Nov. 3, 2009 - Association lessons from Flower Mound, Texas

(art by Jack Haas)

Each year the Center for Digital Government takes a survey of U.S. cities to evaluate how municipalities are integrating information technology into operations to better serve their citizens.   This year’s report is just out, naming Corpus Christi, Santa Monica, and Flower Mound, TX, as winners in the various size-based categories. The cities instituted various projects: on-line meter reading, traffic light management, and a fiber optic infrastructure—all enabling citizens to have better, more efficient municipal services.

Interesting to me were the categories used to incorporate technology into the provision of services and reach out to a wider range of constituents. Certainly, Realtor organizations have long been aware of the need to provide a cooperative of business services to members, the MLS being the foremost example. That alone has driven the technology awareness of the association. But perhaps it’s time to take a cue from digital government and look at some of the other categories of association technology infrastructure.

Online Self Service. The CDG report states that 82% of participating local governments have webcasts: streamed audio and video, both live and archived, and that 74% have RSS feeds to their sites. Associations might consider using the same technologies for providing member and consumer education: think brief podcasts on topics of specific and timely interest like short sales, foreclosure issues, consumer questions, and technical advice for members. The important concept in designing sites is to ask “What does the site audience --member or public-- WANT to know?  That’s a far different question from “What would we LIKE for them to know.)

                And of course RSS services are absolutely essential to understand and utilize. Begin your tutorial in RSS with Wikipedia and go from there: there are lots of informative sources on the internet and it’s a subject every internet user needs to know about and use.

                Don’t forget online courses and short tutorials for your website, too. For Realtor associations, NAR is releasing an online training program for new leaders, and the Internet Crusade folks are finalizing a program which will enable association staff to write their own online courses.

Participation and Transparency

                The CDG report states that as far as municipalities are concerned, a whopping 87% have meeting minutes available online (archived and searchable) and 73% conduct online surveys or polls. Another 67% have blogs and 64& use social networks (Facebook, My Space) and microblogs like Twitter.

                As organizations, we must be aware that our members are demanding transparency. Gone are the days of secret handshakes to get information like financial statements and minutes of the board of directors.   The ‘real world’ expects information to be increasingly available—note the current government initiatives on transparency as an example—and our members expect no less. As association managers we find ourselves needing to learn how to present information effectively, not how to protect it from scrutiny by uninformed eyes.

                In the municipal government sector, issue awareness and education is translated into ‘environment sustainability’, a current core value of cities. As trade organizations, Realtors must have real estate business sustainability as a its core value—that goes without saying. The question, however, becomes “What are we doing to utilize our resources to promote real estate business sustainability?”

                Telling the public that it’s important to use professional real estate services is no longer adequate. (Actually, statistics tell us that the public already knows this, even in the age of accessible property information. )  Producing meaningful market statistics and analyses for our members and for the public is a core value. Becoming a source for timely and relevant information on general economic and specific business trends is another. Mobilizing immediate and successful member and public response to legislation initiatives is yet a third—how many real estate associations have turned to the public to assist with their campaign of  extending homebuyer tax credit, for instance?

                As an industry, real estate is in a period of monumental re-invention of itself. Developing an organization of members who are informed about the future and energized by its challenges is the job of the Realtor organization at all levels. Is your organization among the top digital organizations working to achieve this goal?

                (Author’s Note: If you’ve got a digital success story or a percolating idea, share it here, now! Blogs are supposed to be interactive. Practice up! Jwl)