My friend and I were conversing via IM the other night and we got to talking about motivation and inspiration — what’s the difference anyway? There are many similarities between inspiration and motivatation, but the terms appear to be a bit different. First of all, the main similarity is that they both compel someone to take action (most likely), in some form or another. Dictionary.com defines inspire as “to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence” and motivate as “to provide with a motive or motives; incite; impel.”

The difference is in the “why” you are compelled to take action. Money can and does motivate people. As does fear, advancement, security, and a job. Inspiration comes from something greater than yourself — I really don’t think it’s possible to inspire yourself. Inspiration is a form of motivation, but motivation is not ALWAYS a form of inspiration (but can be). Afterall, I would strongly argue that someone working 80 hours a week just to make enough money to pay their rent, credit card payments, and health insurance is not necessarily inspired, though they are obviously motivated. Inspiration, not motivation, is what allows people to achieve greatness.

So, do the same things both inspire and motivate you? What inspires you? A leader? A cause? Improving the world?

What do you think the real difference is?

If you’re hurting for something to read tonight (or whenever), take a look at this great Business Week article titled “True Believers: Passionate customers can transform your company. Here’s how to make them your secret weapon.”

It’s pretty cool to think that, if successful at evangelizing your brand, your existing customers will end up selling your product for you. It’s incredible what happens when your customers have a reason to be passionate about your company.

Thanks to Church of the Customer for bringing attention to this article.

Happy Holidays!!

**Image courtesy of Desktop-XP.com 

Yesterday, I saw Will Smith’s new movie — “Pursuit of Happyness.” It wasn’t quite as uplifting as I thought it would be, however, it was a powerful film overall. Smith played his part to near perfection. Taking place in San Francisco in the early 1980′s, the main plot was a father and his son struggling to make ends meet, including sleeping in shelters, a public restroom, and numerous hotels in tough times.

The title of this post is a great takeaway from a very sad and moving film. About halfway through the film, Will Smith, whose character was not successful at basketball himself, told his son that basketball wouldn’t be what he succeeded at. His 5-year old son took offense and seemed to want to quit basketball, throwing his basketball against the fence. Will Smith realized the impact his words had on his son’s basketball dreams and told him to not let someone ever tell him he can’t do something, going on to say “If you want something, go get it. Period.” Watch the clip below:

I often get tired of hearing people complain about reasons why they can’t do something. In my mind, nothing can prevent you from reaching your dreams except yourself. If you truly desire something, go get it.

In all seriousness, if you don’t read Fred Wilson’s blog, you are really missing out. He posted a great article today titled “Web 2.0 is a Gift, Not a Threat, To VC’s.”
My take on the article? Fred is right – VC’s should be embracing Web 2.0 rather than being scared of it.

I hope everyone has a chance to check out the Yankee Blog Swap on Tuesday — it should provide a wealth of great articles from some of real estate’s finest bloggers. I’m humbled to be participating and have been paired with Pat Kitano at Transparent Real Estate – be sure to check the Zillow Blog for Pat’s post on Tuesday.

Here are the other participants:

RSS Pieces’ Mary McKnight vs. Future of Real Estate Marketing’s Joel Burslem

St Paul Real Estate Blog’s Teresa Boardman vs. Phoenix Real Estate Guy’s Jay Thompson

3 Ocean Real Estate’s Kevin Boer vs. SLC Real Estate’s Nigel Swaby

Issaquah Undressed’s Larry Cragun vs. Maury Properties’ Andrew Maury

Chicago Home Weblog‘s Geno Petroche vs. NY Houses 4 Sales’ Christine Forgione

Phoenix Arizona Real Estate Blog‘s Jonathan Dalton vs. Real Estate Snippets Bonnie Erickson

The boys of Sellsius vs. Real Estate Tomato’s Jim Cronin

ML Podcast’s Michael Price vs. FamousAgents.com’s Elise Wright

My Tech Opinion’s Reggie Nicolay vs. Ubertor’s Steve Jagger

Redfin’s Glenn Kelman vs Rain City’s Ardell DellaLoggia

CondoDomain’s Anthony Longo vs. miOaklandCounty’s Maureen Francis

The San Diego Home Blog’s Kris Berg vs. Urban Dig’s Noah Rosenblatt

The Property Monger’s Jon Ernest vs. XBroker’s Jeff Corbett

Update: Mary has put together a web site at YankeeBlogSwap.com promoting the event. In addition, here is a link to the Press Release.

