Hi Bill, I apologize for not getting into the forum sooner. You cannot imagine how excited I am about this site and working with you. I spoke to Dennis last night and he is going to get a hold of the database guy today. He also told me that he wold be diligent in going to the library as wee to get his emails. I told him as well that he needed to be in the loop with you and I. We are going to set up an appointment with a professional photographer. I am hoping that this can be done next week. I may be calling you sometime later tonight or Friday with help as how to open up the brochure and review that. I am on my way to Grand Forks for the day. I spoke to homeshq today and we are going to advertise on that site as well as in-forum.com. Have a great day and I look forward to talking with you soon! Joe

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2002

Answers

Hi Joe,

Glad to hear you're excited, and no need to apologize... I'm just glad to see you're using the forum... Believe it or not, simply doing that - people using them - has always been the hardest part, the most frustrating thing about them... Long story (having to do with people's rock-solid e-mail addictions), but the long and short is, the same thing seems to hold true for "forum use" as the thing you were saying about 10% to 30% of the people in networks doing most of the work, or "using" that system (it seems that's an amazinginly consistent statistic - "10% of the people do 90% of the work" - no matter what the situation, effort, etc.)... So I'm glad to see you seem to be part of that "active percentile."

Okay... Let's see what's up today...

1. Dennis... No reply yet to that e-mail I sent him Tuesday, but that's no real surprise: It IS a (mild) pain in the butt to have to stop into libraries to use the net, so I'm sure he's not wild about hopping on that band wagon. But, once a person "gets in the habit," gets familiar with the (library) surroundings, etc., it's not bad, and I think he'll actually like it once he starts getting into the "internet swing of things." (And, of course, it COULD help when it comes to communications, saving on phone bills, and - miracle of miracles? - becoming more and more successful...)

Anyway, as I mentioned in that last note, the main idea with that last message was just to "start the process" of helping Dennis get access to and use the net. He DID reply to that first e-mail which means he went to a library and logged into his email account which is the most basic starting point...

And, "in his defense," I don't blame him for not wanting to communicate with me regularly right now. Everytime he has lately, I've been pretty "mean" to him. Unfortunately for him, he caught me at a point where I am all but completely out of patience for having my chain yanked in any way by anyone I'm trying to do "creative business" with. It seems to have turned out to be Dennis's "misfortune" to be the last one in a too long line of people doing that... So I'm sure he's felt like I may have been just a little too overzealous in my whippings of him at the slighest sign of any weasling, and, at the moment, isn't crazy about the idea of contacting me. There's supposed to be a check in my mailbox today or tomorrow, and I expect he'll feel more comfortable after he's sure that's arrived... So let's hope it arrives...

2. Pro photographer: Be sure to see if he or she can do the pictures digitally and save them on disk so you can just e-mail them to me and I can just pop them open and use them without having to scan them. That'd save a lot of time...

3. Brochure: I happened to think yesterday (the day after putting those (rough) instructions in that other thread), that all you have to do is open the email, do a "Select all" (under the Edit menu or right mouse button), copy it, click "Reply," paste what you just copied into the blank "reply" e-mail, make the corrections, and, when you're finished, click "Send." That should take care of it without having to mess around with the copy in this forum...

And as far as that goes, I have an updated version of the brochure I'll email you as soon as I'm done here... I opened it and made what seemed like the simple and obvious corrections, so there's no sense you having to redo those... There shouldn't be too many more to make. Just the ones where the scanner missed entire sentences, etc.. Just take a look at the updated version, compare it to the brochure, follow the steps above, and it shouldn't take you more than 15 or 20 minutes (or half the night, depending on how confusing this is)...

Or, of course, just give me a call...

4. "I woke up thinking..." (like THAT'S something unique): For some reason I was having a cup of coffee, thinking about what you said when I asked you why the Edina Realty agents worked through you when they have their own mortgage company... "Because we give them referrals," you said...

This morning I wondered where YOU get those referrals. I have no idea how any of that stuff works, but what I thought was, if you happen to get them from people who want to sell their houses (as in "the public," as opposed to banks, other brokers, etc.), that MIGHT be a good thing to include on the site (as we go along). A page that says something about how people (whoever you get referrals from) should contact you because you can help them get the property sold (as well as bought), and a mechanism or two for making that easy. "Click here to contact me about the property you'd like to unload and, who knows? If we wind up handling the transaction, you'll get a dinner for 2 a Paradiso and you COULD win a new bass boat! So click now!!"

5. The site itself: Last but not least (like the site is some kind of minor afterthought), I think I've got a new design you'll like... I hope so anyway... The graphic turned out to be a mild nightmare (a new collage based on the new pictures). It's always a "challenge" to figure out what to do with those things. Tricky to come up with something that "toes the line" between ho-hum boring and too bloated and "pretentious."

And then there's the "by-accident factor" I always wind up waiting for. I don't know why, but there's always something that has to happen as the result of some mistake that seems to wind up being the "key" to whatever it is you're trying to put together... In this case, I happened to be doing something with your "magic wall of fame" that made me say, "Hmmmmm... Maybe something having to do with that would work." And next thing you know, it's late at night and you're trying to get the darn thing done so you can go to bed, forget it, and get ON with the new web page itself...

Who knows? You may hate it, think it looks terrible, etc.. We'll see. The main thing is I finally got it finished this morning and am now in the process of putting the new (potential) home page together which should be a realtive snap. (It's funny how key the graphics always seem to be. Funny how they seem to "drive" or "dictate" everything else. At least they sure seem to for me.)

Okay... Pardon the length here... At least half of what I'm doing right now is taking a break from the web work (escaping), and I'm afraid I must be taking it out on you (as long as I'm typing I can don't have to wrestle with the web page). But I'll hang up for now.

Time to go check the mail anyway... I'll do that and then come back here and send you that updated/semi-corrected version of the brochure...

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2002