Web 2.0 & Information Technology

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've been pretty swamped. I had the opportunity to speak to a few groups of real estate professionals. This post should be a good follow up to our discussions.

I had the opportunity to read an article today regarding how Web 2.0 is having an impact on the way corporations are approaching information technology. It's a perspective piece by the Chief Development Officer of EMC, Mark Lewis.

Every time I read something like this, it makes me wonder why so many in the real estate industry haven't had their "Aha" moment.

Web 2.0 flips the information delivery model upside down--it's now about global access, and information at your fingertips, aggregated from sources that you don't even necessarily know about, or care where they exist. Based on a set of search criteria, information in all its rich forms--media, video, audio, images, documents, text--all will be assembled together in context and delivered to users and applications for real-time experience.

Thinking about the value inherent in data, and how to best package it for consumers as well as industry participants should be the focus of any forward thinking real estate entity. It doesn't matter if you're a broker, agent, trade associations or anyone else in the supply chain of data.

It's not too much to say that a whole new world lies before us--finding effective ways to organize and access information regardless of its origin could spark a renaissance in the way knowledge workers think and perform their jobs.

Let's face it, we're all "knowledge workers", the best of us will figure out a way to use new rules and new tools to be more successful than the next guy or gal.