Ahhhh…I’ve been MEMED (by Mary McKnight at RSS Pieces)!!!!

For those of you that don’t know what a meme is: It’s a thoughtstream carried from one person to another, or, to be more precise, a “unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to the other,” so says Wikipedia. Basically, it’s the blogging equivalent of a chain letter. The cool thing about blogging is that the meme can be tracked. Entire websites are devoted to doing just that. Some memes, however, are deliberate…sort of a social game to build community and engender relationships. I hope this Meme does that with the real estate blogging community.

Here are 5 things you may not know about me:

1. I’ve grown up in a family of handymen and am a devout do-it-yourselfer. I love fixing just about everything in a home (except dry-wall and plumbing).
2. I would love to retire in Greece and run a hostel for backpackers.
3. Interlaken, Switzerland was my favorite city I visited while backpacking Western Europe for 2 months.
   
4. I don’t talk politics much on my blog, but I’m a very liberal person. If you are a hard-core Republican, chances are we won’t agree on too many things (but I am very open-minded and willing to listen).
5. Cats are my favorite animal – when I make the leap and purchase a home or condo, one of the 1st things I’ll do is get a couple of kittens.

Who I am “Tagging”:

• Douglas Heddings, True Gotham
• Joel Burlsem, Future of Real Estate Marketing
• Greg Tracy, Blue Roof.com Blog
• Greg Swann, BloodHound Blog

Tracking the Mem:

• Drew of Drew’s Marketing Minute Starbucker
  
• Trevor Gay of Simplicity
• Phil of Make it Great
• Kammie of Passion Meet’s Purpose
• Success from the Nest
• Dave of Rothacker Reviews
• Andrea Learned of Learned on Women
• Ann Handley of the Marketing Profs Daily Fix
• Nedra Weinreich, Spare Change
• Toby Bloomberg, the Diva Marketer
• Paul Chaney, Strategic Blogging
• Mary McKnight, RSS Pieces

Hope you enjoyed learning a thing or two about me…

DAMN. Do the Seahawks even deserve to go to the play-offs this year? So the Seahawks lost 24-14 to the 49ers tonight. I attended the game and it wasn’t pretty. Kelly Herndon REALLY should have made that sack…but instead Alex Smith sidestepped him and threw a touchdown pass to Gore. Game over.

All I can really say is….Sh*t. We should have won that game.

I came across this article titled “My Blog Is My Resume” at ERE.net by Dave Lefkow that I thought was very interesting. The article talks a little bit about how blogs are becoming increasingly relevant to recruiters…and resumes are becoming irrelevant. This is more true in the tech industry than other industries-but more and more people are starting to blog in all industries. Most recruiters will “Google” a prospective employee to see what they find–if you are that candidate, wouldn’t you rather they find your blog, which provides some insight into your method of thinking, than your myspace profile or some other article written by someone else mentioning you (personal branding)? The article was inspired by this blog post by Robert Scoble, where Robert mentioned that a Yahoo! recruiter was hounding him for a resume…but he took a job at PodTech that didn’t require one. If you are a recruiter, chances are you are having a hard time finding great candidates. Many good candidates are ones that won’t necessarily be applying for a job, but would be a great fit for your organization. It’s up to recruiters to pro-actively find those candidates.

The most interesting piece of the article was actually one of the reviews:

We’ve hired two people fresh out of college in the past 4 months that we found through their blogs – one didn’t even have a formal resume. Frankly, he didn’t need one. A blog trumps a resume every single time.

