Musings

It's not like I have a lot of readers, but I was writing at least once a week for a steady period of time. In the last couple months things have been pretty hectic and I haven't had much time to write about what is going on with me. I am working hard to get our real estate marketplace off the ground in Bogota, Colombia. We recently launched three different sites - www.VivaReal.com.co (Colombia), www.VivaReal.com.mx (Mexico) and www.VivaReal.com.br (Brazil). Things have been incredibly busy and I haven't had much time to write and reflect on other things besides WORK! The good news is that we are starting to gain traction. I recently made my first hire in Brazil (country manager) and he is currently here doing a 1 month training. I am happy with the direction of the business. Here is a short video I made presenting our new office in Bogota. Despite not being technically inclined I enjoy playing around with social media. I think social media is effective in humanizing a company. We'll see how it works.

Bogota, Colombia is full of incredible restaurants and cool places to mozie around. Something Andrea and I like to do is get up on Sunday morning and take a stroll over to Usaquen. It is located in the northern part of Bogota, just above the Septima.  
Every Sunday there is a mercado de pulgas (flee market) with all kinds of knick-knacks, cosas artesanales (hand crafts), tasty little treats and the classic, must have, San Jeronimo coconut ice cream. I never miss this!

Another cool thing about Bogota on Sundays is “la ciclovia.” The main roads are closed for people to walk or bike on. Since we live only about 10 blocks from Usaquen, we can walk or ride bikes down the road and we don’t have to contend with cars.

As far as going out to dinner, I have several restaurants that I really like:

 
Osaki is a one of my favorite Sushi spots in Bogota. There aren't a lot of great places to go for Sushi like in San Francisco, but this place is worth checking out. I haven't tried all the rolls, but I feel like I'm about 90% on picking winners (I like those odds!). Also, try the brownie, banana flambe for desert. You won't regret it. They don't usually flambe it at your table, but last time I was there I asked them to and they did (nuthin wrong with a little flamboastin:)

 
Sometimes I miss a really good hamburger. Fortunately I have two fall back places, El Corral Gourmet and La Hamburgueseria. They are both equally good. They both come with really good sauces.

 
If you are looking for an upscale place to spoil your significant other, try Cafe Amarti...tasty Italian food and a huge selection of wines. It is a charming, but rustic atmosphere in an old colonial house. To start you off they bring this big round hollow bread dome. They have some of the best kalamata olives that go well with the bread-head. I have only been here once so I am not that familiar with the different dishes, but it all looks pretty good.

So if you are in Bogota on the weekend, Usaquen is definitely a place worth checking out.

I wanted to take a page from Ines Hegedus-Garcia, author of one of my favorite real estate blogs Miamism and call this post "Bogotaism," something very Bogota. Ines captures the essence of Miami with a weekly post about Miami, but I have to admit "Miamism" sounds way cooler than "Bogotaism."

I have spent the last couple years in Bogota, Colombia and I have seen some pretty funny stuff, but since I have my iphone now, I can take pics at any time. The other day I was walking to the office and I happened to catch the scene above. I thought it was worth capturing. For those that haven't been to Bogota, I don't want to play into stereotypes like the movie Mr and Mrs Smith where the opening scene shows Bogota with huge fires and chickens running around. It is not like that at all. The city is very modern (check out one of my favorite Bogota neighborhoods, Usaquen), but it is not uncommon to see horses in the streets. I had just never seen a police officer pull over a horse drawn cart. I wonder what they did wrong??? Take a stab at it, what do you think happened?

Today I just saw the video, Chameleon, featuring Ellie Holland. Jihan Bowes-Little A.K.A Metis made his first music video and put it up on YouTube. It is smooth hip-hop with incredible vocals by Ms. Holland. His music has great energy, a positive vibe and a real message with roots as a spoken word artist.

The summer of 2007 Andrea and I were out in London and we had the chance to catch up with Jihan. We had a few mojitos and he took us back to his place and burned a CD of the tracks he was working on. Two of my favorite songs he gave me were Rushin and Deep….well, pretty much every track was really good. It is always a cool feeling to see people that you know follow their dreams, succeed and especially when they are good people. Jihan is someone with a lot of depth and it is definitely reflected in his music.

