In The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjofsson and Andrew McAfee provide an intricate argument that the speed of innovation is increasing rapidly. And, while their book does not focus on real estate, last Tuesday’s Realogy FWD Innovation Summit showcasing 15 different tech offerings would have made a great chapter.
We were so excited to welcome our competitors and standing-room only audience to Realogy headquarters in Madison, NJ, for Realogy FWD. I was honored to be on the judges’ panel, seated at the front of a very crowded room, and listening to what our talented semi-finalists had to offer. It was a tough decision to cull our 15 presenters down to the three finalists, Matterport, SendHub and Zumper, and we were glad it was the audience who had to make the most difficult decision – which team would take home the $25,000 grand prize.
In the end, they selected Matterport. Congratulations, again!
Realogy FWD was a terrific and inspiring day, and the consensus in the room was that this year’s crop of companies pushed technology further than last year—and in ways that were even more useful to the real estate business right now.
So what were the key themes of this year’s summit?
- Mobile, mobile, mobile. The majority of solutions providers were focused on mobile. From Deductr to GoConnect, from CurbCall to Remotely, the value proposition of their software was to help the agent or real estate professional on the go.
It is interesting to note that while mobile was the leading concept, the three finalists, Matterport, SendHub and Zumper, were not purely mobile solutions.
As an aside, I was especially excited to see the team from GoConnect, a mobile-only transactions checklist targeted to agents who are not fully using a contact management program. Presenter Zach Schabot now runs Go Realty, part of our Beta Brokerage Project—the BHGRE® program devoted to finding and showcasing innovative, up-and-coming real estate firms.
Of course, there were a few more takeaways from Realogy FWD 2014, which you can find in my latest post on BHGRE’s Clean Slate blog, “Key Takeaways from the Realogy FWD Innovation Summit.” Innovation truly did move at an incredible speed in the last 12 months – I’m looking forward to seeing what pops up next year!
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