Think about it – a resume is 1 or 2 pages, of flat, static information. A blog is an interactive space where you can really see inside of a prospect’s head – their ability to innovate, think, & communicate. You not only find out what they’ve done for work, but what their passions are, and frankly if they’re the type of person you think would fit into your organization.

Our stance is that blogging is important – at least in our medium – and we are developing a strategy around it. We are conducting a search for a Marketing Director right now – if an applicant doesn’t blog, or at least contribute heavily, it’s fair to say that we are going to pass them by.

So…is a blog an effective resume? Absolutely.

In my opinion, there are two primary factors that make someone successful- passion and seizing opportunities. I believe a majority of people realize opportunities are everywhere– but only a small number of those people actually take the initiative to act on the right opportunities. Mark Cuban just blogged on a very similar subject with his “Success and Motivation: Drowning in Opportunity/Winning the Battles You Are In” post where he mentioned 3 main points:

1. Everyone is a genius in a bullmarket
2. Win the Battles you are in before you take on new battles
3. You can Drown in Opportunity

I have to agree with the post 100%…it’s a great advice for entrepreneuers (especially numbers 2 & 3). I sometimes find myself focusing too much on ideas (what can I say…my mind loves to wonder with business ideas), but Cuban’s post is a good reminder that business really is all about execution. Not ideas. Yes, opportunity is everywhere–but the real key is picking the right opportunity at the right time. As much as we’d all like to start a business and do everything for everyone (and make loads of money in the process)…that approach doesn’t really work. Expansion and focus needs to be carefully thought out, which is definitely a good lesson I’ve learned from Zillow’s great management team.

Geez…MyBlogLog is making all the right moves! I haven’t kept up to date with tech blogs I usually read since Zillow’s Wednesday release, but I just checked TechCrunch and found that MyBlogLog launched support for myspace profiles, which should grow their audience/reach considerably. I do have a myspace profile, but don’t really use the site that much–the experience is just too crappy. However, there are roughly 100 million users using it and people DO want the ability to view who is looking at your profile as this comment mentions. I wonder what approach MyBlogLog will take to raise awareness in the myspace community? As much as I hate to say it, my suggestion to rapidly raise awareness would be to target good looking girls and focus on getting them to place the widget on their profile. Guys don’t really look at other guys’ profiles. The myspace super-users browse around and look for hot girls–so by reaching them you reach all the guys using the myspace. It should still be noted that I believe a useful widget will spread via word of mouth VERY quickly…so I’m guessing mybloglog will continue their organic expansion strategy.

I feel like an idiot for not seeing the opportunity Steve Poland points out in the TechCrunch post–mybloglog on every site on the web. I’m guessing the MyBlogLog folks weren’t thinking about hitting sites like the NY Times, NHL.com, and ESPN since their company name strongly caters to blogs. But seriously, don’t you wish there was a way to interact with others reading the same articles online that you are reading? MyBlogLog could get there…

I was lucky to get the opportunity to meet Teresa Valdez Klein when I attended the Blog Business Summit several months ago. So when she pinged me on IM this past week about helping raise awareness for an animal shelter started by her Aunt, I couldn’t resist. One of the great things about blogging is that you can use it as a means to raise awareness for issues that don’t get enough attention.

The North Beach P.A.W.S. shelter is a no-kill facility that rescues animals from around the Grey’s Harbor coastal region. They also provide free spay/neuter services to needy families so that they can have the joy of a pet without worrying about taking care of additional puppies or kittens. There is a fresh batch of puppies available for adoption:

People interested in adopting the puppies can call 360-289-9694. If you can’t take the puppies, but would like to make a donation to North Beach P.A.W.S. to help pay their mortgage payment, here’s the address:

North Beach P.A.W.S.
P.O. Box 962
Ocean Shores, WA 98569

Happy Holidays.

It’s been a wild & exciting couple days to say the least. I just wanted to wrap up my coverage with another interesting article (meaning it has CONTENT & is not JUST links like many of the other articles I’ve come across) that I have found…

Cathleen Collins at BloodHound writes a very in depth post, “In the trenches with Zillow.com: A working Realtor’s first-hand experience listing a home . . .”

