• Data entered by locals
• Membership
• Designations
• Verification Web Services
• Affinity Partners
• Lowes
• eBooks

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Ecommerce

• 2500 Locals
• Federated Structure
• Better Service
• 325 Million Transaction 2006

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Escrow

• Leveraging off Ecommerce
• Better Rates
• Better Maintenance

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Geo-Info

• MapServer Open Source GIS
• Congressional District Reports
• Board Locator
• Commercial License SnapShot

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Congressional Reports
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Board Locator
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Evolution

• A centralized member database which can be used
  to profile industry affiliation

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Master Member ProfileMMP

• REALTOR Political Action Committee
• Profile workgroup members
• Leadership Team
• RETS integration
• Office/Agent Rosters
• Single-Sign-On

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Overlapping Markets

• Regionalize MLS
• Quattro
• National Marketing Database
• RETS
• North American Standard
• Multilingual

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CRT - tinkering

• Blog
• Gadgets
• Content Management (Drupal)
• Industry Survey

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The Next Wave

• Data research projects (SOA)
• RETS Viewer
• Neighborhood Gallery
• User Intention