Since the day I began my real estate career (good grief, it's now over 25 years!), I've always believed that "Informed is Empowered!" As a matter of fact, I've had that as a tag line on various of my websites...placing it there because I felt the consumer VIEWING the pages should keep that in mind. After all, isn't it true that the more information we have, the better the decisions we can make?
But I've got to say it....I WAS WRONG! We're now emersed in what I think of as "Information Proliferation"!!! There is so MUCH of it....how do we separate the wheat from the chaff? It's certainly a challenge! I recently had some out of town company, and my guest (a friend and colleague from the Boston area, Mollie Wasserman) wanted to treat us both to a pedicure Now, that sounded like great fun, but since it's not something I really do, I thought "great, I'll google it". Right...I searched for "pedicure" in my local area and, VOILA, in what I'm shown to be .13 seconds, I get links for 17,900 results! Holy cow!!!! Now that's A BOATLOAD OF INFORMATION!
But wait, as I run through the list of links....most of the ones on the first pages are merely directories of additional links...what I acutally find are....MORE lists! I just want a decent pedicure, I don't want to have to drive an hour to get it, and I want it in a reputable establishment so the odds are I won't get one of those horrific nail infections! Oh, and I wanted it TODAY, and rummaging through 17,900 links wouldn't get me there!
I considered this whole thing an exercise in frustration! Obviously, MORE information is not the answer. By the way, we DID find a nice little salon and got ourselves a wonderful, relaxing foot massage, a nice hot foot bath, and great french pedicures (my very first ever). And to boot, the comfy chairs we sat in had variety of settings as well....so we got a massage, too! And all this was at a VERY (from what Mollie told me) reasonable price! If you're ever in the Schaumburg area, check out Glamourous Nail Salon!
Bottom line, despite the VOLUMES of information available with just that one search, I was no better off than when I started! On the one hand, I had NO idea where to go. And after my search, I had TOO MUCH information! And I must admit, the very LAST thing I felt was EMPOWERED.
As a veteran in this real estate industry, that point was certainly not lost on me! The challenge is clear....to create information that is both Accurate and Timely...and also make it EASY TO FIND!
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