Update Sat 4:18:  BloodHound just doesn’t let up…another great article by Greg Swann this morning titled “Zillow.com versus Realtor.com: Nothing grows in the shade of great tree . . .“

So, you’ve probably heard, Zillow launched some new features last night. I just woke up and it looks like blog chatter is going full steam. I kept track of stories last night and I’ll be adding links to this post as I have time today, so here we go (times noted are when I updated the post):

• 8:00- Stewtopia posts “Zillow – Make me Move“
• Jim Duncan writes “Zillow Steps it Up“
• Kinetic Shift says “Real Estate Agent Industry Disruption Continues“
• miOaklandCounty writes “My First Zillow Post Ever” (thank you Maureen)
• Greg Swann does a “Early Morning Zillow News Round-up“
• Housing Panic writes “Can you just smell the realtor fear? Zillow now lets you put up a for sale sign and price“
• John Cook posts “Zillow Offers For Sale Listings“
• RealEconomics.net posts “(M+C+A+LI)-(B)=X“
• Michigan Foreclosure Report writes a “Zillow Update“
• GrumpStump writes “Zillow Adds For Sale Signs : Realtors everywhere in shock“
• Almost forgot Jonathan Miller at the Matrix, who writes “Zillow Make(s) Me Move For Free“
• 8:38- House Falls posts “Inman.com: Zillow adds for-sale listings“
• 8:46- Greg at BlueRoof posts “Zillow Grabbing For MLS/FSBO Business“
• 10:00- Curbed provides some “Thursday AM Linkage“
• Real Estate Marketing posts “Zillow Crows, Redfin Stews“
• Screenwerk writes “Zillow Adds Free Listings, Other Features“
• The Kelsey Group posts “The Craigs-listing of Zillow“
• 10:06- San Diego Home Blog writes “While I was Sleeping, Godzilla Strikes“
• Sellsius posts “Will Zillow Let Listing Owners Opt-Out Now?“
• 10:10- The Real Estate of Oz writes “Zillow wants to Make Me Move“
• 10:21- The Condo Metropolis Blog posts “Zillow.com Deals Another Blow to MLS“
• 10:38- Greg Sterling at Search Engine Journal says “Zillow Free Listings & Other Features“
• VonLein says “Zillow – Too Much Help?“
• 10:42- True Gotham posts “One Step Closer to Transparency of Information“
• 11:17- Of Mountains & Molehills posts “Catching up with Zillow“
• 11:21- Ardell at RCG (2nd post) mentions “The BIGGER news on Zillow.com“
• 11:22- Mike’s Corner says “‘Make Me Move’ = A New Lead Source“
• 12:18- Beau Bettis says “Zillow adds Homes for Sale“
• Northern Virginia RE Guide writes “Zillow sharpens its sword…challenges the status quo“
• 3:19- US Real Estate Directory Blog says “Zillow launches homes for sale“
• The New Real Estate Math posts “Zillow opens up to post listings for free“
• RCG’s Ardell (3rd post) writes “Zillow’s Free Advertising – A Consumer Perspective“
• John Cook posts “HouseValues, HomeGain, and Zillow“
• Maury Properties writes “Zhanges? Zupdates? Zillow’s new features“
• SpencerBarren posts “Zillow Returns Power to the People with Site updates“
• 3:29- Digitalalchemy posts “Make Me Move: Sell Your Home with Zillow“
• Marketing Shift says “Every House Is On the Market“
• REIBlog writes “It’s a Seller’s Market for Real Estate Web Site“
• YoChicago writes “What Price Will Make You Move?“
• Phoenix Arizona Real Estate Blog writes “Zillow Listings – The First Taste is Free“
• Phoenix Real Estate Guy says “Zillow This, Zillow That: Or, For the Love of Pete, Enough Already!“
• 7:56- Greg Swann at BloodHound provides another insightful post, “Zillow redux: A post-diluvian retrospective . . .” (this is truly a great post-I guess I’m not Z-ed out yet afterall)

Update at 6:18 PM: Well everyone, it was fun. As much as I’d love to continue tracking everything, I’m beat after a long & hectic day at the office. For now, I’m going to go eat dinner and crash…and maybe read a couple tech blogs (Z-ed out for now).

