Opinions, Opinions, Opinions

June 7, 2009
By

“Social NOTWorking”
The Famed and Respected Lisa Troisen spurred quite a discussion thread over at Multifamily Insiders this week with her post titled “Social NOTWorking”. There were close to fifty comments and sooooooooooo many opinions, mostly from either folks who have NOT tried anything but have dozens of opinions as to what doesn’t work or by someone from the deep seated print companies who are rapidly sliding down the same slope with a business model that is broke and doesn’t work so well anymore, yet some want to cling to it like there is no tomorrow. Not sure why we tend to believe the continued fodder from the Fox in The Hen House, seems fishy to me, but I digress with just yet, another opinion, mine.


More Opinions at #AptChat

I have participated the past two weeks in #AptChat, which is also hosted by Lisa. Mike Whaling also appears to be helping facilitate and has aggregated the conversation onto his web site here. They are hour long sessions held on twitter, marked with the hash tag #AptChat. Although I enjoyed the conversation and the venue, it too seems that there is a lot of talk and opinions with a wide range of thought, but mostly from folks who have not done much more than traditional type marketing and management, which is fine, but too many opinions from folks who haven’t tried anything new creates a lot of noise. That’s one problem w/ this new world – everyone’s opinion gets heard, no matter how off base or misguided.

Experiment, You May Well Surprise Yourself
The point I am getting at is this, Experiment, Try something new tomorrow. Fail Faster, discard what doesn’t work quickly and expand on what does work. We need to be having conversations with each other about what worked and what didn’t and we need to cease having conversations about opinions, because everyone has one.

As an industry we have to stop doing the same things over and over and break new ground, but FIRST, unless you have done something, which either worked or it didn’t, listen more than you talk, and at least stop talking about what doesn’t work when you haven’t even tried it.

Ask questions, yes of course, that’s how we all learn and how you can avoid some pitfalls others before you have stumbled on. But there is a big difference between asking questions and yapping about why this or that idea will not work for you. Share data, share and be transparent. Do you really think that your current marketing and management strategy is all that secret, it isn’t.

Eric’s background is rooted in the rental and real estate industries. He founded metro Detroit’s Urbane Apartments in 2003, after serving as senior vice president for a major Midwest apartment developer. He established a proven track record of effectively repositioning existing rental properties in a way that added value for investors while enhancing the resident experience.

He also established The Urbane Way, a social media marketing and PR laboratory, where innovative marketing ideas are tested. Eric has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Business Week Magazine.

You can connect with Eric_Urbane on Twitter.

Eric also writes regular articles for the following publications;

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  • Lisa

    You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right Eric? Lisa T.

  • Eric Brown

    Right On Lisa!And it isn't about folks not having a voice, that's important, It is about, to your point, Take a Shot!We are NOT Rocket Scientists, We are Apartment Operators. A mistake WILL NOT crumble the organization, but a win or two will propel you past the competitor,