I’m pleased to introduce this guest post by Keith Hackbarth of RentersFriend.com who’s got great ideas about how to make QR codes—like the one you see here—work for you.

QR codes, short for Quick Response Codes, are currently a hot topic in the marketing world.  They look like barcodes.  If you look around, you’ll see them in newspapers, museums, and online blogs.

Consumers equipped with smartphones such as iPhone, Android, or Blackberry can take a picture of these codes and be instantly transported to a website with helpful information about the properties.

Realtors and property managers have started placing these QR codes on their signage and brochures.  For example, a rental property might have a QR code on the “For Rent” sign in front. Walk-by traffic will see this code, capture it on their phone, and instantly get a virtual tour of the property.  Best of all, the QR code will also be stored in the phone’s memory for later reference.

To get started with QR codes, download “QR Reader” or “QR Scanner” software on your phone.  There are many free applications, such as Google Goggles, for this.  Next take a picture of the code and follow the link.

Ask your signage company if they can put QR codes on your lawn signs, flyers, and business cards. It might make the difference between a vacancy or not.

About the author:  Keith Hackbarth is CEO of RentersFriend.com, a web service for online rental applications and credit checks. He loves finding ways to use technology to improve  his family’s real estate business. If you own rental properties, take a minutes to check out his innovative service https://rentersfriend.com

Slide presentations aren’t known for being exciting.  In fact, PowerPoint, by design, encourages linear presentations that contain mostly words.

But newer presentation packages encourage creativity and can be great vehicles for making a presenting, showing off a listing, or presenting information in an engaging way.  Add cloud-based services and the ability to present from an iPad or an iPhone, and you’ve got what you need to make  a stunning presentation wherever you happen to be.   Consider these ways to produce and present information.

SlideRocket is a cloud-based service that lets you create and store presentations. Upload slide shows you already have or create new ones with their great tools. Once presentations are stored with SlideRocket, you can access and present them from anywhere.  You can also share them with others, link to them from, say, Facebook, or embed them on your web page.

280Slides is another cloud-based service that gives you the flexibility to create, store, access, and present. Create a slideshow that has the look and feel of a presentation created on a Mac. Incorporate videos from YouTube or photos from Flickr with 280Slides’ built-in media tools. When you’re done, deliver your presentation, share it with others, add it to your website, or download it as a PowerPoint slideshow.

The Keynote App for iPad also lets you create, and present slideshows.  If you’ve never used a Mac, you’ll marvel at how easy it is to make professional-looking presentations in Keynote by just touching and tapping.  The iPad makes an excellent vehicle for presenting in someone’s home or in the office conference room.   Newer iPads can also be connected to a projector for larger presentations.  (For smaller presentations, the app works on your Iphone and Ipod Touch, too.)

With so many presentation tools to choose from—many free or modestly priced—there’s no excuse for giving dull, boring presentations.

Let me start out by saying, it can’t be done!

Even if you scoured the Internet 24/7, signed up for every new online tool, purchased every new tech gadget, and ordered every new software update—assuming that it was humanly possible to do all of this—you’d still be behind.  The pace of change in technology is so rapid that it’s impossible for most tech experts to keep up, let alone real estate professionals who have other things to think about.

So don’t try to “keep up” with technology.  Instead, recognize that for agents and brokers, technology is a means to an end.  It exists to help you do business, that is:

• To connect with potential clients;
• To market yourself or the properties you have listed; and
• To facilitate communication before, during, and after a sale.

Figure out which of these things you need to be doing better and then identify the hardware, software, and Internet services that will help you get the job done.  Become an expert in the handful of technologies that improve your marketing efforts and enhance your ability to serve your clients.  Learn all you can about those technologies and always be on the lookout for new and better tools that do the same thing.

You can’t be an expert on everything, so first and foremost be an expert on your business and what works for you.

You’ve probably seen them, those square barcode-like symbols that are popping up on buildings, on marketing material, and even on people’s business cards.  They’re called QR codes (short for Quick Response) and they make it easy for anyone to encode a great deal of information in a small amount of space.

You create QR codes using a QR code generator easily found on the web.  At Zebra Crossing for example, you’ll find a free open-source one that lets you imbed a URL, contact information, GEO location, text, or a calendar event into your code. In order for prospects to read the information embedded in the code, they’ll need a web-enabled mobile phone and an app for reading QR codes. QR code readers are easy to find; they’re available in the app stores of all the major phone platforms.  Once the QR reader is installed, a prospect simply snaps a picture of the code and their phone “translates” it for them.  If the code contains a URL, the web-enabled phone takes them to that website.  If the code contains text, that text appears on their screen for them to read.

