Webographers - Putting Real Estate Technology in One Place

As the internet becomes more and more important to consumers who are looking to buy or sell a home, it will be imperative that professionals keep up and provide the type of online services that consumer will begin to demand. To do this however, they will need to be armed with the skills to keep up with the rapidly changing environment.

Webographers, which launched their corporate blog the other day, is a fairly new real estate technology company that aims to help consumers do just that.  There goal is to "ensure real estate professionals are up-to-date on the latest web-based technologies, processes and best practices in technology usage." With so many different technology companies attempting to sell their services to real estate professionals, Webographers aims to give this group a one-stop shop for their technology needs.   

Rather than ramble on trying to educate everyone about the company, I thought I’d ask Marc Grayson, the founder, a couple questions about his business model and its value to real estate professionals. If you’re a real estate agent reading this, you can judge for yourself whether this training solution is right for you.

Q. What’s your background?

A. I am a programmer, researcher and supporter of technology adoption. I grew up in New Jersey, in a family where real estate was a family affair.  Every Sunday included outings to model homes and open houses. My mother was a sales agent and treated such outings like a "spiritual" experience.

I have provided consultation to real estate technology companies during product development and to agents/brokers looking to implement technology for themselves. I have a BS in Computer Science from the University of Arizona and an MS in Information Resource Mgmt. from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Q. What is the inspiration behind Webographers?

A. From consulting, I became distraught in trying to "conceptualize" many real estate technologies to agents/brokers, how they worked and their value proposition. I found many agents spending money on technology, before they had full knowledge of how a product worked and its purpose.  They often winded up not even using what they purchased.  This happens all the time. I also noted in 2003 that popular real estate technology certifications/designations were way behind the times; regretfully they haven’t changed much and it’s 2007. For many agents, these technology certifications are viewed as representing the "old guard".  Sometimes, certifications are about a 3 or 4-letter designation added to your business card, but lack the"meat" in lessons taught.  However, certifications are important for real estate professionals, as they inspire continuous learning.

What is the business model?

We are a certification company, driven by agents experiencing "live" real estate technologies in an educational environment.  The REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER(tm) certification is a composite of 11 short courses on topics of single-property Web sites, CMA and AVM Technology, Online Transaction Management, and more.  Candidates can sign up for all courses initially, or just select courses of interest while working towards certification completion.  The training experience for the certification is immersive: interactive voice-driven presentations, hands-on activities with live real estate technologies (provided to each candidate), and course exams.  It takes someone dedicated to complete. Once certified, certificants must implement one web-based technology for themselves within their first year to maintain good standing.  Renewal of certification occurs every 2 years, by taking a renewal course.

When the skeptics say "I can train myself online with free resources," what is the response as to why a real estate professional should purchase your training?

1) What to Train On? — There is so much out there, where do you invest your resources? We have done the homework (3 years worth) with peer review from industry leaders from folks like Joshua Sharfman, CTO of the California Association of Realtors® , other executives from state associations, technology companies and of course real estate agents in the trenches.  Mark Lesswing, VP of NAR and former head of the Center for Realtor® Technology (CRT) has been instrumental, as CRTs white papers, surveys and studies are at the cornerstone of this certification.

2) Sense of completion — It’s a certification, which natively inspires one to complete the formalized training they have purchased and started…to go the extra mile and never look back.  Same is true of an undergrad degree or an MBA, where completion means pride, sense of accomplishment, sign of dedication to "employers" and valued clients.

3) The Sandbox — Our “Web 2.0 Mashup” is tying together many RE technologies across service providers at Webographers.com, for the purposes of applied, demonstrative use (i.e., ZipForm, RELAY, AgencyLogic, RealBiz360, etc). We created a sandbox of technologies for candidates to engage real technologies…all to complement training materials.  Where one is to create a high-definition virtual tour (HDVT), engage a paperless transaction, and other scenario-based activities within our courses.  Candidates get their hands dirty, roll-up their sleeves and engage them head-on. They get their full 5-sense around technology before they go off and purchase the next technology without full knowledge or strategy. Candidates can purchase the products they engaged in training at heavy discounts; we earn nothing from that. Either way, they have increased confidence going into their next purchase.

Given the efforts behind this sandbox, we’re the first in the industry to implement single sign-on (SSO) procedure across many real estate applications, across many service providers. Although for the purposes of education and not for use in commerce, our implementation of one username, password and candidate email address have brought many RE technologies under one dashboard for the agent user.  We hope the industry sees Webographers.com as a proof-of-concept of what this can “feel” like, as standards and policies are developed and put into place.  We’ll likely put out a white paper later this year on that achievement.

What’s the next step for your business?

We are adding “Blogging” as a competency, with the assistance of Richard Nacht and Blogging Systems.  We’re also looking at competencies such as "Video" (self-produced, vs production company) and "Direct Marketing". We’d like to further align ourselves with real estate schools and agencies/brokers who look to support member-agents adopting technology as independent contractors, as demonstrated here: http://johnhall.webographers.com.

Thanks Marc!