Mr. Petch goes to Washington

Traveling from Honolulu to Washington DC is no easy trip, with lay overs and time changes the trip took 13 hours! As I drove into our nation's capital I was amazed at the sharp contrast between the beautiful monuments and the street vendors and homeless lining the streets. As soon as I checked into the hotel I immediately went down to the trade show floor and started to explore the latest technology available to the real estate industry.

Remember this is spring of 1994! This was at a time when the Internet was still under the radar. Windows 95 had not yet been released. PRC (or was it Interealty by then) had integrated mapping into their application and it looked pretty good. All in all it was MLS systems as usual... until I turned a corner and saw a booth with a huge banner that said - Real Estate Technology of Tomorrow - Here Today!

July 19, 2005 in Real Estate Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Concept Is Born

Jill and I headed down to Conference Room C. (This room is referenced a lot, so it will be referred to from this point forward as CR-C.) CR-C is located in the heart of the IT Division’s West Wing office space. Prior to the re-org, this room had been a collection of old tables, abandoned office chairs and, oh yeah, storage space for brochures, map books and just about anything else that people decided to leave behind.

I knew with the changes that we wanted to make in our division, we needed a good work area where we could close the door, collaborate and be creative. With the help of many people from the IT team and Human Resources, we cleaned up the room. We put all the right stuff into the room, including whiteboards, a wide selection of dry erase markers, a good computer with a projector and even a 42” flat screen high definition monitor.

So, we closed the door and stood facing a clean white board. “All right Jill, what do we know about the tasks that your team is responsible for?” “Well, let me think. We have a new release of Matrix (Web based property search engine) to test. Business rules for Keystone 2.0 (data input program) need to be input using the new Cornerstone Administration Tool (CAT) . We’ve just implemented the new Helpdesk escalation procedures-- I lose one person a day to that. Keith is tied up doing profiles for Roles Based Security. Javier is working with Chris in the Data Center to transfer the phone system support. You have asked us to roll out the RETS Forum and I have asked each member of my team to write a status report each week, so I know what they are working on and…” “Whoa, let’s just start with this list. No wonder your folks are confused!”

We had written this list on the white board. “OK, so how do we figure out which task is the most important? Looks to me like they all need to be done. Let’s start by identifying the ones on Margaret’s (should you identify Margaret by position?) Project Status report, because we know that anything on that list is a company priority.

Company Priority

1.      Matrix

2.      Keystone 2.0

3.      Roles Based Security

4.      Phone System Support

“Now it looks to me as if your Helpdesk Escalator falls under the Customer Satisfaction category.”

Customer Satisfaction

1.      Helpdesk Escalator

“Hey Gregg, doesn’t the RETS Forum fall under a category that is related to our Division?” “Seems to, let’s create a category called Division.”

Division

1.      RETS Forum

“So, what about the weekly status reports your folks are writing, Jill? Where should they go?” “How about Department?” “Sounds good to me!”

Department

1.      Weekly Status Report

So, we had taken the list (which by the way is only a partial list of what this 8 person department is responsible for) and broken it down into the following four priority categories:

Ø      Company

Ø      Customer Satisfaction

Ø      Division

Ø      Department

So, on the whiteboard we had something that looked like this:

At this point we stood back and looked at the work we had created over the last hour and Jill said “You know Gregg, this is starting to come into focus, but if you look at our MRIS Vision, Mission, and Values statements hanging next to the whiteboard, it looks like we are putting Company priorities ahead of Customer Satisfaction. Didn’t we say that we are going to be more Customer-centric?” “You’re right – let’s try this:”

We had run out of time to work on this for the day so we took a yellow post-it and wrote “save – gp” and attached it to the board. (This was prior to our replacing the whiteboards in CR-C with metal backed ones and purchasing some very cool magnet dry erase post-its.)

We both left CR-C that day thinking that we may be onto something here. Only time would tell.

June 17, 2005 in Resource Planning | Permalink | Comments (0)

To many tasks, to little time!

If you have every managed a team, department, division or an entire company you know how difficult it is to manage resources and set priorities. Under this category, "Resource Planning", I will explain to you what we are doing at MRIS to tackle this most difficult issue.

