ActiveBob.....It's always Raining!

Yesterday, a pretty significant player in the real estate industry showed up at ActiveRain with a bang and hit the floor running with three posts. Spencer Rascoff, the CFO and Vice President of Marketing for Zillow.com joined our illustrious ranks. We believe that Spencer has a unique perspective on the real estate market based on his duties at Zillow. It looks like the Arms Race is on between him and Sara Bonert to see who will be the most visible Zillow voice. 

Before joining Zillow, Spencer was vice president of lodging for Expedia. He was also a co-founder of Hotwire.com. We at ActiveRain wanted to take a minute to welcome Spencer to ActiveRain and let him know we look forward to his participation here.

Well I think I have been Meme'd a couple times in the last few days. Gary Bolen was so kind as to tag me last week. But this post is really for Rich Jacobson who got me many months ago. Rich, I didn't forget, it just took me these many months to come up with something worth reporting about myself :)

I don't know how these are officially suppose to work, so I checked a few out and it looks like I'm suppose to give you 5 things you may (or probably don't) want to know about me.

1. I was raised by a single mom with three younger brothers. Most of what I am today and the man I have become can be credited to my mother. She was (and still is) the strongest woman I have ever met. My parents split when I was eight years old and she raised me and my three younger brothers all on her own. She was also the Executive Vice President of a rather large home improvement retail chain on the west coast. Eagle Hardware and Garden (purchased in 2001 by Lowes) was the Nordstrom of hardware stores. I can almost guarantee that any woman who ever went into an Eagle would pick one of them over a Lowes or Home Depot any day of the week. If you liked Eagle Hardware (for those of you in WA, you know you loved it) you can thank my mother. 

Her dedication to our family was unmatched. I can remember one day when I was in junior high when a big sale rep from a company that wanted to sell their products in Eagle wanted to take my mom out for breakfast. She couldn't make it because she always gave us a ride to school in the morning. She told the guy that if he wanted to take her to breakfast (and have any chance of getting his product line in the store) he would have to arrange for a ride for us to school. We went to school that day in a Limo.............haha, complete with donuts and orange juice. I think we crammed 12 kids in that 10 person limo.............

2. I was on the math team, and the basketball team in high school. I'm not vertically challenged, 6'3". If you met me, it wouldn't be a huge surprise that I was on the basketball team. I was chosen to the All-State Basketball team my senior year in the state of Washington for the Single-A classification. Luke Ridnour was my water boy. Haha, he was in the seventh grade my senior year and could have started on our team with no problem. We used to play one on one almost every day after practice. He could never beat me (he was about 5'3" then) but he would never quit. He wanted to play and play and play. In fact, Luke went on a tour with me and a bunch of soon to be high school seniors to Germany. He played with us as a sixth grader on this tour. It may still be the most amazing basketball related thing I have ever seen. Although, a small town kid from Blaine, WA starting in the NBA is pretty amazing too.

All these years later, I think I am more proud of the math team though. My friends will tell you that I never miss an opportunity to bring up the fact I was on the math team. Our team twice took second place at the state math competition. If it wasn't for me, I'm sure they would have taken first. I'm still convinced the only reason they let me participate is in case a tie breaker was decided by a dunk contest. (yep, I used to be able to dunk........on a good day, I still can)

3. I suck at golf. It frustrates me to no end. I will never give it up. I am too skilled to not be good. I have excellent hand eye coordination. Every once in a while, I will hit a shot like Tiger. 170 yard pitching irons are not foreign (unless I am 170 yards away from the pin). Sometimes, I will play the first five holes really well.........and the last 13 even worse. I don't get enough time on the course. I need more free time. I have my clubs in the office with me right now. Almost weekly I tell myself I am going to take my lunches at the driving range down the street. I have yet to do it once.