So…this is exciting stuff to say the least–Zillow is launching a new version of our website tonight (in process)! Personally, I think this is the most exciting thing we’ve done since we launched in February. So-what’s included in our new feature set??

1. Agents and owners can post homes for sale–for FREE.
2. Added a real estate wiki that is seeded with over 100 articles–and opening it up to the community for improvement & expansion
3. Make Me Move–now ANYONE can set a “dream” price for their home

If this sounds intriguing (which hopefully you do), you can read more over at the Zillow Blog (I’ll link when posted).

UPDATE: We’re now LIVE!! Come on…go check out the Zillow Blog post and then visit Zillow and see the new features for yourself!!

Zillow’s own David Gibbons (Director of Customer Service) writes his introductory post, “Zillow wants Your Listins,” as a member of the Active Rain community (with 10,000+ members, should I jump on the bandwagon too?).

Keeping Track–I’ll keep a tab of the blog posts & stories that I find tonight. Here’s the run-down (in order):

• Kevin Boer took some guesses as to the product features we were adding tonight when he found our “Holiday Suprise” page (shown below).
  
• TechCrunch was the 1st blog to post to announce the new features (hit 9:00 on the dot)
• Greg Swann at the Bloodhound Realty Blog
• Inman News – Article 1, Article 2, Article 3
• Ardell at Rain City Guide
• GigaOM says “Zillow Shows More of Its Cards”
• LA Times with an article titled “It’s a Seller’s Market for Real Estate Web Site Zillow.com“
• RCG’s Ardell on her own blog
• MSNBC’s “Expedia founder in web property move“
• John Cook’s “Homes for sale now listed on Zillow.com“
• Hotpads’ “Zillow Launches for-sale listings“
• Future of Real Estate Technology’s “Zillow to offer free listings“
• SocketSite’s “Zillow Adds Listings (Zlistings?)“
• Transparent RE posts “Everything you need to know about Zillow in 15 minutes“
• Russell Shaw at BloodHound wonders “Is BloodHound the Most Wired Blog in Real Estate?“
• Michael Parekh on IT writes “On Zillow’s New ‘Make Me Move” Feature’“
• Sellsius posts “Yes, I am a National Listing Site“
• Kevin Boer (2nd post) posts “Wow! You Leave for an Hour, and Zillow Changes the World” (I don’t know if this is EARTH changing–but we’ll take the compliment)
• Ryan Stewart says “Sell Your House with Flash“
• Galen at RCG writes “Zillow’s new way to spite your neighbor“
• Marlow Harris at 360 Digest posts “Zillow adds ‘For Sale’ postings and other goodies“

In my search for new blog entries, I’ve been using IceRocket, Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Bloglines. I’ve concluded:

• Bloglines sucks. At 9:54, not a single post has shown up yet. STILL nothing at 10:55
• IceRocket sucks. Same result as above…zero entries

Update: Ok everyone…it’s almost 2 am PST and I’m off to bed. I’ll continue to monitor the chatter tomorrow as much as I can. However, the day after a release is always busy. Please leave a comment if you have a question you’d like to get answered and I’ll get to it as quick as I can.

I just came across an interesting podcast with Scott Rafer, the CEO of MyBlogLog, that contains some great insights into the company’s direction. Of couse I HAVE to mention this since it involves my favorite web 2.0 company out there. For instance, one of the more interesting pieces of information I got from it was that MBL has only 25,000 user profiles (and 38,000 registered blogs), but 4 million counted visitors per day to those 38k blogs. MBL has been getting lots of traction in the real estate industry recently-which I think is a great thing that will continue. If you think Active Rain is exploding…check this alexa chart (granted, MBL had a good head start).

