Happy Friday, everyone!  To end our week with a little food for thought, I wanted to share a quick exchange that’s kicking up this morning on Twitter about our upcoming Dallas Optimization Summits because it opened the door to a conversation that I want to have with every single one of you!

The conversation started while we were tweeting on another subject entirely @Multifamilypro, and one of our followers chimed in with “A Disruptive Post about what conferences that claim to be apartment internet marketing are verses what you are offering” followed by “One is about Socializing, Yours is About Doing, backed with Internet Marketing folks, NOT Apartment Mktg Consultants.”

My immediate response?  ROCK ON! That’s exactly what I’ve so wanted to say for so many weeks now!  Yes, we’ve created a ROCK STAR event about social media, and it’s absolutely NOT about socializing.  It’s about DOING!   One of our Optimization Summits Workshop Leaders said it the best:  “2009 was about learning social media. 2010 will be about figuring out how to use it well.” Jason Falls .  Now that we know what social media can do for us, it’s time for our industry to get a huge kick in the proverbial butt, get the skills we need, and get moving!  We have a lot of guiding principles around here, but one of our favorites is that a little revolution now and then is a necessary thing.  Revolutions aren’t about sitting back on the sidelines.  They’re about putting ideas into ACTION.

Folks, there are other industry events that address technology, and we all know that our business can be a small world when it comes to bringing together the talent.  After all, our industry is rife with incredible, amazing talent… we are fortunate in never having to look that far. But that’s terribly UNFORTUNATE, too, because too much of that causes us to turn in on ourselves while huge changes are happening in the world outside.  We need to go outside of the comfortable boundaries of our community (to use an apt metaphor) and get kicked in the seat of our collective pants by the huge world of incredible know-how that’s available outside this home we call multifamily.  I invented the Optimization Summits with the mission for us to learn how to DO, and to learn from the very top social marketing experts not in our industry, but in the United States.

If you don’t know about the Optimization Summits yet, please visit www.OptimizationSummits.com and learn more; but first, you need to know that we’re totally blown away by the people who have agreed to present this event for us. Unless you spend a lot of time reading around outside our industry like I do, you might not know that these guys are Rock Stars in the social marketing world at large, but they absolutely are, and I’m devoting the next couple of weeks to helping you get to know them through our own blogs and other social networking efforts so you’ll come to know what others already agree will be THE breakthrough learning and DOING opportunity of 2010!  Thanks for your time, and for keeping the conversation going!!!

Tami

“If You want to improve your marketing and Operations this is THE Multifamily Event you need to attend in 2010. I think you are going to get more out of this event than any other!” – Jamie Gorski, Sr. VP of Corporate Marketing, The Bozzuto Group