2008 Speakers
Thank you to our 2008 Speakers! Our attendees kept raving about the quality of our speakers. Everyone was impressed by the start-studded lineup. Many of these speakers appeared on multiple panels and/or moderated a panel. We can’t thank you enough for lending your valuable time to REtechSouth!
Matt Dunlap, RealEspace.com
Matt has been developing web applications for 10 years with emphasis on distributing information across multiple platforms. He has years of experience with all aspects of internet programming including including databases implementation, e-commerce, and server administration. His latest venture was CTO of Realivent.com, a company that distributed real
estate agent information throughout the web for greater marketing exposure. He brings a vision of normalizing data from multiple verticals and then providing a platform for any business to access the data and remotely display it, thus benefiting all parties involved.
Bob Stewart, ActiveRain.com
Bob Stewart is Chief Evangelist for the ActiveRain Real Estate Network. Bob began his path in the real estate industry as a Mortgage Originator straight out of college, after Graduating from Eastern Washington University. It was during this time that he connected with ActiveRain and Brio Realty co-founder Jonathan Washburn. Bob moved into the Real Estate brokerage arena as the Chief of Operations for Brio Realty, a three state independent Brokerage with operations in WA, MD, and VA. At the foundation of ActiveRain in May of 2006, Bob was ever present behind the scenes lending insight to the decisions of Co-Founders Jon Washburn and Matt Heaton. He officially came on board as Chief Evangelist in Sept. of 2007 where he is responsible for the overall health of the Network and the guiding force for policy decisions affecting the membership.
Tony Grey, vidlisting.com
Tony Grey is the founder of Vidlisting.com, a real estate video site in multiple languages that launched in November 2006 running on top of our own custom video syndication platform known as the ForSaleByLocals Web Engine. By surrounding himself with employees far smarter than he is, together they’ve grown the company to sustained profitability (since July 2007) and close to 100,000 monthly real estate video views with a range of video services and technical platform offerings for real estate focused organizations and individuals.
Prior to Vidlisting, he held a variety of software engineering management positions within Windows division at Microsoft managing teams of developers, testers, and program managers. He has been rumored to have occasionally snuck into classes at the University of Maryland and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.
He has always had a passion for video, international travel, real estate investment, and building software which all seem to intersect in his current role. He maintains a permanent residence in Washington state when not talking about real estate video…which basically means that he is never home.
Jonathan Washburn, ActiveRain.com
At just 28 years old, Jonathan has established himself as an industry veteran with over 10 years of real estate sales and management experience. An early pioneer in the online real estate space, he founded one of the first internet brokerages, WhyNotOwn Real Estate. After selling that business in early 2004 he simultaneously founded Brio Realty and co-founded ActiveRain Corp. Brio Realty has acheived rapid growth during it’s first two years of existence and can now be found in three states on both North American coasts. ActiveRain Corp. was founded as a lead management ASP software solution for the real estate industry, but recently has received most notoriety through ActiveRain.com, the largest and fastest growing social network, specifically focused on the real estate industry
Tara Jones, AtlantaDwellings.TV
Tara Jones has been a broadcaster for more than a decade reporting and anchoring across the country for ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates. Currently, she is a reporter for the number one station in Atlanta, WSB-TV. Tara is also a licensed real estate agent in the state of Georgia. She has now married her two careers into one with Atlanta Dwellings TV. As the spokesperson for ADTV, Tara is able to showcase dozens of homes, communities and businesses throughout the metro Atlanta area. The site is an innovative tool giving unlimited exposure to anything from listings to neighborhoods.
David Carroll, softRealty.com
David Carroll, is the founder and visionary of softRealty.com. softRealty.com is partnering with real estate professionals to deliver a fresh new user experience that will captivate home buyers and reinforce their professional value. Search Connect is their flagship product providing an IDX property search engine designed to help agents promote themselves and their web sites with the appeal found in many of the large national property search engines and best of all – it’s free. David spent the last decade consulting as a professional software architect and developer, specializing in designing and implementing various enterprise solutions. David’s technology specialties include cross browser warfare, AJAX head butting, Web UI hacking, MS SQL Server 2005, C#, WCF and all things .NET, XHTML/CSS/JavaScript, Service Oriented Architecture, BizTalk Deep Diving, and a whole playground of technology. David received a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Oglethorpe University.
Desiree Scales, BellaWebDesign.com
Desiree C. Scales is the owner and CEO of Bella Web Design, Inc. She has over 10 years experience in developing websites for small to medium sized businesses including realtors, real estate companies, mortgage companies, builders and developers. Desiree is a new thought leader in educating her clients about developing both Web 2.0 and traditional strategies to grow their business. She has been seen and heard on the radio and at conferences throughout Atlanta. She has also led seminars at both the Cobb and Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce as well as for RE/MAX, Century 21 and Keller Williams offices in and around Atlanta.
