In the real estate world, we are obviously seeing more and more public data get used in creative ways- everything from ActiveRain to Zillow. Since I've been contacted by so many decision makers regarding "big thought, strategic conversation" ideas in the real estate realm, if any of you are in the Seattle area and interested in attending the following and doing a little networking, please zip me off an e-mail (barry.hurd@123socialmedia.com) or leave a comment on my company blog.

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If you missed the announcement on several other sites, the MIT Forums of the Northwest is having a great panel on Wednesday night (June 4th) - MIT Event - The Business of Public and Personal Data. Any business professional, especially communications and public relations decision makers should be looking at this information and forming some strategic viewpoints regarding it. This panel will be a good opportunity to hear some different viewpoints on the topic of how personal and public information is being used by companies, and what is in store for the future business models.

The proliferation of social networks here in the Northwest brings this type of topic home pretty quick- where we have community sites like Biznik (10k members), ActiveRain (90k members), Zoodango (membership unknown), along with larger community portals belonging to companies like Amazon and Microsoft.  We also have dozens of smaller communities based on services like social services on Ning and Meetup, which is greatly influenced by the technical savvy and aptitude of our region.

Understanding how some bright minds have monetized the “public information” super-model of business has a huge potential impact to almost any industry. There are databases and sites full of public information that is of little value by itself, but when compared to other public data or indexed with additional proprietary information it  becomes amazingly worthwhile.