As Smokey The Bear would say, “Only you can prevent forrest fires.”  Uhh, no I can’t because I have tried.  I am speaking of the figurative forrest fire, not the literal ones.  I’ve been known to have too many irons in the fire at one time, but my irons have caught fire and now I’m right in the middle of a huge forrest fire and trying to put it out.  But it’s what I love to do, so here’s the 911, I mean 411 of what’s up.

First, Springfield’s 2nd annual Walk To Cure Diabetes was this past Saturday, May 22, 2010 at Jordan Valley Park.  It was a fantastic day for it and you can see all of the pictures here.  We had just over 500 people there and raised $75,000 for type 1 research.  It was great to have close friends and family come in town for it.  There was even a post on it, written by Scott Strange (who drove down from KC) over at Strangely Diabetic.  Not to mention, Sarah Blacksher wrote about it too.  It was a huge event and I will post on it and my thoughts about it later.

Next on my radar is RE BarCamp St. Louis. June 14th at the Stegton Regency Banquet Center in St. Charles/St. Louis, MO. All my REALTOR® friends getting together to talk tech.  I’m so thankful for outstanding friends like Chris Drayer and Karen Goodman (just to name a few) for their help in getting this off the ground.  You guys surely rock!!

And of course, there are all of the continuing education courses.  It’s a renewal year for Missouri real estate agents and The Donald and I have been teaching classes like crazy. There’s one going on tomorrow.

My new company web site should launch this week (or next).  And who knows whatever happened to that getpaul iPhone app.

Following that is the Dexcom/Omnipod event in Springfield.  This is scheduled for June 24th and was technically supposed to happen this year, but it was put on hold.  Now it’s back and in full force.

And uh, there’s that personal blogging thing.  As usual, the ball gets dropped here too.  It’s dying of smoke inhalation.

We are a member driven organization that helps young professional REALTORS® excel in their career.  Let me recap what YPN brings to the table:

NETWORKING. The greatest resource we have is each other. By building strong relationships with others in the industry, you have an endless stream of support and connections.

COMMUNITY SERVICE. Our communities are the heart of our business. We must continually work to give back to those in our community.

EDUCATION. When you stop learning, you stop growing. By educating our members on the latest tools, technology and trends, we all succeed.

MENTORING. By pairing experienced agents with new agents, both parties will grow and learn more than they ever knew on their own. We also hope this encourages more members to become involved at the local, state and national levels.

Despite some people’s opinions of YPN, we are not just party people.  Although, on a side note, we have thrown an amazing bash before.   YPN is for those REALTORS® that are young at heart and want to learn something from others at the same time.

And we are offering that chance to everyone who is attending the MAR September Business Conference.  During our YPN session, we will be offering a 60 minute Round Table Discussion on technology.  Eight tables will be set up with different topic ideas such as iPhone/BlackBerry Power Users, Blogging for Business, Getting Referrals from Twitter, Notebook vs. Netbook, etc.

If you are a Missouri REALTOR®, then we encourage you to attend our event and share your ideas with us.  Send an e-mail to ypnmar [at] gmail [dot] com to let us know that you’ll be there.  (Sorry, I have to write it out like that in order to dodge the spam monkeys that tend to troll my blog.)  It will be another exciting YPN event and we look forward to seeing you there!

As of the writing of this post, Missouri is now the first state approved for a Young Professionals Network (YPN) that is recognized by the National Association of REALTORS®.  I mention that because as a member of the Advisory Board, I have been encouraging the implementation of a mentorship type program.  This mentorship type program will encourage all REALTORS® to get together and share what works for them in their real estate business.  Most people would see this as sharing classified information with the competition.  I look at it as, “what can I learn from others to make myself better?”  Not…”how can I steal their business?”

YPN has a stigma to it already.  And that stigma is the age thing.  Now, I firmly believe that if YPN is to remain a young professionals network, then it needs to be run by young professionals.  But the older generation of REALTORS® need to be part of this group as well.  They have a maturity, professionalism and experience including tips and tricks to doing business that the younger generation needs to know.  However, the older generation needs to have the younger ones teach them the new waves of technology (hello Facebook and Twitter) and how it can improve their business.  When you combine those strengths, then each individual, no matter their age or experience level, can work together to get a real estate transaction closed successfully.  And ultimately that is the goal, so why can’t we all just get along and share our information?