Catching Ideas from Roald Marth, Technology Evangelist

That’s what it felt like one day in December. The MRIS sponsored a seminar with Roald Marth that turned out to be a great follow-up to our Smartphone session with Dick Betts. Listening to Roald you have to be quick and attentive because the ideas and information come at you fast.

So much good information, so much to remember. There’s no way I can recapture it all, but here are some of the highlights from this self-described nerd. (What else could you call someone who had almost perfect SAT scores, and the two questions he missed, well, he says the test was wrong!)

For those of us who are constantly connected it may be hard to believe, but Roald says that most real estate agents are way behind when it comes to using technology. Many of us are what Marth calls “digital immigrants” – technology is a new world to us – whereas our kids are the “natives” having grown up with computers. Guess which group speaks the language more fluently?

Roald had lots of recommendations and comments – here are some of the notes I made:

• Don’t buy computers in December – changes and updates are made at the end of the year. Wait to buy until after February.
• Don’t put Windows Vista on an old machine – it needs gigabytes of space just to run, and many of your existing programs won’t work with it.
• He likes the Dell XPS 1330 notebook which has a camera and the use of Skype.
• Another favorite is the Okidata 5500 C5590 Laser Printer for under $400.
• Roald recommends the Canon 870 wide-angle digital camera for less than $300.
• The Nuvi 350 GPS for about $279 has maps for the entire US and Canada
• The Mac is a great machine, but tough to use in real estate.
• The Fujitsu ScanSnap is a great little scanner (many of my fellow CyberStars agree).
• For a social networking site, he says FaceBook for the younger folks and LinkedIn for the rest of us.
• Google yourself at least once a month.
• Buy your own domain name, your children’s domain names, even your pet’s domain name. (Yes, his dog has his own site!)
• Buy your name on Google AdWords, and buy your listing address. People with Smartphones are Googling the addresses of properties as they drive by.  

It was another good technology session, an opportunity for learning, sharing and networking, some of the things I like best about being in this business. Pat Hommel, who I met through AR, was there, along with Terry Stafford from the All About Real Estate radio show.

If you ever have a chance to hear Roald Marth, take it. He is truly the Technology Evangelist – he wants to see information available everywhere up to and including on the moon. But what else would you expect from a man whose license plate is NETNUTS?