At the end of 2004, Metropolitan Regional Information Services, Inc. (MRIS) underwent its third company-wide reorganization in as many years. MRIS provides an on-line database containing residential new and resale properties to over 50,000 real estate professionals in the Mid-Atlantic region. This service is known as a Multiple Listing Service (MLS). We are totally dedicated to constantly improving our operation and providing outstanding customer service. Similar to most companies that experience double digit customer and revenue growth for ten years running, MRIS faces many challenges. This book details what the IT Division of MRIS is doing to address a very common problem: prioritization. With so many projects in progress and the day to day challenge of providing a 24X7 on-line service, how do employees know what they should be working on when? Our latest company reorganization moved one of my most seasoned managers into a new position, leaving me with the task of looking for a new manager for our Product Deployment and Support Department. This is a department comprised of what we call Product Engineers, employees responsible for getting new and upgraded products deployed to our customer base, both externally and internally. After posting the job opening internally, we received several applications and began the interview process. One of my product engineers not only proved that she was qualified for the position, but surprised me by demonstrating that she was in lockstep with my thoughts on what needed to be done in the department and in which direction it should head. With a level of excitement hard to contain, I promoted Jill Reynolds to the position of Manager, Product Deployment and Support. Jill is an excellent technician and knows the roles and responsibilities of her department inside and out. She is technically competent, hard working and very much a team player. She is also new to management, and making the transition from being one of the gang to The Boss Lady is always a challenge. One day during her first month in her new position, Jill came into my office, shut the door, sat down at my conference table, put her head down and slowly shook it from side to side and said, “Gregg, my team keeps on coming into my office and telling me they have five Number One priorities to work on and they don’t know where to begin!” How can people have five Number One priorities?! They can’t.

Stay tuned... gp

June 16, 2005 in Resource Planning | Permalink | Comments (1)

So where was I?

There are two ways to interpret this title. Where was I in writing this blog or where was I living during this period of time. Let's go with the latter. At the time that Dale was putting together MRIS I was fortunate (or lucky) enough to be working in Hawaii. My 10 years of IT experience, specializing in applications development and tel-com in manufacturing had landed me a job with a small software development company in Westlake Village California. The company, Integrated Marketing Systems (IMS) had a multi-user Real Estate Brokerage system named, Real Smart, that ran on the Pick Operating System. At the time networked PCs was a very expensive option and the Pick Operating System allowed up to 32 dumb terminals to be connected to a single PC. Real Smart was a combination broker back office and agent productivity system that included Call Commander, farming, and a direct interface to the MLS system from any of the terminals. I was hired by IMS to resolve the many issues associated with connecting to MLS systems across the country. Keep in mind that this was the mid 80s and 9600 baud modems was cutting edge technology.

In 1989 IMS landed Coldwell Banker McCormack in Hawaii as a client. They had a very unique requirement to connect 7 brokerage offices together in a single system. What was so very unique at the time was the fact the offices were located on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island and I helped to design a microwave communications network to allow Coldwell Banker McCormack management the ability to have real time connectivity to all 7 offices. After successfully implementing Real Smart at Coldwell Banker the president of Coldwell Banker McCormack, Bill Jilbert (new president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Success in Phoenix Arizona) offered me the Director of Information Technology position with Coldwell Banker McCormack. Well, that decision took all of about 15 seconds and in December of 1989 I moved to Hawaii.

One of my roles as the Director of IT for McCormack was to advise the Hawaii Association of Realtors and the local boards on the use of technology in real estate. In January of 1994 the Maui Board of Realtors asked if I would assist them in evaluating MLS systems to upgrade or replace their existing PRC (Interealty) system. We decided to travel to Washington DC to attend the NAR mid-year meetings which was getting known as THE technology event for real estate. This trip was the only time since 1989 that I had left the islands and was my first trip to our nations capital.

I will tell you all about the trip to DC and how I watched (and participated in) the real estate industry's journey to adopt new technologies. gp

June 14, 2005 in Real Estate Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

It takes a vision

So I think you get the picture. Doing real estate in the greater DC and Baltimore areas was a bit of a challenge in the early 90's. There was a broker in the DC area by the name of Dale Ross who was very active in the local, state and national Realtor associations and he had a vision. What if we created a super regional and combined all of these different systems into one?

This certainly made a great deal of sense. The business drivers were there and it would make practicing real estate much easier in the long run. However, an MLS of this size had not be created before. MLSNI in Chicago was forming at the time and it would be comparable from a membership size perspective but MLSNI does not cover 5 states and the District of Columbia. There were some regionals in operation at the time including ones in Northern Virginia and the greater Baltimore area but MRIS would include 25 local Realtor Boards, consolidate 15 MLS systems and cover an area in excess of 22,000 square miles!

