Reflections on RE Bar Camp 2008

RE Bar Camp, held in San Francisco, CA on July 22, 2008 was a ~~gathering~~ happening of almost 200 real estate bloggers to discuss, in small, intimate groups, whatever was on their minds. Talk was about what was, what is, and what might be. As an advocate of offline social networking, I thought RE Bar Camp was spontaneous and beautiful.

The event was conceived and organized by “Mastermind” Andy Kaufman, with enormous help from Todd Carpenter, Brad Coy, Mike Price, Jay Thompson, Grant & Gia Freer, and a bunch of others. My thanks to all who made the event possible. (and, BTW, the lunch was fantastic!)

Some photos for the RE Bar Camp 2008 scrapbook:

On the bus ride over with Mike Price and Christoph Schweiger

we passed a few meeting places ….

Lucky 13

This lovely place …

and.. yes…

Finally, we reach our camp

The blogger folk kept streaming in, hounded by the bloggerazzi
Kris Berg, Mike Price, Frances Flynn Thorsen

Teresa Boardman

Kris

Mark Eckenrode

Conversations were held in small, informal groups

Frances Flynn Thorsen and I led a group on social activism and pro bono real estate, attended by Tom Geller, author of Save My Home: 10 Steps to Avoiding Foreclosure
(I bought a copy to advocate for our cause)

At the conclusion of RE BarCamp, we were surprised to be presented with the first ever Blogger Trading Cards, which were provided by RealSeekr’s Gia and Grant Freer and the Real Estate Zebra, Daniel Rothamel. Each blogger got a stack of cards with their photo, contact info, and of course, super powers.

Here are a few I collected at the event:

“Gambler” Jay Thompson, always the first one in the pool (did you know Jay was the first real estate broker to use the term unzillowable in a listing?), decided to put his piece of blogging history on the ebay trading block.