Bo Gilbert, MLCNewHomeMarketing.com
Bo Gilbert, Senior Consultant at MLC New Home Marketing, has over 13 years of experience working in the new home construction industry. For the last 9 years, Bo has been assisting homebuilders, developers and new home sales professionals market their homes and new home communities on the Internet.Prior to joining MLC New Home Marketing, Bo was employed as a Regional Sales Manager at HomeBuilder.com, the new homes division of Homestore, Inc. Bo is a Member of the Institute of Residential Marketing (MIRM) through the National Association of Home Builders.
Bo graduated from North Carolina State University and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering with a Construction Option. He currently resides in Atlanta, GA and is an active member of the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association as well as the Atlanta Sales and Marketing Council.
Dustin Luther, 4realz.net
Dustin has years of experience teaching real estate professionals how to attract consumers in order to get the most value out of their internet marketing efforts. In addition to educating real estate professionals through his 4RealzEd seminars, he’s a well-known speaker having presented at educational events for NAR, CAR, local MLS associations, many brokerages, and 1000s of REALTORS. Prior to starting 4realz.net, Dustin was an marketing executive at Move, as well as the founder of Rain City Guide, one of the most influential real estate blogs in the country.
Carol Flammer, AtlantaRealEstateForum.com
Carol M. Flammer, MIRM, CSP, CAPS, CMP, is President of Flammer Relations, Inc., an Atlanta based public relations and social media agency specializing in residential real estate, business-to-business accounts and non profit accounts. Services include strategic public relations, media relations, social media and blogging for SEO, special events coordination and copy writing for newsletters, Web sites and advertorials.
Carol is the creator of www.AtlantaRealEstateForum.com, the city’s favorite real estate blog. The blog was recognized by the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association with two Gold OBIE awards for Best Interactive Marketing and Best Marketing Promotion in 2007. The Georgia Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America named Atlanta Real Estate Forum the Best Blog in 2007. Carol’s success in using social media to gain exposure for clients has led to requests for her to speak nationally, including a seminar with the Metro Builders Association in Milwaukee and webinars on www.AgentDirect.com.
Social media interests are an extension to Carol’s previous success in traditional public relations, which included placements on ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show, CNN, TBS, NPR, BBC and USA Today. Prior to founding Flammer Relations in 1999, she headed the public relations department at local Atlanta advertising agency and was its first director. Before that, she worked for 10 years in non-profit, including serving as Public Relations Director for both the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Zoo Atlanta.
Michael Simonsen, AltosResearch.com
Michael is CEO of Altos ResearchCorp.
Altos Research monitors real estate markets in real-time. Our customers include real estate professionals, investors, and home buyers and sellers.
Real estate analysis tends to be old data and regional in nature, and not very usable for making decisions. So our company built the technology that analyzes the market as it is right now in very local markets all over the country so you have actionable information.
Mike co-founded Altos Research in 2005 and serves as the company’s CEO. He has nearly 15 years experience with software product management, development and marketing of enterprise applications, networking, and security products. In developing the Altos product offerings he applied his expertise in analytical systems development to a personal interest in the real estate market.
http://www.altosresearch.com
Prior to founding Altos Research, Mike was Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at security systems vendor Nevis Networks (http://www.nevisnetworks.com) where he led the team from inital product concept through the company’s launch into the market. Before joining Nevis he led product management and strategic marketing efforts at Inkra Networks, and helped build the company’s multi-service data center switching product line and contributed to the company’s successful sales into the largest datacenters in the world. Prior to Inkra, Mike founded Potrero Networks and was director of product management at Lucent Technologies/International Networks Services VitalSuite division. He has a BS from the University of Nevada and an MBA from Chicago’s DePaul University.
Mark Warner, RealEspace.com
Mark brings a wealth of experience in real estate, mortgages, securities, and entrepreneurship to RealEspace. He has successfully founded, funded and operated several real estate partnerships, and owns both a residential real estate company and a net branch of a mortgage company.
In 2007, Mark formed RealEspace where he serves as the CEO. RealEspace is a social utility marketplace for real estate, mortgage and technology professionals to find and exchange knowledge, ideas, products and services. RealEspace’s value propositions include web enabled, sharable widgets for subsequent license and use by real estate and mortgage professionals with an online marketplace for these products and services. In 1994, Mark founded FireDream, a financial services firm. Previously, he ran Warner Financial group, a Texas registered investment advisory firm founded in 1982. Over the years, Mark successfully raised over $75 million for various securities and insurance products. Prior to his tenure at Warner Financial he served as a VP for Excel Interfinancial Corporation, a real estate investment firm.
David Harris, GeekEstateBlog.com
David Harris is Director of IT for First Multiple Listing Service(FMLS) in Atlanta, GA. He also writes on GeekEstateBlog in addition to serving on the Board of Directors for Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO). RESO oversees the creation and implementation of the Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS). RETS facilitates data transfer between partners in the real estate industry. Creating and improving RETS is a collaborative effort to simplify moving real estate information from system to system and simplify solution development efforts. As RETS usage matures and expands, MLS with geographic overlaps can create data-sharing policies that provide their members a single point of entry to search multiple MLS data sets.
