Radical Transparency - part 2
Posted by Pat Kitano at 12/27/2006 11:18 PM 
Categories: New Business Models, Transparency, Blogging, The Future
Categories: New Business Models, Transparency, Blogging, The Future
Here's a societal sea change: the notion of privacy is disappearing rapidly. Ivy League schools are googling their applicants. Resumes will become irrelevant... Drew Meyers mentions that Zillow will hire based on blogs because blogs can offer more details about a candidate than a short resume. When my kids graduate from college in ten or so years, their whole academic ouevre, their portfolio, their biography, their part time jobs and their musical tastes will be on exposition to recruiters... and their employers will demand this information.
The second part of Chris Anderson's articles on Radical Transparency deals with how he believes transparency should be instituted at his magazine Wired, and by extension, in daily work. In a nutshell, it's - show who you are, show what you do and how you do it, then let go and let others contribute and critique... "wikify everything". As applied to real estate, if you're managing the transaction, ensure that all parties to that transaction are as transparent about what they do and how they accomplish it as you are. And it's a given that blogging currently does the best job of presenting yourself.
Being transparent will make you "out there" if you have that type of character. As interpreted by Jason Calacanis:
Ted pointed me to a report that profiles the "out there person" that has been showing up in organizations recently. The report says that the "out there" folks are more likely to:
- Value fame as an "asset"
- Willing to share certain types of sensitive information on the web
- Believe it is appropriate to criticize their organizations on the web
- Believe that "organizations need to be more transparent to succeed"
- Believe "there's no harm in openly discussing the work I do inside my organization with others"
Obviously I agree with all those points. However, the fame part I think is a temporary thing. Folks who are open and transparent today are getting famous for their candor but in another couple of years this candor will be the norm. Folks like Scoble when he was Microsoft (he's now at Podtech), and Jeremy at Yahoo, were viewed as shocking two years ago, important this year, and in two years they will simply be the norm. That's how trends go.
I like that attitude. Set the trend today.
Also read Radical Transparency - Part 1Technorati Tags: transparency, transparent, radical transparency, transparent real estate, real estate marketing, blogging, blogs, wiki, long tail, wired, chris anderson, jacob calacanis,
Pat-
Just to be clear - I posted that "blog as a resume" article on my personal blog and was not implying that Zillow hires people strictly based on blogs. The post was my own thoughts on how resumes are becoming irrelevant -- not the same as speaking on behalf of Zillow.
Speaking on behalf of Zillow, I can say this -- I'm not in our HR department, but HR does look at blogs if a candidate has one. However, HR still reviews many, many, many resumes.
Hope this helps clarify things
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Thanks Drew... clarified... I also added a bit more clarification on why blogs reveal much more about a candidate than a 1-2 page resume.
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I am a big fan of the transparency and a big fan of your posts. I hope that every aspect of real estate can be open for debate/discussion. I would also like to see the financial statements on the organizations I am a member of such as NAR, NVAR and VAR. Where is the transparency for these organizations? I think agents need to start holding these associations accountable.
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Thanks Tony... with regards to the NAR, transparency is a bottoms-up / top-down process. Many Realtors still live in an ecosystem that tries to uphold their value as the portal of real estate information and would rather keep the consumer in the dark about the arcane real estate transaction process. Without a major push for transparency from the bottom, it's hard for the associations to institute transparency guidelines from the top. I don't know too much about how these associations are adapting to the new transparency, but I assume they would have a strategy in place beyond "duck and cover".
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It's ironic that until blogging I believed in all of these things (except the fame one which I'll describe) but didn't have a venue. I was the one that said, "Yes, you can get single agency representation from a listing company but you have to demand it" when I was an exclusive buyer's agent. I was criticized for this honesty and forthrightness by fellow EBA's. It was their thought that that statement compromised the edge we had in providing this exclusive service. I thought the public should know. As to the fame thing. My personal opinion is that it is overrated. Being the most famous does not make one the best. Best comes from performance, not notoriety!
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I am so excited about all of this. There are a lot of Realtors out there that either refuse to see this paradigm shift, or they are blind to it. Why am I happy? Well, I never "fit in" with the majority of agents, so now is my time to shine. (and I do not mean fame, here- I mean success...) To be transparent is to be successful. Whoo Hoo! Bring it on!
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You and your blog are uber-transparent Mariana!
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