I attended a great training class this week.  I was selected to be a member of the Texas Association of REALTORS® 2010 Professional Standards Committee and as a requirement to serve on the committee, all members are required to take Professional Standards training.

There were so many great "Aha" moments in this class that I may have to write another post about them, but one of the biggest "Aha's" for me was when I realized how many REALTORS® are unfamiliar with blogging as a marketing, education and networking tool for real estate.

I guess since I am in a routine and habit of blogging, regularly seeing how 162,962 other Real Estate professionals have joined the ActiveRain community, I assumed everyone would know about ActiveRain and blogging.  So when, as part of a case study in the Professional Standards class, the Code of Ethics violation scenario included a blogging component, I was caught by surprise when many of the agents in the class were not familiar with the responsibilities and scope of blogging. 

Thanks to my experience as an ActiveRain blogger, I was well educated about these responsibilities.  I had the opportunity to share my knowledge with my colleagues, the instructor even allowed me to talk about ActiveRain for a few moments and afterwards, several classmates asked me for my card in case they had questions as the explored AR on their own. 

And as an added bonus, the instructor even pulled me aside during the lunch break and asked me if I would be interested in joining the Education Committee at our local board... they have been discussing blogging and social media more frequently and she felt that I had a perspective that they were lacking.  I will be attending that meeting next week to see what I can offer.

When I see the number of new and veteran faces here on ActiveRain, it's easy to forget how many agents still haven't gotten onboard the blogging train.  So if you haven't joined yet, c'mon... jump on the Rain Train... there's still plenty of room and it will be a trip you'll be glad that you made!