Many of you may have heard the term "crowdsourcing" by now but may not know what it is.  This is a process by which you literally engage an mob of people online to solve a business problem for you.  This is the ultimate in cheap labor, 1000 heads are better than 1 sort of idea.  Major corporations are employing this strategy for all sorts of reasons, mostly in prototype development, strategic thinking, new product testing, new product marketing, that sort of thing.

So why not think about how you as a Realtor could employ this idea yourself.  Identify a problem to solve OUTSIDE of selling a house or property - "Hey I need your help to sell this great condo", to obvious and uninspired. 

Focus on the relationships and come up with an inspirational problem to solve as a human being engaging other human beings.  All sorts of issues unfortunately exist today in our communities, like homelessness, starvation, children going to school without so much as a jacket, breakfast and a pencil.  Pick something like this to champion in your area and create an action plan online for solving the issue, encourage people online to engage in thoughtful exchanges that will open doors to creativity, new ideas and most of all action.  Build a community around it at www.ning.com, you can start your very own social networking site there for free.  

It seems to me that in such an industry as yours (real estate) which is so dependent on the multiplication of human relationships, one may want to develop the ability to give back to the human race.  This is way more about psychology than dirt.  Want to generate the trust so as to receive a personal referral and do it in bucket fulls?  Rather than do what every other agent does and put the request on their website, business card and bottom of email, almost as if to (pardon me for saying) "beg" for the business (some may say "ask")  This isn't 1986 anymore folks..."a tactic known is a tactic blown" - General MacArthur  I think most people feel the same way.  Just because one has it on their business card doesn't make me want to pass on the name of a trusted colleague to you thereby exposing a personal relationship which is very important to me to potential harm.  I need WAY more than that, I suspect so do you...

The consumer has never in our history been more savvy, more informed and more ready to not listen to transparent marketing rhetoric.  It's time to inspire the human race, capture hearts, move and motivate.  People are much more likely to flock to you then, your new relationships will grow in numbers you'll not at first understand but will certainly appreciate the effect and impact. 

This is just a philosophy in business I have.  I just think that rather than putting your fishing boat out into the ocean and trolling for hours with a massive net hoping to catch a fish or two, one would much prefer to put their boat out in the ocean and have massive schools of fish swim to them on their own and jump right into the boat instead.  No nets required.

Community service is not a new idea, engaging in the discussion and taking action through crowdsourcing online is...want to empower those thirty somethings to buy or sell with you, this might just be the ticket.  If nothing else, you will have done a great thing and you'll just feel great about that regardless.