That being said, I see your efforts(and Brad’s and Liz’s and Matthews and all of the other people in the blogosphere) as the interface that can help to bring the change – I htink that Matthew and Brad both help clarify my point – you not only have to engage in these activites you need to be articulate enough (and persistant enough) to bring others sround to the points of view that help us all bring a higher level of service to the profession and to show others in the association the benefits of this high speed almost global conversation regarding our industry and our daily challenges- I am proud to have all of you as colleagues, hope to count you as friends (even when we disagree) and give big shout outs for your responsible and articulate approaches to the communications you create and the dialogues that arise from them-

I felt the same way. I’ve been active (so much so, that I’ve turned the RE over to my wife and went on staff at my association as the ED Director) for about five years. I was, by far the youngest volunteer leader for the Tech and Ed workgroups and have made a few enemies with my approach to improve where we’re at; but i’ve made FAR more friends. I’ve encouraged and worked with other like minded folks (I’ve given up trying to separate folks by age… we put too much emphasis on generational gaps) and have helped and sponsored so many other great folks, that we’re seeing fantastic changes. We’re getting buy-in from even the skeptics… because we’ve proven ourselves.

I think if we’d all step back, we’d see that the influence we’ve had as “web 2.0″ in even getting noticed at NAR is fantastic. I still hold to the fact that influencing our members, to influence their Broker, to influence the local association and then the state is best approach at getting what we want from NAR. Honestly, There maybe less than 50 influential RE Blogs…. That’s 50 blogs out of over a million members. I am glad we’re caring enough to influence the very best, but we need to realize that as crazy as it sounds, there are some members who are just happy with what “is.”

Hate to be a cliche, but change starts with me….

I have volunteered and attempted to improve my local association for 3 years. At this pace, it will take 3 more years to reach any semblance of adaptation to real estate 2.0 at the association level. I feel that I need more volunteers of like mind, but also a new mindset of existing volunteers and staff. How do you change people? It’s frustrating, but I continue to endeavor. My goal is to challenge every decision and suggest alternative solutions until I get enough people thinking outside of their comfort level. I feel then and only then will valuable change occur. Then the next problem is training staff to work under the changed environment.

In summary, I feel this will take 3 to 10 years to see any real movement to a better way of association interaction and service to it’s membership. Unless I can get 10 volunteers to join now with similar mindsets to counteract the old guard. A small group can change the entire environment on a local level. I need just need to find the volunteers.

Don’t you think that attending a meeting, serving on a committee, chairing a committee, running for office etc. etc might be a more direct method of engaging and impacting the group? While blogging is a method of expressing an opinion, and an effective one at that, bloggin is, by itself, not as effective as participating in the group if changing the group’s direction is the desired result.

I’d say that it’s a two-way street. There are some of us who do participate in committees – local on up – who also see the value in the blogs. I would also argue that blogs are where you find more up-to-date information and dialogue than you find in many committees. Many committees I have seen are isolated from the boots-on-the-ground Realtors – the ones who recognize that we’re not in sales (I smell a post … ) that we’re in the business of client representation.

Change has to, in my opinion, come from without (the blogs) and within (the association) – but part of the change has to come from the associations’ recognition of the credible resources and voices that exist here — on the blogs.

Thank you sincerely, Bill and Laura, for your participation in this conversation.