Greetings from the "friendly skies"

If you follow me on twitter you know I am taking a few days away from the office to participate in the mandatory ritual of capitalist parenthood...taking the kid to Disney World. Perhaps I'll post some thoughts from there as they relate to our lives in the real estate business...perhaps not (after it is supposed to be vacation, right?)

What I couldn't resist doing today, however, is writing this post from 30,000 feet. Air travel has changed so much in the past 12-18 months - certainly in response to the changing technology needs of frequent travelers. It is amazing how different flights are now from the "buy your headsets for $1" days of just a few years ago.

So here I am in my seat, cell phone on, working on my blog. I can turn the cellular functionality off so that it doesn't interfere with the important flight functions (which of course seems odd since the flight attendants are using a cellular device to ping my credit card for the drinks). When I get on the ground I will publish this with one push of a button. I can answer all the email I avoided today, can review the spreadsheet Jamie sent about office production and also generate the press releases related to the Coldwell Banker buyer bonus that launches when I get back.

Have I mentioned somewhere in the last few sentences that my laptop is still securely stowed under the seat in front of me? Yep, doing all this from my phone.

Even better, some airlines are starting to offer wireless internet on their longer flights; it will only be a matter of time before it's on all of them. Imagine how productive I could be right now with internet access? (especially now that the red bull just came off the beverage cart?) Certainly ends the need for the lame in-flight movie.

So you might be saying "who cares". After all real estate agents aren't exactly the corporate types they used to develop George Clooney's Up in the Air caracter. The truth is that while we don't travel much, isn't it one of the oldest real estate rules that deals always happen (or explode) while you're away? Well, were my deal going south at the same time I was chances are good I could have it fixed before I hit the ground (especially if I used Skype or GoogleVoice to make calls without a cellular signal).

Also remember that many of our clients fly...a lot. Perhaps before you best client takes off for his/her next big trip you offer them something to read other than John Grisham.

OK, red bull in full effect now - back to those spreadsheets! Hope you have a great weekend!

(note: because I didn't have wirless access on this flight I used an application called AndroBlogger to write this offline. It is a free app for Android users, and I am sure a similar one exists for the iPhone)