Now while the technology would be challenging, gaining consensus from 25 local associations, all the brokers and 32,000 real estate professionals to create a super regional took the expertise of Dale Ross. This effort took several years and countless meetings to achieve but by 1995 MRIS was ready to roll with the following vision:

An MLS Owned by the Associations, Governed by the Brokers for the Benefit of the Agents.

-gp

June 10, 2005 in Real Estate Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

MRIS - The History

So there it was the early 90’s. If you practiced real estate in Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia you were faced with using up to 15 different MLS systems to conduct business. Each with their own fees and unique software. If you are familiar with the structure of the National Association of Realtors^® (a VERY LARGE trade association with over 1.2 million members) you know that there is NAR, State Associations and the local boards. The local boards usually are formed at the county level (or parish in Louisiana). The local board in most cases is responsible for providing the MLS system. When you do business in major metropolitan areas this structure leads to the creation of artificial marketplaces. Each system was localized to the needs of the (artificial) market it served. Keep this concept of localization in mind, I will discuss it often.

Now its time to do a little role playing. It is 1993 and you are a real estate agent in Montgomery County, Maryland (about 20 miles from the White House). You sell real estate in Montgomery, Frederick, Howard and Price George’s counties, occasionally you sell a home in the District and now and then in Alexandria Virginia. In order to do this you are required to pay dues to 6 different MLS services and learn 6 different computer programs to search for and update properties for sale! Seems a little strange doesn’t it?

Now pretend you are a real estate office Broker/Owner with offices all over this area and imagine the complexity so many systems adds to your business. If you are tech-savvy at the time and are building in-house systems I can just imagine how frustrated you are by having to deal with so many systems and organizations that were supposedly there to serve your needs!

Well, I have a bomb Paella (I love to cook traditional Spanish meals (tonight its Arroz a la Gregorio)) cooking in my kitchen and it needs my attention so I will continue this soon. - gp

June 9, 2005 in Real Estate Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Technology in real estate

This is a topic that truly fascinates me! One that I am very passionate about and could talk about for days on end, and will through this blog. How can an industry that plays such a major roll in our economy be so far behind in technology? I was totally amazed that as late as 1998 we were converting MLS systems that still relied on book publishing to distribute information about homes for sale not to mention finding thermal paper teletype computer terminals in many real estate offices!! Now that was 1998 and here it is 2005. I recently bought a 1996 Mercedes SL500 on e-BAY sight unseen. This beautiful sports car has a list price that is more expensive than the first house I purchased. Can someone tell me why buying a house is so entrenched with manual processes and paperwork? We are going to explore this issue in my blogs in the coming months!

What at first sounds like a simple little topic is going to spawn lots of threads – real estate, technology, business drivers, standards, programming, collaboration, our customers, our employees, our processes, flashbacks (hmmm, that 60’s thing?), vendors, what shaped my perspective, etc. The more I think about it, the more threads come to mind.

But first a little about Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. (MRIS). By most metrics, MRIS is the largest Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in the universe. (Wait tell I tell you about the use case we came up with that models selling real estate on Mars!) MRIS currently has 50,000+ subscribers and, in 2004, $65 billion dollars’ worth of real estate closed transactions (single side) traversed our system. That’s $65,000,000,000!! So let’s see - $65 Billion / 365 = $175 Million per day, or $7 Million per hour, or $116,000 per minute! Now let’s frame this volume in the perspective of our customers, brokers and agents. If you take $65 Billion plus an average commission rate of 6%, you get  $3.9 Billion dollars worth of revenue in 2004. Going through the same exercise, that is $10,684,932 dollars a day, $445,205 an hour and $7,420 of commission in play every minute of every day of the year.

Given the massive numbers above you can only imagine that when we deploy systems, they are very large (from an MLS perspective), they are very redundant (BTW – my full name is Gregory Gregory Petch), and they must be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year (366 in leap years).

In my next blog I will begin to describe our current MLS system and its underlying architecture, design and capabilities. This will lead to an in-depth exploration of how we made the decisions we have made, what we are trying to accomplish and our vision of technology in real estate in the years ahead.

In the mean time if you would like to explore some of this on your own, please visit beta.mris.com/C.I.O. Peer 2  Peer (online the week of 6/13/05) to get a sneak preview of what will be discussed in this blog in the upcoming months. gp

May 26, 2005 in Real Estate Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)