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Lisa Trosien email interview: Part 1
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
Lisa Trosien was kind enough to field a few questions for the benefit of our blog readers. The interview was done back on in the early part of June and I am just now getting around to posting it. All for good reason.
This marks the 800th post on our Property Management blog. It’s been a long trip. We started the blog thing back in late 2004 and have suffered through bad platforms, lost material and otherwise dumb user mistakes. Despite all that here we are today on a secure platform posting our hearts content.
I thought it fitting to use this milestone 800th post to replay the words of one our true apartment maniacs and moreover icons of the industry.
Many of you know the story but I will tell it again. I first met Lisa at the NAA/IREM conference in Las Vegas some 12 years ago. It was my first conference and she happened to be one of the speakers that I went to see. I was spellbound by the whole experience. I could not tell you one thing that she talked about but I can tell you that she made me feel like I was the only one in the audience that afternoon.
Later that evening I was in a gift shop when I spotted Lisa buying every magazine that contained Michael Jordan pictures. There were many at the time. I took advantage of the moment to say hi and to tell her how much I enjoyed her speech. What caught me off guard was her absolute humbleness and willingness to give me her undivided attention.
She is no different today. I’ve heard stories where she receives emails from say, a leasing consultant in Seattle. And, Lisa being Lisa, picks up the phone and calls them direct. The response is often a shrill that rivals a tweener screamer her heart out at a Hanna Montana concert. “It’s Lisa on the telephone!” “Is it really you?”
While she downplays the celebrity status that ajoins public speakers she is no doubt a major influence and moreover consumate professional for our industry.
All that said, let me pause no more. Here is part one of a two part series. And, Lisa. Thank you – from a forever fan.
Professional
Can you tell us a little bit about what you do in and around the multifamily industry? How you got into the business? And, your favorite memory about the business?
What are some of the biggest areas of opportunity that you see facing our business in the near and long term?
How does your role as a consultant play into that and how do you see yourself assisting operators/owners as we move into the future?
Technology
How do you see technology affecting our business in the coming five years? How might it help or hurt us going forward?
Do you have a website? Facebook Page, Twitter account? Blog? Anything else you are using to get your message out?
Are you still an advocate for print media? Has your thought process shifted in the least?
For instance, when I travel, I book my hotel room online. I can even pick the room I want at some hotels by looking at a schematic of the property. I arrive, bypass the line at the desk and check in at a kiosk. Since I’ve probably prepaid to get a better internet rate, I don’t have to check out in the morning. If I don’t need any special services once I’m there, I can get in, get out and get on with my life with NO human intervention.
However, that being said, great on site team members will ALWAYS be able to find a job. Technorati Tags: Lisa Trosien, apartment marketing
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Social Media; Where we have been and where we are Going a post by Eric
Eric Brown · · 1 Comment
Mack Collier is a social media consultant, and author of The Viral Garden, a blog focusing on marketing and social media. His post today is fitting with Milks recent posts and comments. Check out Mack’s regular posts at http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/
2005 – What was hot? Blogs and MySpace. Both blogs and MySpace had been slowly but surely building steam for a few years prior, but I think reached their tipping points due to media coverage of certain events. For blogs, I think that Dell Hell and their coverage of the Tsunamis garnered much mainstream media attention. For MySpace, News Corp purchasing the social networking site for $580 million was a huge news story, and gave the socnet’s member base another kick in the pants.
Are they still hot now? Yes but I think both blogs and MySpace have cooled a bit, and will continue to moving forward. Blogs now have competing formats such as microblogging sites (Twitter, Pownce), as well as socnets. I think in 2005, blogs were the big fish in a small social media pond. By now, that pond has grown several times in size, and blogs are a bit smaller than they were. There’s now many options for creating and sharing content online. But blogs definitely have their place in the social media space, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
As for MySpace, I think it’s gone from being a ‘one-size-fits-all’ socnet, to seeing more specialized competitors such as Hi5 and BlackPlanet stealing some of its members. I think this will continue, but I also think that MySpace has a very established and ‘general’ user base that will probably stick with the service. I think MySpace is aimed at the widest market, and will continue to appeal to that group.
2006 – What was hot? YouTube. It was really a great idea waiting to happen, a site that lets you view videos. And a TON of videos, by mid 2006, the site was claiming that 100 million videos were being viewed every day (which of course was a big story with the MSM). And of course when Google bought YouTube for 1.6 million in late 2006 (a story broken by a blog, Tech Crunch), that just brought even more attention to the site.
