Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Changes to Notorious R.O.B.

First of all, Merry Christmas, everybody.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. – Isaiah 9:6

Of course, I would also like to wish everyone a wonderful end to 2010, and a happy new year, as we gird up to face 2011.

Second, to all of my readers who put up with overly long posts filled with wonkish Eeyore-like doom and gloom, as well as off-the-wall wackiness, I’d just like to say thank you. As I keep saying, I don’t blog for you but for myself, but I’d be lying if I said you don’t make writing this blog more fun and more educational. I learn more from your comments, both on the blog and via email/twitter/Facebook, than I have ever “taught” through a post. Thank you.

Third, I will be making some significant changes to this my personal blog. I started in January of 2008 with a post that sadly remains as applicable today as it was then:

The Real Estate industry has gone tech-crazy.

Here’s a wakeup call: all that technology does is make your existing processes more efficient. If what you do is crap, it makes crap more efficient. If what you do is valuable, then it makes that more efficient.

Notorious R.O.B. was then, and has always been, my personal blog. It’s where I work out my personal frustrated-writer tendencies and engage in speculative conversation about topics I love discussing: real estate, technology, marketing, and now, public policy. But over the past three years, as many of you have blessed me with visits, with your attention, with thoughtful commentary, I felt like this was becoming more than that. Some of my posts over the past year have been… shall we say far more “authoritative” at least in approach if not in result. Part of the reason, of course, is that I started a consultancy in 2009, changing my relationship with the industry as a whole.

What I’ve decided to do starting in 2011 is to do more of my heavier writing on the 7DS Associates blog. I’ve even redesigned the site, by hand even (which explains any flaws in design and navigation, since I’m no web designer). I’ll keep writing about whatever strikes my fancy here at NROB, and much of that is likely to be real estate related, but I’m going to try hard to keep NROB more personal, more “bloggy”, and reserve some of the heavy-duty stuff I’ve been doing of late requiring hours of research into esoterica of real estate for 7DS.

What you should expect, then, are shorter, more frequent updates to NROB, some of which may have little to nothing to do with real estate. I may end up talking movies, politics, fantasy football, or the Jets. Who knows. The weightier, 3000 words posts you all have come to expect will likely live over at the 7DS blog. If you dig on that sort of thing, well, go on over there and bookmark the 7DS blog. I’ll be doing far more writing over there in the new year.

Thanks again, and see you all on the Internet in 2011!

-rsh