4. I love to give away ActiveRain points for stuff I think is significant. Sometimes, I will give points to a person if I see that they have written a blog about quitting smoking. I think they should quit smoking. I'll give them 100 points for having the courage to write about it. Sometimes, I will give away points if I reference a movie quote in a comment I make and someone knows what movie it was from. I once gave David G from Zillow 1 point because he made such an interesting seat mate on our flight down to the Inman Conference. Sara from Zillow was jealous..........I gave her 1 point too (maybe it was the other way around......my #5 should be I used to have a good memory, but not anymore). Don't ask for points, I've never once given points to someone that asked for them, I never will. 

I will continue to give points away for things I think are significant. Our members mean so much to me and I get a kick out of giving away points.

5. My family got bigger by one back on June 28th. My son came into the world five weeks early. He is the reason I get up in the morning now. I'd heard it a thousand times before he was born..........."you just can't explain the feeling of having a child"...........I will probably say it a thousand times in the coming months and years. I have the ultra sound photo on my desk and I am looking at it right now. It is the first ultra sound where we got to see his face. The frame says "the first time ever I saw your face........". I still get choked up when I look at it. (I'm choked up right now). I took him to his first Huskies game on Saturday. He slept through the first quarter and when he woke up in the second, all he was concerned about was the pom-pom the lady in front of us had. I can't wait for his first word, his first steps, his first dunk (he can almost dunk now btw..............haha)

I want to teach him everything my mom taught me.

Did I do it right? Ok, now I get to tag three people? I'd like to welcome Spencer Rascoff, the CFO of Zillow (and brand new AR member). I'd love to know a little bit about him. And of course there is always David G from Zillow, I got to know him a little on the plane, but I'll bet some others would like to know more (usually if you even type Zillow into a blog post anywhere, David G is on the spot to set you straight :) ). And let's make it a Zillow party....Sara Bonert, come out and play?

If I was a new member that had just signed up today, I would probably be sitting in front of my computer right now thinking "Ok, what next?" After four hours of clicking around, probing, reading, trying this button or that button, I would probably still be sitting at my computer thinking "Ok, what next?" (only now I would have glassy eyes and a few empty cans of Jolt soda next to me)

So with this in mind, I am going to be spearheading the 'support' area of our site. I say spearheading because you are going to help me. You, as in the person sitting there right now thinking "how do I do x, y, and z". You, as in the person who thought that last year and wrote a post explaining x, y, and z.

There are some great posts on ActiveRain about how to do this, that, and the other thing. I desperately need your help in identifying these posts. The easiest way I can think of for this to happen is for anyone who has written a help piece to go in and edit the tags on any help posts you have written. The tag I would like you to use is

activerain community support

Anyone who is willing to do this for me will be awarded 100 points for any posts they re-tag, or new posts that are how-to posts. In addition, the posts we select to use for our community support area will get the author a 1000 point bonus. It will also be linked to from our community support area. 

Over the next few weeks we will be compiling this support area with FAQ's from the community. This is where the person sitting there right now thinking "how do I do x, y and z" comes in. Send me your questions, or post them here. We want to end up with a stellar place that people can go to get their questions answered. 

We will be building a 'support' or 'help' area that will have the answers to almost any question someone could need answered. Our members are so helpful to each other, now we need to give them a long overdue area to compile this great help.

Please, if you know of someone that has written one of these posts, ask them to lend a helping hand and go in to edit their tags. If you have written one of these posts, edit your tags :)

The posts will be compiled on this page. We will then work from that page to start building the community support area of the site.

I was on the math team in high school. (Haha, I love telling people that!! The irony is, I can't even add numbers over ten together anymore without the use of my reverse polish notation calculator) Having just moved to a new school my junior year, this was my first experience with the math team. I can remember our first meet (is that what we called them?) being a humbling experience for me. At the awards presentation at the end of the meet, it came down to our team and another team as the last remaining teams. One would take first, one would take second.

When it was announced that the other team had gotten second, I let out a little "YES!!"(if you've spent much time around me, you know it probably wasn't little.......or quiet) and a fist pump, quickly followed by an attempted five with a friend of mine on the team. My attempts at celebration were met with a look of astonishment from my buddy and some frowns from pretty much everyone else in the room. I was new, how was I suppose to know you didn't celebrate a math team win in our league? This wasn't the last time I would be new and not know the ins and outs of how to act in certain settings.

