A while back, while serving as the Technology committee chairperson at our Keller Williams office in Media PA, our small committee of 4 was brainstorming about how to help agents in our office have a better understanding about using todays technology in their real estate practice. It was immediately apparent to all of us sitting around the table that the best way to understand what the agents were looking for was to simply ask them. But what would be the best way to do that? An informal open discussion over lunch? Ding! It was a pretty simple concept. When would we have it? Well since we offer a KW Cares lunch, a fundraisng lunch program where the food is donated by an agent and then the lunch is offered to those in the office for a charitable donation of $5, every Thursday lets target that day so we can also possibly increase traffic to the lunch as well. Ding! Ding! Finally the name just rolled out after only a few minutes, TechTalk Thursday was to be held the Third Thursday of every month at Twelve Thirty - enough T's? Ding! Ding! Ding! @3 have a winner.

These sessions are not marked as a class or training session, that may scare the technophobes off from attending. We want to keep it informal and open. Agents are encouraged to bring topics, questions, recommendations and their lunch to sit and chat. And we do just that, talk about whatever is on the minds of the attendees. Rarely does anyone get up and leave and most of the time the sessions fly by. Once the session is complete I compile a TechTalk REwind newsletter outline the sessions topics and post it in the office. It has been a very successful session with great feedback and participation.

I love it and I would encourage you to introduce this type of forum in your office. People will learn, although it is not a training session, and people will actively participate. For each of the sessions, have a few bullet points to talk about, such as what is the best phone for Realtors, website providers, what is a blog, to get the conversations rolling and sit back and have fun with it. The conversations will vary and need to be monitored as to noto go too technical for the bunch so you will need to balance it out but if the information is discussed, put in print and then followed up with the next month it serves as a great learning tool and will help build office relationships, tech knowledge, marketing efforts and most of all comfort levels with technology.

So why have I waited months to share this concept with the AR community? Well we're creating blogging monsters, especially that Deb Greto! Yesterday out of the hour long forum, we spent about 45 minutes on Active Rain and blogging. We started the blogging conversation in our February forum and then at least 4 Real Estate related publications covered the topic in their March issues so the topic arose again this month and we really had a great discussion.

Give the session a try and let me know how it works for your office! Oh yeah, don't forget to mention at your first meeting, that the reason you are there was because Active Rain , a technology tool, and its members are helping you increase your business everyday!  

All the best

DJ