All our salespeople have an iMac and utilize only three software products, (1) a web browser:IE, Netscape or Safari, (2) email: either browser based, Eudora or Outlook and (3) usually some sort of camera/image software to manage their digital camera.
I was taking stock of the technology I use or Tradewinds uses in the run of a week. Considering 5 years ago the internet was still a bit of a curiosity, the fax machine was the most important piece of equipment in our office and we still sent letters in the mail. Now technology has turned office procedures on it’s head.

We are now a “TTI company”. ( total technology integration). One Thurdsays at noon we publish a weekly update of all our new listings we have been process in the past 7 days. With a keystroke we send our electronic newsletter to over 2,000 clients that receive it almost instantly. For the whole process we utilize only 3 peices of software, our proprietary database, an image processor (Photoshop) and a bulk mail list server. Behind that all our images come from our agents as digital pictures emailed into our data processing department with many of the property data sheets submitted in PDF format. We are now virtually paperless. All sales and listing files are scanned into PDF documents and placed on our corporate intranet site iTradewindsrealty.com.

All our salespeople have an iMac and utilize only three software products, (1) a web browser:IE, Netscape or Safari, (2) email: either browser based, Eudora or Outlook and (3) usually some sort of camera/image software to manage their digital camera. Its quite simple. Oh, maybe Microsoft WORD processing, but usually email suffices for written communication.

On a Broker level I utilize the 3 applications above but I am a power user and usually have 2 – 3 web browsers open. I use Safari for my Gmail (GoogleMail), Firefox for news display and Opera for searching. For blogging I use iBlog . Along with iBlog I use iTunes , iPhoto and iMovie. I read a lot of PDF documents, so Acrobat Pro is usually open. For special eye-catching presentations I use InDesign . WORD is always open as I use it a lot. I have used Entourage for the past 3 years but since I have switched to Gmail I only use Entourage for a client base and scheduling, I am switching to Now Up To Date/Contact to be able to open a shared calendar and client base with my partner. That will cut down a lot of time we spend syncing our busy schedules, between, basketball games, skiing, my MBA program schedule (Class of 2005) and of all silly things, our actual work and appointment schedule.

That is about all the technology I can handle at the moment and still make a living!!

T.H.

EMAIL Tim Harris with a comment

[GET ME OUTTA HERE! RETURN ME TO TRADEWINDS REALTY HOME PAGE ]