By Marty Douglas
Give yourself an early Christmas present and register for the Banff Western Connection 2011. Big surprise – it’s in Banff. Bigger surprise – I’m the MC. Again. Apparently you can fool all of the people some of the time. Have a look at the program and register at www.banffwesternconnection.com. One keynote speaker is Global TV’s Kevin Newman. It really is the best little conference in North America. (I understand that Calgarians and Torontonians will have special therapy sessions to compare mayors!)
Dedicated REM columnist Marty Douglas took time out from his honeymoon in Nagasaki, Japan to read his copy of REM. Then he came home to Canada and jetted across the country to The Atlantic Connection conference.
I mentioned in my September column that I recently married. We bought T-shirts that say “So far, so good”. In late September we honeymooned on a Marco Polo Tour from Hong Kong to Beijing with stops in Taiwan, Japan, Shanghai and South Korea aboard Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas. Observations from that trip – the almost negligible presence of real estate firms as we know them; impossible to tell the communists from the capitalists – will be in a future column.
Within 24 hours of arriving home from Beijing I found myself Westjetting to Halifax, covering a combined total of 13 time zones. Jetlag isn’t a problem when you are distracted by the hallucinations. As an example, I could swear on arrival there was a Haligonian in a white Stetson yahooing to the gate Klingons that their plane had just arrived from Calgary and they’d be westward bound in no time. How embarrassing.
The Atlantic Connection follows a similar format to the Western Connection, its role model, offering training to real estate board leaders and educational/motivational sessions for practitioners. It occurs every two years in Halifax at the Marriott Harbourfront, which is within walking distance of Casino Nova Scotia and Alexander Keith’s Brewery. Coincidence? I think not.
My first session was How to lead and create leaders from the emerging generations with Bob Wendover, who provided excellent insight on millennials. For you older folk, they are the generation that thinks 100 texts per day is just not trying hard enough. They are digital natives while we are at best, digital immigrants. (In Japan, McDonalds trains new staff using restaurant simulations in a game format. Trainees are given a game to take home and once they have “won” the game, they’re ready to start.) Wendover’s advice on how to get young people engaged in our business – stop hiring Three Dog Night for the closing banquet. The next day he added another demographic session – Customer service and emerging generations.
On day two, we opened with comedian Gerry Dee, who kept us laughing for an hour. He was followed by Rick DeLuca, a motivational speaker with a long history of success in California. His current technology applications to 1980s success tools were excellent. I got three sales meeting ideas and two new-to-me technology tools, the best being free video clip emails through www.eyejot.com. That night I was terrifying my office staff by emailing a video clip of me in my hotel room. Talking. And those weren’t my pyjamas. I don’t wear pyjamas.
On Day 3, CREA’s Bill Harrington, a lawyer frequently without briefs, spoke on traits of successful people and why we should pay attention. I cannot stress how good this session was – Bill deserved more time and an even bigger audience. Not only does he have a future in stand-up comedy, his passion for any topic is worth the price of admission. If you have a chance to hear Bill Harrington read the phone book, be there!
The balance of the day was spent with CREA updates and the Competition Bureau consent agreement. The latter consumed everyone’s attention and by now is old news but let me say this – your representatives at CREA and at your board earned their money and our thanks for the dedication to this distraction. The bad news – the “Can’t compete? Give us a call Bureau,” is still there. Their next task may try to regulate a brokerage’s ability to set commissions internally. Pay attention.
From CREA updates – apps for smart phones, mobile access to Webforms, esignatures in 2011 – did you know Webforms costs you about 50 cents a month? South of the 49th you’d be talking hundreds of dollars. Our CREA dues have incredible value – you could look it up.
The last session of the conference featured hockey great Theo Fleury in an emotional, ‘you could hear a pin drop’ session called Don’t quit before the miracle. The brilliance of his hockey career tempered by the tragedy of his personal history was a progression to the man he is today. As he said,“If you play the country record backwards, you get it all back – your dog, your girl, your house, your pick-up truck.” Considering our Quality of Life programs, his example of work hard and give back was inspiring.
Last word is a plug for WestJet. If you are flying anywhere in Canada, check them out. Rates are usually competitive or cheaper, they service places you have never thought of going, they tell good jokes and best of all, they held up over 100 passengers in Calgary for 15 minutes to allow two of us to connect after battling headwinds over Ottawa. Hot air rising? I’m just saying it’s possible.
You can follow Marty Douglas on Twitter 40yrsrealestate or on LinkedIn and on Facebook. He is a managing broker for Coast Realty Group (Comox Valley) Ltd., with offices on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Marty is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C. and the B.C. Real Estate Association. He’s a current director of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. [email protected]; 1-800-715-3999.
