This week I received my first really nasty comment on my blog.
My first instinct was to delete and ignore. My mother always warned me that engaging with angry people is fruitless and much like poking a tiger.
My second thought was, wait, there is a blog post here. It might be a sort of blogger’s illness that I want to turn everything into a blog post, but I really want to explore the question that this nasty comment brought up and I want your input, too.
Do me a favor, though? Make the comments a bit less nasty. On second thought, maybe I find nasty comments inspiring.
Without further ado, here is the aforementioned comment:
The fact that you have facebook, twitter and a blog doesn’t make you tech saavy it makes you like everyone else in the world including my 10 year old nephew. Do you know XML? PHP? C+? Ruby on Rails? CSS? I didn’t think so. You real estate agents are pathetic.
I used that quote directly via cut and paste and left the bad spelling in place but I do know how to spell SAVVY.
Now, I CAN actually do some amateur coding, but I really don’t see how that is relevant to being a tech savvy real estate agent. Is Ruby on Rails going to assist me when negotiating a contract? Do I need to know CSS to assist a buyer client in finding their perfect home?
I use technology to be a more efficient and effective real estate agent in Western Massachusetts.
I define tech savvy as the ability to use technology to perform my job in a better way than I could without the technology. I think my effective use of iPhone, iPad, a blog, cloud applications and social media does make me tech savvy.
How do you define Tech Savvy?
I understand what they said but it’s nasty. I do know all those coding languages, and more, and can speak it as well as I speak English. It does irk me some of the people who call themselves “tech savvy” and I see the crap advice they give that really hurts people who trust them. Some of these “tech savvy” people have become quite popular and it’s blindingly obvious they are simply regurgitating what they just read on another blog or heard at a conference. I have often urged care in using the terms to self-promote “tech savvy” and still do.
HOWEVER – knowing how to USE technology is “tech savvy”. So I know how to create it. I can code anything anybody wants (23 years of doing so gives me the authority to say that) but my users, my clients, are all “savvy”. YOU my friend ARE “tech savvy” and, I believe, careful with your advice to make sure it’s accurate and usually from personal experience.
There are others, though, who dispense answers to questions they have no business answering, take jobs doing work they have no business doing and cost people often thousands of dollars in cold cash and untold amounts in lost opportunities because of their really bad advice.
Several months ago I was working with a rather large opportunity to do some social media work for a large client (900 agents) and someone from a Facebook group we are both part of got in the way and screwed the deal up – which I just *now* was able to get back in line (7 months). I was pissed. I left this group and didn’t come back until a couple of weeks ago. It inspired a post http://thekencook.com/
Tech-savvy means being able to proficiently use the appropriate technology for your job. So your narcissistic and ill-informed (and probably very young) commenter clearly does not recognize which technologies are important for success to a real estate professional compared to, say, a professional coder.
I really don’t like the term itself but…
If the only Ruby in your vocabulary is slippers I think that’s just fine.
Then again, there’s a lot of room in the middle.
This doesn’t apply to you, but calling yourself a tech expert or social media expert just because you have a twitter and fb profile and barely know how to use them is who the mean commentor was referring to. We’ve seen plenty of them.
Declare yourself as an online marketing expert (or whatever similar term you choose) and I think there’s a basic skill set you better have.
Hey, I wrote a post on those Basic Skills!
Mike Mueller, Social Media Student
sav·vy/ˈsavē/ to be savvy : Verb: Know or understand. Synonyms: verb. understand – see – twig – get – comprehend – know. I find the more knowledgeable I am the more I realize I have a lot to learn. I do know XML, PHP, C+, Ruby on Rails, CSS. and a few other languages. However if you don’t it does not make you pathetic. To understand, is subjective. I’d say you understand more than the average bear, Lesley. To be resourceful… is just smart. Most people don’t think beyond their nose enough to call themselves resourceful. Sad but true. I’m hoping you don’t delete the comment. Says a lot about who wrote it.