QR codes have been popular overseas for some time, especially in Japan.  They’re only beginning to gain popularity in the U.S. and there’s a growing buzz about them in the real estate industry.   They can be faster and easier for busy people to use than copying and pasting a URL, and they have an added “curiosity factor” since passersby can’t know what the coded message says unless they take some action.  For these reasons QR codes have great marketing potential and many possible real estate uses.  Here are some ways you might use them:

• Use a QR code on the outside of a building to provide prospects with a digital property prospectus—text they can read on their phone that describes pricing, floorplans, listing broker information and more.
• Post a video tour or a slide show of the property to the web then use a QR code to let prospects see what the property looks like on the inside even though they’re standing outside.
• Use a QR code on a sign outside the property to alert prospects to an upcoming open house.  Create a buzz in advance by posting QR codes around the neighborhood.
• Buyer not interested in this property?  No problem.  Use the QR code to direct him or her to other properties nearby that are also for sale.
• Add them to your Facebook page or the sidebar of your blog to let readers know about new properties or special events.

The possibilities are endless.  What else can you think of?

For many years, the experts have talked about the possibility of the paperless office.  Few industries generate as much paper as real estate, so it’s logical to question whether it’s even possible for a real estate office to be paperless.

Certainly the technology exists and a small but growing number of businesses are considering how it might be done.  But real estate brokerages have their own special hurdles.

Agent Savvy.  First and foremost, the agents in the office would have to be comfortable getting rid of the paper and working only with digital documents. They would need the computer skills, for example, to use whatever document management system the brokerage instituted.  And where such systems are not hard to use, there are many real estate professionals who still struggle with basic computer skills.

Others’ Tech Skills.  To get the deal closed, agents must work with many other parties.  The clients, attorneys, inspectors and mortgage people involved would all have to be comfortable working without paper.  Otherwise the advantage would be lost:  hardcopies might still have to be printed out and hand delivered to non-digital savvy parties.  Hardcopy documents received from them would have to be scanned back into the paperless system.  The time and energy involved in all of this might undermine the ideal of working without paper.

The Paperless Closing.  Then there’s the closing.  All the parties may be on board with an electronic sales contract, but can all of the closing documents be signed electronically?  For example, does the HUD-1 statement or the mortgage note have to have a “live” signature?  Does the recorder of deeds in your jurisdiction have the ability to accept electronic documents?  Does the title company have the technology to conduct a closing without paper?

Without a doubt, this will come together some day so that all the parties will be able to work with digital documents.  Until that day, however, it’s likely be challenging for any one real estate brokerage to go completely paperless.

What are your views?  Do you know of any paperless real estate offices?  Have you participated in a paperless closing?

Real estate professional who market homes on the Internet should ideally have photos of the property taken and prepared for the Internet by a professional.  That’s because there’s so much to know about the staging, lighting, and composition required to make a home look appealing in a photograph.  There’s also a lot to know about digital images and how to prepare them for the Web.

For example, there are many possible file formats for digital images.  Do you know the difference?

The best file format for an image depends on how the image will be used.  Images that will be printed in a prospectus or other publication require a high resolution—200-300 pixels per inch (ppi).  But images viewed over the Internet look just fine with a lower resolution (e.g., 72 ppi).  In addition, the file size on Internet images needs to be low so the picture can download quickly when someone clicks on the page.

Here’s a primer on the four file formats you need to know about.

• GIF works best if the image contains a limited number of colors—if it’s, say, a floorplan or a logo with just 2 or 3 solid blocks of color.  GIF images are compressed to make them smaller for the Internet, but the compression used in GIFs limits the available colors.
• JPEG is better for photographs and other images that contain many colors.  The compression used to create a JPEG removes some of the pixels in the image, thereby allowing it to load quickly on the Internet, but retains the large number of colors.
• PNG is probably the best format for photographs on the Web because it compresses images efficiently like a GIF, but it shows a wide range of colors like a JPEG.  But because it’s a newer file format some browsers, particularly older ones, can’t show PNG images.  Therefore, it’s not yet widely used.
• TIFF files are sometimes not compressed at all, which means they can be quite large.  However, they provide the best quality image.  They also contain the digital information designers need to be able to expand or shrink them without distortion or loss of detail. If the image is being used to prepare a print publication, it should be created as a TIFF.  But TIFFs shouldn’t be used on the Internet because they’re too big, they download too slowly, and because many browsers can’t show them at all.

This week Sony announced that it was ceasing Japanese production of its iconic portable music player, the Walkman.  First introduced in 1979, the Walkman sold more than 220 million units worldwide and was to cassette tapes in the 1980s what the iPod is to digital music today.

Imagine if this holiday season someone gave you a Sony Walkman for a gift.  You’d probably assume it to be a gag gift, right?  After all, where on earth would you even get cassette tapes to play on it?  But what if they told you it was a “real” gift—that in their opinion it was a great way to listen to music and they wanted you to have one. You’d probably wonder where that person had been for the past 30 years!

Real estate professionals with few or no computing skills create that same impression.  When you say to a client, “I haven’t been able to check my mail because I’ve been away from my desk all day,” or “I’m having trouble getting my messages.  Can you just drop that in the mail to me,” it probably makes them wonder. It’s challenging enough trying to navigate the current real estate market without a consumer having to worry that their agent is stuck in 1983.

So take a good look at your tech skills.  Are you continuing to learn and to grow?  Or are you a Walkman in a digital world?

