Design and Context Matter

Few things make me think like TED talks.


I’ve shifted my morning routine a bit. Now while riding the bike at the gym, I’m watching TED talks – while getting my body healthier, I might as well stretch my mind as well.

This talk has so many highlights, but one that struck me was this –

“He didn’t believe it was the end of print … I remember attending an exhibition called ‘Photography, the End of Painting;’ and it wasn’t at all.”

How does this relate to real estate? Directly, believe it or not.

Print’s not dying, but its defined relevance is shifting. Perhaps print is the new painting and the internet – and all that it entails – is the new photography. (I can’t help what’s next that will threaten the internet’s existence and relevance)

How we adapt to this shift will be fascinating. I see print as irrelevant for marketing houses, but relevant for branding – branding me as a professional, my company, my profession all of which constitute my brand. But as far as marketing a house to a specific buyer? Notsomuch.

This one, too, shakes everything up –

The invention of printing did away with anonymity, fostering ideas of literary FAME and and the habit of considering intellectual effort as private property.

A question – in and of itself, is MLS data intellectual property due to its aggregation and the context it provides? Or could it be considered merely data?

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2 Comments

  1. Daniel February 9, 2009 at 11:45

    Thanks for the TED tip. I had no idea these were up in iTunes format. I’m downloading some now. Do you recommend any more?

    Regarding MLS data: A “fact” cannot be considered intellectual property. The “fact” that “503 Rialto St. is for sale for $314K” and the “fact” that “The Steelers won in the 09 Superbowl” do not belong to anyone and cannot be bought or sold. Obviously, any creative work can be considered intellectual property: images and listing descriptions.

    The questions that Google and the Internet raises are really interesting, though: If you give all your data away for free (i.e. MLS on the internet, TV over the air) do you still have the right to restrict its usage? Newspapers suing Google for linking to their stories and Networks suing YouTube for fan-created montages all seem silly. But so does the restrictions surrounding MLS usage (when it’s all out there for free anyway).

    Reply
  2. brand4profit February 10, 2009 at 05:32

    Creating brands worth evangelizing about is often misunderstood. The connection between the core values – the soul of the company and the soul of the customer – is why customers evangelize. They have found a temple of core value at which to worship. It’s mythic. It’s epic. The brand becomes icon because it connects to the subconscious yearnings of the customer, imprinting on the brain. The pictured emotional experience becomes a conduit through which the customer can again be touched by those core values.

    Those pictures and emotions then become language in the brain of the customer. And it’s the language of evangelism.

    Reply

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