We are, each of us, experiencing a revolution of time and communication. Only, we don’t know it yet.

The reason we don’t know that there is a revolution occurring, is because we’re smack dab in the middle of it — and so true objectivity and perspective is difficult.

Give it time. Eventually, we’ll make sense of this cultural shift, and see it for what it is.

Meanwhile, it’s those early adapters who will fare most well, especially in business.

Savvy business people are already recognizing that the modern world is shifting from analog to digital, and they have a felt sense of how impactful this will be 5 years from now, and so they’re consciously thinking ahead:  what can I do today, so that 5 years from now I am relevant, prosperous,  and enjoying my work?

The now-waning analog era used to be a broadcaster’s dream. Behemoth, publicly traded mega corporations controlled their message, and spoon-fed it to you when, where and how they wanted. In the world of media, you had two choices. Consume it, or starve. You were “spun.”  You were talked at, not with.

Slam-cut to today. The average young man has watched 10,000 hours (at least) of video games by the time he turns 21.  On his digital devices — his game console, his smartphone, his laptop, his touch-screen tablet  — he is in charge. He interacts with his device.  If you want this guy to sit still for two hours solid while you talk at him, you have to spend over $100,000,000 on a summer blockbuster, and even then you’d better make it in 3-D so that it at least has a wisp of interactivity to the experience.  I’m not kidding here. This is a paradigm shift in our society.  It’s HUGE.

At the company in which I work, we get this. We get it.  That’s why we launched our concept in the middle of one of the great recessions.

To us, the recession was almost irrelevant. What mattered more, was that there was a strong need for a boutique real estate brokerage for discerning clientele — a brokerage comprised of community experts who enjoy talking with people instead of at them.

From day one, we envisioned a team of dynamic professionals who aligned with the cultural shift, instead of resisting it — because by aligning with it they can better serve home sellers and home buyers. That is the reason that we blog. We blog at the hyperlocal level.  We blog, because blogs are immediate and unpretentious. They tell it like it is. And they invite comments.

There’s no team of publicists around a blog. There’s no Compliance Department. A blog reinterprets the whole concept of the dehumanizing bureaucracy. 

A blog says:  I don’t want to micro-manage my message.  I don’t want a fake mission statement that nobody even believes or remembers.

A blog says:  Let’s talk.  Here’s what’s on my mind lately.  What’s on yours?

A blog provides value and makes itself available to you. For example, below, I share a video that I made, in which I give to you the most important things I’ve learned in the last year about relationship-building and online social media networking.

I encapsulate all of this info into under 3 minutes because I know that you’re busy.

A year’s worth of learning given to you on a digital platter.  Yours for the taking, and I hope that you find it useful or entertaining or interesting. You might be a competitor; you might live in Japan. Doesn’t matter to me.  It’s yours now.

That’s the way blogs are.  They give first.  They engage, without interrupting.

For the professional, for our associates, blogging is nothing less than a blessing.  That’s right.  I said blessing.

The reason it’s a blessing is because blogging has helped us to fall in love with real estate all over again. 

The very act of blogging, hones your gifts and sharpens your expertise:

Blogging helps you master your craft and your service, helps you to get to know your clients better, helps you to focus on the kind of clients with whom you best “fit.”  It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a 5-part series on what really happens behind the scenes of an escrow process, or if you’re filming a video on bike valets in Santa Monica.  Either way, you’re a better person by the of end it.

For example, my most favorite video that I’ve done so far (and I’ve done many), is one I did with my dear friend Kirsten, about making a healthy and delicious blended smoothie using fruits and vegetables. It doesn’t have anything directly to do with selling houses, but it has to do with community and the L.A. lifestyle –and I felt like that video was me being my genuine self, and giving people fun information that could really help them.

Of course, all of these benefits of blogging are not readily apparent. It takes bloggers a while to get into the swing of things and to make that internal shift when suddenly they start understanding it on a whole new level (not just intellectually, but bone-deep).

Blogging is the most important and rewarding part of social media, but it does require consistency, and a strategy.  (That’s why we have an entire social media department at our brokerage — to help educate, support, and invigorate our associates on how to be excellent, generous bloggers.)

I invite your own observations in the comments section below.  I’m one of those guys that has an opinion about everything, and I especially enjoy discussing with others all-things real estate, all-things media, and all-things Southern California lifestyle.  So if you’re in the mood to share with me what’s on your mind, I’m eager to hear it!