Blogging Change....

Time to make a change to the blogging platform...

I know most of you are asking "Why change now?  You haven't blogged in a LONG time."  Its a simple answer: Time.  The hours required to write a long-form blog are just to overwhelming to put together a quality product that I want to put a companies name on.  So we are going to try something different. 

Instead of a weekly, long blogs we are going to try shorter, more frequent posts.  Sometimes it may be posted a few times a week.  Other times is will be once a week.  It just depends on what information is coming out that day.  There will still be quarterly market reports and longer posts but they will not be as often.  However, the quality of the product will still be among the best in the business. 

Stay tuned for more...

John Adams (@johnmadams3 on twitter) is a presenter at this weeks SIOR National Convention in Los Angeles.  John is an expert in commercial real estate technology, along with being one of the best brokers in the region.  You can follow his blog at www.johnmadams3.blogspot.com.  He will have more information from SIOR. 

Next month we will be at the Cushman & Wakefield Symposium in Las Vegas.  Again it will be a great opportunity to gather information we can use on the blog. 

Thanks for reading. 

As always, you can reach us at 865-450-8883 or www.cornerstonecres.com

Merry Christmas...buy a new app for yourself

We will get back to the basics of commercial real estate next week but since every one is getting tech toys for Christmas I thought this would be a great time to discuss the cool apps available for commercial real estate on iPads.  My partner at Cushman & Wakefield | Cornerstone CRES John Adams is an expert in this field. Below is just one of the articles he has written on tech field.  SIOR even relies on him to write articles for their magazine and make presentations at national conferences.   

The article below focus on Evernote, a great tremendous app that helps you remember, file and store everything you may ever need but he has several other articles on his blog http://www.johnmadams3.blogspot.com/.  Check it out. 

Merry Christmas everybody. 

Evernote in Commercial Real Estate……

Here are questions that I kept asking myself:

·         Where did I save the note about the phone conversation I had last Friday? 

·         I am not in the office and need the details of the phone call with David regarding the Main St Building.

·         What do I do when I come across an article that I want to read? I don’t have time to read it immediately or I want to save it and re-read later.

·         What do I do with the notes that I took on my yellow pad when I was in the meeting with my client today?

·         Which one of the 100 post it notes on my desk did I write that phone number on?

I now use Evernote. It helps me “Remember Everything”.  I have set up Evernote on my PC computer, iPad, iPhone, & Laptop (I can’t remember the last time I used my laptop, but Evernote is there just in case).

 Evernote allows me to keep up with conversations that I have, general property information, client information, Articles that I need to read or have read and want to keep for future reverence and my to-do list. Currently I have set up the 9 notebooks in Evernote: Clients, Listings, Prospects, Articles, City, NEW NOTES, Personal, Tasks, & Technology. I also have set up 44 tags in Evernote. Several of them are: today, Errand, client name, building name, Need to call.

I have limited the number of notebooks that I use. Just about everything I do can be filed into one of my notebooks and from here I can easily search my tags.

When someone calls I immediately open a new note in Evernote, either on my computer or iPad. After making the notes from my phone call, I add it to the appropriate notebook.  Then I tag the note.  Several notes have multiple tags on them. Examples of tags can be - The clients name, the building name, today - if I need to do something with this note today, errand - if I need to do something with this note while I am out of the office. The tags create easy searches when I need to find the note.

I also have Evernote linked to my internet browser and my outlook. When I am looking at a website and want to save the site or article for future use. I click the Evernote icon and can quickly choose a notebook and tag the website. Now it is saved for future use. When someone sends me an e-mail that I need to keep for follow up or use as a reference. I can click the Evernote icon quickly choose a notebook and tag the e-mail.

When I am out of the office I have several techniques that I use with Evernote.  In the tools of Evernote, you can set up an Evernote e-mail address.  If I get an e-mail while I am out of the office that needs following up on or I don’t have time to reply. I can forward it to Evernote. These e-mails are set to go into New Notes and can easily be tagged or filed when I have time. Since Evernote is on my iPhone I can quickly make notes, file and save them. 

Another app that I use is Noteshelf. This app allows me to write on my iPad with a stylus. After I take notes I can save them in Noteshelf or export them.  The export feature allows me to e-mail the note, export to dropbox, or export Evernote.

Evernote has something called the Evernote Trunk. I encourage you to take a look at the apps that are compatible with Evernote. There may be an app that allows you to use evernote in another way that I have not seen or in a way to help in your business. I also would encourage you to follow them on twitter on to reach