Mary McKnight, RSSpieces.com
Mary McKnight began her career in technology just about the time the dot com bubble was bursting. Having worked for a number of startups that went belly up in the bust, Mary made a lateral move into the high power world of Venture Capital to gain a better understanding of what makes or breaks a tech company. In 2004, Mrs. McKnight landed a position as a Senior Consultant for ColdWave Technologies, a diversified software company, servicing Fortune 500 clients like Warner Bros., Coca Cola, Exxon, Bank of America, NCI Building Systems and Ford Motor Credit. While at ColdWave, Mary worked within the feature film and sporting event industries to develop and implement large scale consumer Internet marketing campaigns for brand name products and property franchises.
In 2006, Mary and husband, John, were approached by a friend to build a simple blog for a local real estate firm. This rather insignificant event sparked the beginnings of RSS Pieces, a real estate blogging platform that expands the feature set of the typical blog into a powerful lead generation tool and consumer fly trap for Realtors. With a strong commitment to providing a quality product and technical education, RSS Pieces provides Realtors with the tools to market themselves on-line through blogging. As Chief Blogging Evangelist for RSS Pieces, Mary spends the majority of her time teaching professionals how to turn their blogs into powerful sales tools and lead generators with out-of-the-box marketing methods and proven copy writing techniques.
Christian Sterner, WellcomeMat.com
Co-Founder at Wellcomemat.com, the online video platform where local personalities and professionals highlight real estate, cities, neighborhoods, parks, schools, events and local businesses. WellcomeMat promises to connect people and places via video.”Learn more about Christian at WellcomeMat and LinkedIn
Rudy Bachraty, Trulia.com
Social Media Guru at Trulia.com
Founder & Broker at Kiosk Realty
Manages the Trulia blog and Social Media presence both online and offline. Contribute to new initiatives that will help build brand awareness while improving the consumer and agent experience. Helping people solve their real estate related problems.
Specialties
Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0, Blogging, Online & Offline Conversations, Buyers & Sellers
Jason Benesch, RealEstateTomato.com
Jason Benesch, Director of Technology, works at the popular Real Estate Tomato blog. Having helped thousands of Realtors embrace the internet as an effective marketing tool over the last 7 years, the Real Estate Tomato has developed a blog, a company and a product on the premise that the best service is through education.
Pat Kitano,TransparentRE.com
Founder, Managing Principal of Domus Consulting Group, a management consulting firm working with real estate brokerages, title insurance companies and Web 2.0 companies to develop technology marketing and corporate development strategies.
Developer / entrepreneur of innovative real estate marketing and settlement companies. Author of TransparentRealEstate.com, a blog focused on marketing, business strategy and technology for the real estate industry.
Extensive senior management experience in the internet technology , investment banking and new media.industries.
Specialties: Real estate, real estate consulting, real estate marketing, blogging, search engine optimization, seo, internet, technology, lead generation, title insurance, escrow, investment banking, entrepreneur, business development, marketing, new media, management consulting, venture capital
Matt Fagioli, DiamondDwellings.com
Matt Fagioli is the Chief Evangelist & Operating Broker at Diamond Dwellings Realty, based in Atlanta, Ga.
Matt is an internet marketing junkie ( and a self proclaimed “Jesus Freak”! )
In just 5 short years, Matt has made huge strides in real estate through an unfailing focus on hyper-accurate niche marketing.
He spent 3 years at Keller Williams Realty, rising to become a top 10 producer (out of 5000+ agents in the southeast)
before starting Diamond Dwellings in 2006.
Diamond Dwellings is not your average “boutique” brokerage.
Diamond Dwellings is a pure incubator for the best of web 2.0 in Real Estate.
Matt & the rest of the team are building growth engines (some people call them offices) in local markets all over the country.
Creating environments where agents & brokers are “living the dream” of dominating a very specifically defined market
through time-tested marketing strategies — implimented in a web 2.0 world!
Diamond Dwellings is expanding & taking it’s game plan to 20 US markets in 2008.
Kevin Boer, 3OceansRealEstate.com
Broker/Owner at 3 Oceans Real Estate, Inc.
* Managing Principal at Domus Consulting Group
* Sales Associate at Alain Pinel Realtors
* Associate at McKinsey & Co.
* Summer Associate at Mitchell Madison Group
* Owner at Three Oceans Consulting
* Technical Trainer/Manager at ITI
* Trainer at METC
* Marketing & Training Manager at Logical Solutions
* Peace Corps Volunteer at Peace Corps (Botswana)
Brad Nix, Maxsell.net
Brad is Managing Broker and Co-Owner of Maxsell Real Estate. A true real estate entrepreneur with substantial experience in residential and commercial brokerage, business planning, and marketing. Brad places a high premium on providing pertinent information to clients and agents about the local real estate market. He is always focused on reestablishing the real estate industry as a quality service with true experts delivering value to the consumer.
Brad has direct experience using web technologies to improve property marketing and client services. He has been blogging for 3 years and is particularly interested in growing market presence through online and local networking. Brad is a true believer in real estate 2.0 and strives to share as much knowledge as he learns from his online and local networks.