Well, looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day! Lesley, I completely agree with all of the comments above. Our job is not to know every coding language, or to be able to build a social network from the ground up. Our job is to find the most effective technology/systems for our individual client base and use those to maximize our value and service to our clients. Period. I can’t create the Droid, but I sure can use it to make my business better. I didn’t create WordPress, Facebook, Twitter or IDX search engines, but I do my best to make them useful to my clients. I didn’t make or create the technology behind the car I drive, but I sure do like to go places!
Well, you get the picture. Keep doing what you do, which is your very best. I love that you are not afraid to try new things in the interest of providing value to your clients and learning as much as you can. Never stop that!
I really think that the comment was made by someone who has missed your point entirely. How do all of those skills he/she mentioned benefit a real estate agent’s customers – buyers and sellers? Those skills only indirectly benefit our clients. What the tech savvy agent should have is the ability to communicate with his/her customers with the most current tools of the trade – the smart phone, tablet, blog, etc. I think you have to be coming from the era of the mls printed books to realize what a true benefit being a tech savvy agent is. I thank the techies who worked in all of those languages so that it possible for this agent (me) to continue to prosper in a constantly changing real estate business. Now, if I could just get through the transition from PC to Mac. . . Thanks for your post Lesley.
I just think the Tech people are upset that the use of the word “tech” has been taken away from them. That just seems to be the reason for the rant.
I love comments like this – I can never figure out why someone chose to say something like that, but hey, it’s the internet and stranger things have happened.
I think the problem with the words “tech savvy” is a problem we all see in real estate everyday. If I label myself the “neighborhood expert” am I really? What defines expert? Can two people be an expert in the same neighborhood? Agents love to find labels to help define themselves, but the overuse of those same labels turns them into mere words with little to no meaning. I would definitely consider myself “tech savvy” but I probably wouldn’t tout that as a selling point – I might explain what I do and how I do it (with technology), but the labels just aren’t enough.
Once, I helped an e-Pro designee turn on their computer (and get it connected to a public wifi). Yes, turn on. Now that person spent good money on their e-Pro certification and probably learned a thing or two, but the fact is, they were still clueless about a computer and how to use it (sadly, it was their computer). So does that person have the right to say “tech savvy?”
More recently, I was working on a website for someone and in one of their agent’s bios, the agent talked about being “tech savvy” and went on to talk about their cutting edge website and how it would help their clients. Sadly, the agent didn’t even have a website. To me, that’s an ethical problem.
Me? I’m just a guy who knows some stuff, some of it in the tech world.
I would like to have seen the post this comment was related to so I could see what the context was. In any case, it is interesting to note the tone and substance of the comment as I don’t get the sense from your site that you are claiming to be an expert in technology and coding. On our site, we do claim to know a lot about Internet Marketing & the use of technology in real estate. 3 of us have been building websites and involved in Internet Marketing for over 15 years – and one of us does know how to code – but – there are a lot of people out their that are far beyond us in skill and ability – so it keeps us humble.
In any event, a great Realtor uses technology to serve their clients, not their ego.
It was a comment on my “About Me” page. Thank you for your comment!
Great post and so true Lesley. Keep that bad boy up … and usually it’s tech-savvy agent in context, not a computer repair person or web builder. So in context, what’s wrong with the shades of gray? Sure there’s folks with unlinked social media icons, tweets unanswered, but who knows … maybe that poor fella sat in a educational course at their association, did what he/she was told to do and just got stuck in a corner. That’s a good portion of the folks I know. “I got busy, I was confused and I didn’t know who to go to for help. I’m paralyzed that I don’t know where to go from here.” ~ We are all shades of gray in experience, knowledge and tech know-how. I’ll take the average tech-savvy agent, that’s experienced, a solid sales and people person and knows how to get me what I need, great service and the goal I need achieved in real estate. So *neener-neener* – said the moderately tech-savvy gal. 😉
After having attended 5 weeks of sales training with agents who don’t know how to empty their recycle bin, don’t have a FB page and have never heard of Posterous, I believe that tech savvy not only includes the ability to have these things but includes understanding how to use them to market yourself, the properties you sell and the area you sell them in.
And besides opinions are like…everybody has one.
Leslie, I would so include you in the “tech savvy” world. How do they know what you do or don’t know? Pathetic! I so hate mean and jealous people. That is all the comment is to me – some mean and jealous person thinking they know it all.