The 1999 NAR Convention in Orlando was all about the latest gizmos and gadgets to benefit agents and brokers, with the emphasis on user-friendly. Here are a few of my favorites:

Stewart Title Hands-on Sessions

Stewart Title had a room with 50 computers set up, and they ran continuous sessions for NAR attendees. The response was so great that they had to resort to a "take a number" system, and the service was welcomed by all who attended. Our CyberStars(tm) did three of the sessions, and thetopics Stewart offered covered a broad range of necessary techno skills and information.

Digital Business Cards on CD's

The CyberStars(tm) were really high on the custom CD-ROM's produced by UR There Productions. CyberStar(tm) Greg Gorman ordered 500 of them on the spot, and a number of other CyberStars(tm) placed their orders while at the convention. You should see 'em - cute little truncated CD-Rom's, they look like somebody sawed a regular CD down to business card size! UR There puts your logo, photo and contact information on the label side, and their graphic artist folks really do a fine job on content. They've got the digital business cards, or you can get them to do a property tour, area tour, etc.

The CyberStars(tm) see the digital business card as a really unique, really "wow" marketing tool to give to your A prospects and plan to use them heavily. It's so unique and the quality's great. seems like a real winner!

They also do virtual reality home tours on CD-ROM for $99.95. Again, this can be a real "wow" when you give them out!)

Money-making Products from Hewlett-Packard

I spent a lot of time in Hewlett-Packard's booth at the show. HP's decided to really go after the real estate agent/office market, and they had some great products on display. I liked their selection of printers (color laserjet and inkjet), their all-in-one OfficeJet R40xi/R80xi (combination color printer, plain paper fax, color scanner and color copier), their PhotoSmart P1000 and P1100 Printers that let you just insert the CompactFlash or SmartMedia card from your digital camera into the printer and print out your photos (either as standalone or as part of documents you do from your r.e. database, Microsoft Publisher, PREP Presentations, etc.), and the new HP 9100 Digital Sender (a workgroup communication device that converts paper documents into digital format so that you can send 'em via email!).

And I've gotta have one of their CapShare 920 portable e-copiers! It's a small, hand held scanner that lets you slide easily over documents without worrying too much about keeping a steady hand. It stores up to 50 scanned copies and lets you view them right on the LCD screen. Of course, you can send the electronic copies to your computer (by beaming them!) and then edit, print, email or fax them.

Let's see -- what else did they have? Some notebook computers that looked good, and a couple of backup/storage products: I'm investigating their read/write CD-ROM and their new tape backup systems which, I hear, are much easier than the old one I used to have. All-in-all, I think that HP's decision to pay attention to the vast real estate market means good things in store for us.

Dell Discounts for NAR Members

Dell Computer has created a discount program for NAR members. They have a toll-free number specifically for NAR members: 1-877-648-3355. If you choose to use their special Web page, http://www.dell.com/premier, use the phrase NAR member as your user name and NARDELL as your password.

GrandTours.net

I saw a really sharp virtual tour for your listings, one that gets attached to your Web site, GrandTours.net. It's a very professional layout that can easily be added to your Web site. The tours are also distributed daily to major real estate search engines including Yahoo!, Real Estate Classifieds, iOwn and Home Debut. You can choose from among four plans, including the agent listing enhancement package ($29.95 for 1-4 photos; $39.95 for 5-16 photos) all the way to the deluxe Internet solution package for heavy hitters ($50 a month for unlimited GrandTours). You put your photos (including your Bamboo, IPIX and panorama photos) and text together, and then your tour is attached to your Web site. You can email the tour, you can print all the photos and text in the tour or print one of three flyer styles, and there's a mortgage calculator on each tour page. Simple, and you owe it to yourself to check out the sample tours on their site.

Published: November 17, 1999

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