• Do you remember the day you got your invitation to ActiveRain? (or stumbled across it after reading something on the internet)
• Do you remember thinking "if I play my cards right, I can have the most points in my city in 1 week, my county in 4 weeks, and my state in 2 months"? 
• Do you remember setting up your account and only being able to put your name, number, and some simple text in the 'about us', 'areas of expertise' and 'testimonials' areas?
• Do you remember thinking "how the heck did he get his to look so good"? 
• Do you remember typing up your first blog and struggling to figure out how the other people get those cool pictures and links in their blogs?
• Do you remember thinking "I will never produce a post that looks like hers"?

If you remember anything like this, or ever had any thoughts similar to this running through your head, you are not alone. In fact, there is someone out there right now, as you are reading this, that is thinking the exact same thing you were a month ago, six months ago, a year ago. A month later, six months later, a year later it must be hard to look back and remember what it felt like.

I'll bet that more than a few of you had someone reach out to you and attempt to show you the way. I'll bet some of you got a call from someone saying, "hey, I saw your recent post. I thought it was great, but maybe you could break it up a little bit, add a link to this word here, and throw in a picture right here....................oh, you don't know how to do a picture, let me show you". 

I know this happens. I've had members tell me that another member did just this for them. I've had them tell me they are so grateful for the 20 minutes that senior member spent with them.

Every day I get to speak with, or exchange emails with someone that really wants to participate the right way. They didn't know it wasn't OK (wow, bad double negative) to send contact emails to everyone telling them about their programs. They want to know the right way, but they just signed up today. They were blinded by the seemingly endless possibilities to network.

Every day I get to speak with or exchange emails with someone who thinks it's OK to post all of their listings to the professional category. They don't know that listings are only suppose to be in the consumer area. They want to know the right way, but they just signed up last week. They relished the idea of having 1000's of agents browse past their listing as they read other blogs.

Every day I get to speak with or exchange emails with someone who thinks it's OK to do something that if you've been here a month, six months, or a year you know it isn't OK to do. They want to know the right way. This place, ActiveRain, has so many little nuances that it takes a long time to figure them all out. We at ActiveRain like to assume that people in general have good intentions. Sometimes, because they don't know the ins and outs, it doesn't come off like that. 

So I ask you for two things. If you see someone that looks like they could use a hand figuring something out, reach out and offer one. If you see someone that could use a gentle reminder that that's not how we do things here in the rain, reach out and offer a solution and help them understand why. Don't be accusatory, don't be rude, don't call them out in public, but reach out to them because they probably wish they knew how to do it the right way.

And of course, if all else fails.................please, call me, I'll reach out to them :)

We decided to take the plunge and hire an employee to act as our in-house editor. This new employee's primary responsibility will be around editorial functions for the soon to be relaunced Localism site. They will also be selecting featured posts for ActiveRain until we are able to develop and test our community moderating platform. 

Yes you heard right on both accounts! 

We are working on a Localism redesign, and we are going to be developing a process where our members will play a greater role in selecting featured posts. 

What this means, is that effective today, we will no longer be using the services of our team of volunteer moderators. 

For almost a year now, the featuring of posts has been handled by a team of moderators. This team is made up of a diverse array of members from the network. The job they have done in keeping the network vibrant has been nothing short of amazing in my opinion. 

There have been three moderators in particular who have been the face of the moderators. Colleen Kulikowski, Laurie Manny, Rich Jacobson, and Mark Flanders have been instrumental in the vitality we have experienced in the past year. Their efforts have often times been thankless, questioned, and misunderstood. Even so, they have been unbelievably generous with their time, their input, and their willingness to help. 

I want to personally thank Colleen, Laurie, Rich, and Mark. Thank you!!!!

There are also a group of "hidden moderators". While we strive at ActiveRain to be transparent, it was decided a while ago that in order to get anyone else to volunteer to help moderate we would have to protect their identities. I will leave it up to them to decide if they want to reveal themselves at this point. 

As always, your comments, questions and concerns are welcome and appreciated.