Want to figure out how to put MyBlogLog Mojo on your site?? If so, take a look at this superb post at Voodoo Ventures. If you’re interested in social networking and blogging (and the combination), you’ll be glad you listened to the podcast.

So, most of the regular readers of this blog probably know I’m a dual blogger–I blog here as well as on the Zillow Blog. I thought I’d take a minute to highlight some of the differences between personal blogging and business blogging.

Personal:

The main reason that I started my own blog was that I wanted to write on a wide range of topics. I grew up with a balanced background in terms of interests & skillsets. I’ve definitely grown up a do-it-yourselfer (with the help of my father) — I’ve built computers, undertaken numerous electrical wiring issues, coded web pages, built a deck, put shingles on a house, love history books, jacked up a house, torn apart numerous car engines, installed car stereos, etc. That said, I still like to focus my writing on business and technology (but want the feedom to branch off to other topics). The fact that I can state my opinion without “speaking” on behalf of a company is a great change of pace. IF I feel the need to blog about a political issue, I can (though I try not to). Blogging is meant to be personable (IMO). A personal blog allows you to be that to the extreme. Also, please take a quick look at my personal branding post from a couple months ago for a couple more reasons to start your own personal blog.

Business:

One thing I really like about business blogging is the collaboration. It’s always good to get a second and third opinion about an article I write. On that same note, a distributed workload is possible–meaning it’s possible to have fresh, quality posts 5 times a week (though we don’t always manage to post everyday at Zillow Blog) without writing all day everyday. Business blogging forces you to put your best foot forward (that’s why posts are reviewed by others on our blog team prior to setting live). A key difference is that, with business blogging, you have to think about PR implications of every post–opinions written on a corporate blog may be cited by the press in print and be held to a much higher standard than that of one employee’s particular opinion on his/her personal blog. The requirement to stay on topic is both a plus and a minus (depending on your personality) for biz blogging. Not in every case, but certainly in my specific case, business blogging provides a larger reach for your content.

Neither type of blogging is better–they are just different. I think personal & business blogging compliment each other quite nicely. I believe customers want to build some form of relationship with a company–allowing users to build a relationship with employees through a blog is one way to do that very cheaply. Just look at Robert Scoble, who has revolutionized corporate blogging at Microsoft and proved customers want more information about employees of companies whose products they use–simply by being part of the conversation.

I think one’s preference is really a matter of personal likes/dislikes. If you do both, which do you prefer?

It seems the LA Times has leaked who will play Ohio State in the Bowl Championship Series national title on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz–it’s the Gators. I thought since I’m watching the BCS Selection Show on Fox, I should blog about who the selections are:

Fiesta Bowl: Boise St vs Oklahoma

Orange Bowl: Louisville vs Wake Forest

Rose Bowl: USC vs Michigan

Sugar Bowl: Notre Dame vs LSU

BCS National Championship Game: Florida vs Ohio State (officially)

Congrats to the Gators for beating out Michigan for the chance at knocking off Ohio State and taking home the national championship.

Michael Arrington at Techcrunch just put up this great web 2.0 poster that I thought I’d share here. Most of the major “web 2″ companies out there are featured. The poster by eBoy, and written about on Go2web2, can be bought by clicking on the image below.

What’s your favorite web 2.0 company?? Personally, I think my favorites are YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and Technorati–because those are the ones I use almost everyday (and now del.icio.us since I just signed up today).

Update: I was browsing around further and found this “Big NYC Poster” that you might want to take a look at.

I came across this GREAT resource this morning on the topic of social bookmarking tools (via a post on Build a Better Blog). I have to admit, I don’t use a social bookmarking site–YET. I’ve been thinking about signing up for a del.icio.us account and this makes me realize I could truly benefit from bookmarking the sites of interest to me. Further, as long as I’m bookmarking them, why not let everyone else use that knowledge too? Afterall, that’s what web 2.0 is all about–collective intelligence. So…off I go to sign up for del.icio.us!