REBarcamp Orange County Is Back – But What Is REBarcamp?

In recent weeks I’ve been attending the local board meetings and talking with real estate agents to spread the word about the upcoming Orange County REBarCamp on August 19th at UCI.

So what is a REBarCamp?

I’d encourage you to watch the video below to get a better idea of what REBarCamp is, but in a nutshell, it’s a FREE event that is for the real estate community, agents, lenders, escrow, title, etc.  It’s a ‘no pitch’ zone.  No selling.  Simply sharing with one another.   The conversations generally focus on how to best utilize technology and social media tools to enhance a real estate practice and most importantly, the consumer experience.

In general, there is no plan to this conference ahead of time.  You simply show up the morning of the event and decide what types of topics you’d like to hear about.  Depending on interest, and available persons to help lead or guide a session, organizers will create a session, an open forum conversation, around that topic at a specific time.

Because we are reaching some agents that may be very early into the web conversation, or early in the social media space, we have elected to give this Barcamp experience a bit more structure to serve that audience at the highest level possible.  We will have a specific 101 track for our newbies including a Social Media 101, a Twitter 101, a Facebook 101, etc. that will be defined ahead of time.

Brand New to Barcamp?

Registration begins at 8:00.  If you are new, I would strongly advise attending the early morning Barcamp Bootcamp session that will commence at 8:30.  The session will be lead by Scott Schang – a past BarCamp attendee.  He will breakdown the process and provide tips on how to get the most out of a barcamp experience.

I’ve been attending the Barcamps in various places around the country for nearly 2 years (sadly I missed the first one in San Francisco).  I have a few tips myself.  I’ve shared some of these in the past, and they really carry over to any conference experience:

• Come with friends…but don’t hang with them. You know what they know.  Reach out and connect to new people with a varied base of knowledge.  Your friends – well, you can hang with them any time.
• Come early and stay late. The sessions can be an incredible resource and a wonderful place to learn.  But the most meaningful relationships I have in the space come from intentionally staying after the event to engage and connect.  Some of the best ‘sessions’ I have had the privilege to attend, happened impromptu after the event and most attendees had made their way home.
• Participate. I’m guilty as sin of failing to do this.  The absolute best sessions I’ve ever attended are the ones in which people engage, disagree, and/or ask questions.  These aren’t supposed to be entirely presentations…but rather conversations.  Speak up.  If you will….I will. 
• Vote with your feet. You don’t have to stay for a session that isn’t what you were hoping for.  Ideally, lend your voice to it, but if you aren’t ‘feeling it’, so to speak, leave.  Additionally, this is a no pitch zone.  The good news, very rarely does someone breach that trust.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been connected with a group of people that want to support and help as much as this group of people.  If you ask for help, you’ll find it’s out there for you.  Find someone with the badge – and simply ask.
• Connect Following the Event – To fail to reach out following these events utilizing these social media avenues – twitter, facebook, linkedin – is a huge missed opportunity.  So many of these individuals that I’ve had the good fortune to get to know, I have met and stayed connected with, utilizing social media tools.  If you do that the learning continues long after the event has ended.  Don’t miss out on that.

Registration is limited…but free.  Please take the time to register.  If you want to follow news on Facebook about the event, we encourage you to ‘like’ it on Facebook, but to register, please save your seat here.

Look forward to seeing you there.