There are two kinds of people working in real estate.  There are the technology savvy agents—blogging, tweeting, texting, posting videos and working with digital signatures—and then there’s everyone else.  This latter group includes people who struggle with e-mail, people who don’t use smartphones, and people who still say things like, “I’m not good with computers.”

These two camps have to co-exist in the same office and sometimes they even have to work together.  What happens when you’re a techno-whiz and the agent working for the other party is just learning to use the fax machine?  Changes are Agent Techno-Whiz is going to have to adapt.  Here are some suggestions on how to do that.

• Be Patient.  You may be frustrated at how slowly communication progresses, but don’t let your emotions to poison the interaction.

• Be Respectful.  You gain nothing by deriding your colleague or making fun of her limitations.  Adopting an attitude of respect makes it easier to be flexible which—let’s face it—you’re going to have to be.

• Be Adaptable. Determine how your non-tech-savvy colleague prefers to communicate and adapt your work style accordingly.  Understand and accept that you may have to work a little harder to keep the communication flowing.   Be prepared, for example, to fax documents (or even deliver hardcopies) to keep the process moving.  Follow-up e-mails or text messages with phone calls to review what you wrote in the message.

Think of it this way:  if this person were your client, what would you do?   My guess is, you’d go the extra mile to keep him or her in the loop no matter how much effort it took.  So be at least as accommodating with your colleague.

I lay in the bed in the darkness before dawn this morning thinking how much I didn’t want to get up and go work out.   My muscles were stiff and sore, as they often are when I first wake up, and it seemed as if it would just be easier to sleep a few more minutes rather than force myself to start moving right then.

Fortunately, I overcame the desire to take the easy way out.  I got up, got dressed, and made my way to the gym.   And guess what?  It was the right choice:  no stiff muscles now.  I’m moving perfectly well and feeling great.   And I have no doubt that had I given in to the part of me that wanted to whine, I would have had a slower, less productive, less successful day.

And so it is with real estate professionals who say they “can’t use computers.”   Every day they delay learning how to put technology to work for them, they fall farther and farther below the bar.  And yet it only takes a few baby steps—maybe trying one new thing each day—to grow in confidence and skill.

So, if this is you, stop whining.  Get up, get your computer out, and try something new.

The end of the summer is upon us, and what a summer it has been!

Facebook surpassed 500 million users in July and Twitter logged more than 20 billion tweets.  But what were the best technology tools for real estate and business professionals?

Here’s my list: the Top Ten Tech And Social Media Tools to come out during the Summer of 2010.

Number 10: Facebook Announces Places.  Only days ago, Facebook announced its new location feature which puts it on a head-to-head collision course with Foursquare.  Facebook Places has great potential for marketing and location-based ads, but as is often the case with new features on Facebook, many users have concerns about privacy. As a result, it’s too early to guess its true business impact.

Number 9: Make Bank Deposits With Your Smartphone.  Chase Bank has put technology to work and created a system that allows us to deposit checks using an iPhone app and camera.  It won’t be long before there are more time saving features like this on our phones.

Number 8: Make Phone Calls from Gmail.  In the last week of August, Google announced that it had integrated Google Voice into Gmail.  It’s kind of like adding Skype to your email. Make free phone calls from your computer to U.S. and Canadian numbers and save your cell phone minutes; pay only two cents per minute for international calls.

Number 7: YouTube Ups its Time Limit. Couldn’t make it fit in 10 minutes? No problem.  YouTube has given us all 5 extra minutes.  This means we can add more time to the videos we make, but it also means we’ll spend more time watching other people’s videos.

Number 6: Google Allows Rich Text Signatures. Now your Gmail signature can include images like your company logo.  Very nice touch.

Number 5: Google Expands Real Time Search. It’s been there for sometime.  Do a search and Google includes what people are saying about that topic on the Internet.  But now Real Time is its own application, which you can use to look up trending topics or to find out what people are saying about you and your company.

Number 4: Google Voice Opens Up.  Google Voice lets you have one number for all of your phones so that callers can find you wherever you happen to be.  It’s a great application for busy business people and as of mid-June, it’s available to anyone with a U.S. phone number without an invitation.

Number 3: WordPress Unveils Version 3.0. This newest version of the most complete blogging platform incorporates multi-user functionality and a beautiful new default theme, Twenty Ten.

Number 2: Starbucks Offers Free Wi-Fi.  While other establishments were getting rid of wi-fi or putting limits on how long customers could use it, Starbucks was tearing down the barriers.  They’ve invited us all to stop in with our computers, they’re giving us free one-click wi-fi, and they’re letting us stay as long as we like.

Number 1: iPhone 4 Hits the Market. Multitasking, HD video recording and editing, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash:  can it get any better?  Yes it can.  The snazzy FaceTime videophone feature puts us up there with the Jetstons.  Can Jet Packs be far behind?  Even with its antenna problems, the iPhone remains the leader of the smartphone pack.

What’s your choice for the best tech or social media product of the summer?