Is YouTube still hot? Yes but that’s a bit surprising to me. I think that YouTube’s competitors had a window of opportunity to educate people on the video-creation process, and to make it easier. As late as last year I was hearing from people active in social media that they had no idea how to create a video and get it on YouTube. But I think the Flip Camera’s rise in popularity is in great part due to its ability to upload newly created videos straight to YouTube. YouTube just has such a dominant place in the video-sharing realm and is so firmly entrenched with the masses that competitors offering better quality and features (Viddler), can’t really compete at this point.
2007 – What was hot? Facebook. Like MySpace, Facebook’s user base had been expanding rapidly already. I think the blogosphere really jumped on Facebook hard in 2007, helping to shine a spotlight on the social networking site. The site’s core audience is a bit different from MySpace’s, being a hit with primarily college students.
Is Facebook still hot? – Yes and no. Facebook’s Beacon program in particular has been a big turnoff to many of the bloggers that jumped on board last year. The site seems to be losing popularity, but it’s still firmly entrenched with MySpace as one of the Top 2 socnets. But I don’t think that Facebook will lose as many members to specialized competitors like MySpace will.
2008 – What is hot? Twitter and LinkedIn. Both sites had been growing modestly but steadily up until around this time last year when both sites began to take off. Twitter’s spurt was mainly due to a very smart sponsorship at last year’s SXSW, and the site has been expanding its base ever since. And I would be willing to bet that much of LinkedIn’s growth can be tied back to hiring Mario Sundar as its Community Evangelist. Since that time, LinkedIn has started blogging, and has placed a priority on adding social elements to the service as well as to better explaining the capabilities of site. As a result, it’s morphed into more or less the ‘social network for business professionals’.
Will they be hot moving forward? I think so. Twitter has no real or even potential competition at this point in the microblogging space. And Twitter is beginning to expand beyond the early adopters and techsters that have pushed its popularity to this point. Twitter, while it does have a bit of a learning curve, is simple enough to start using for most people. Utility and ease of use are what drives a site/tool to cross over and have mainstream appeal. Twitter’s crossover into the mainstream might not come this year, but I think it will eventually.
As for LinkedIn, it’s showing no signs of slowing down. I think that many people last year were favoring Facebook as a business networking tool over LinkedIn. But as Facebook continues to fall out of favor with the blogosphere, many are turning to LinkedIn as a networking tool. Ironically, Twitter is also showing great promise for networking, and could be a bit of a threat to LinkedIn down the road as an avenue for online networking.
What sites/technologies will be hot in 2009 and beyond? To me, trying to figure out this question is the fun part. And I think it comes with a big caveat; many people that predict that such and such site will be the ‘next big thing’, are confusing being big with early adopters, with being big with the mainstream. For example, Friendfeed shows great potential to be super-hot with early adopters, but you can all but forget it ever having mainstream appeal. Friendfeed is working now for early adopters because so many of us are active on multiple sites and with multiple tools. The mainstream isn’t.
As for what’s next, I’ll again go back to the utility and ease of use. I think that podcasting, for example, offers great utility, but the creation/editing process has always been difficult and time-consuming. And by now why would a newbie worry about podcasting, when they can create videos via Qik and instantly stream them to the web? I think if the creation process had been easy for podcasts from the get-go, that podcasting would be firmly entrenched as a widely used social tool now.
One thing that I really think drives social media, is the ability it gives us to connect with each other. I think that moving forward, the focus will turn to doing this on a local level. For example, a tool that takes the locations of your Twitter friends and super-imposes them on a street map to show you who is nearby. Or a mashup that does the same thing with the locations provided by Brightkite users. I think as Twitter grows in popularity, you will see more and more people accessing it on the go with cellphones, and this growth will help drive the possibility of more localized socializing.
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Video resumes
VideoJobShop offers a cool new way to not only seek a job but to advertise your industry as well. The site offers employers the opportunity to give more than the standard elevator speech about their respective companies. Moreover it gives potential talent the opportunity to do the same in terms of touting their strengths and skills.
I have to say, it would seem much more of a challenge to embellish your accolades on video. Very much unlike your standard leasing consultant, assistant property manager or property manager resume. Video gives away your body language and as we all become more adept at reading body language it will be easier to spot the fraud. That being said I would likely buy into this medium as a filtering system for hiring a property management professional.
What about you?
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Recruit for Character
"I can’t tell you how many times we passed up hotshots for guys we thought were better people, and watched our guys do a lot better than the big names, not just in the classroom, but on the field—and, naturally, after they graduated, too. Again and again, the blue chips faded out, and our little up-and-comers clawed their way to all-conference and All-America teams." -That from Bo’s Lasting Lessons and offering from Bo Schembechler, long time and legendary coach at Michigan.
Is the same not true for our apartment business’? The apartment management and marketing business is nothing less than an amazing opportunity to work with amazing business people. How important is character in your hiring decisions? Are your interview questions about property management laced with character identifiers? Should they be?
Have a great Monday (my favorite day of the week). M
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