I am inspired by people that take an unconventional life path. Jihan, investment banker by day and Metis, hip-hop artist by night killin it on the London music scene…how cool is that?

I know he has been in the lab for the last couple years since that summer in 2007, but from what I have heard his hard work is paying off. I pretty much can’t visualize a scenario where his music doesn’t continue to grow in popularity. He has a pretty solid following right now, but the jazzy, witty, lyrical hip-hop I am listening to right now is a real recipe for success. He doesn’t need to have a million downloads to validate his skills, but I truly believe that things are going to take off. It is an interesting time to be in the business of making music. I know he does it Strictly for the Love as one of the songs is titled, but we are in a new era of music. Jihan has always been sharp and I’m sure that he will leverage social media, viral marketing and other tools to help spread the word about his music.

I’ve embedded the video so take a few minutes and check it out.



Jihan, major props for doing what you do. If you plan on coming down to Colombia again, please let me know. I had some good times with you out here.

I took the following from a discussion I had with a real estate agent in San Francisco. It is a friendly debate about the best way to interact on social networks. I love internet because it is such a great place to share experience, thoughts and opinions. I manage a Facebook group for the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. Last Friday I sent out the following message. It prompted a discussion that I will include below. It is kind of long, but if you get to the bottom please do add you comments.

Hola NAHREP Amigos,

I started this NAHREP group last year and it is finally starting to get some good use. Thanks a lot for joining. Our NAHREP online community is growing. You are what makes NAHREP such a great organization.

I want to take this opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts about social networks. Many professionals are still learning the best way to use them to help promote themselves, make new contacts and generate more business. All three of these things can be accomplished, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

I see a lot of real estate professionals that treat social networks differently than the real (offline) world. What do I mean by this? What I have witnessed is real estate professionals diving into social networks posting content like - "Contact me today so I can sell your house!" or "Now's a great time to buy, call me and I'll help you find your dream home."

Would you walk up to a group of people at a cocktail party and announce that you can help them buy their house? No, right? Well the same applies to the online world. IT IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS! Ask questions, engage, listen. You join your local PTA or other community organizations to meet people, socialize, help out and expand your network. The internet is the largest community organization on the planet. Engage it!

Anyways, that is my dos pesetas. If you have thoughts about this, feel free to start a discussion. Also you contact me day or night if you have questions about anything related to the internet. I'm more than happy to help.

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Here is one of the responses from a friend of mine Mario. He is a real estate agent in San Francisco.

Generally I concur with your observations about \"etiquette\", however, as my very first broker, Carlos Figueroa, who was (and still is, albeit in another role as the CEO of the Greater Bay Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce out of Silicon Valley) a dynamic and immensely proactive gentleman pointed out early in my carreer, \"ALWAYS ASK FOR REFERRALS\".

In every venue there is a time and a place for this. The shortcomings of these \"social networks\" online is that there is a perception that one is solely involved to solicit business when one seeks a referral. The question then becomes, when is it appropriate to seek someone\'s help? Imagine if you were somewhere in a social setting and overheard someone saying they needed something to do with your line of work. If you failed to seize that opportunity right then, you might not get that chance again. The truth is that as business people we\'re always looking for the opportunity to serve -- everywhere. \"CARPE DIEM\"! What is business after all if not personal?

Viendolo del otro lado de la moneda...

Saludos!

(P.S., this is something most business people adopt early on, for example, look up the origins of the Lion\'s Club or the Kiwanis).

I then responded:

Mario, I totally agree with you. There is definitely a time and place for getting referrals. Asking for referrals is an essential part of any business, but would you ask someone you don’t know for a referral? Probably not. But if someone updated their status on their FB page, “Any recommendations on good Chinese food restaurants in San Francisco,” and you have the answer, dive in and give them your thoughts. If they take your advice and enjoy the experience, they’ll remember you. Guess what? you just started a relationship with them. You hit the nail on the head when you write, “In every venue there is a time and place for this.” I couldn’t agree more. You probably have tons of satisfied clients that are in your online network. They know you, they trust and they like. They are the people that will refer you business. Be proactive in asking them. Rapport is essential for this to work.

This is something that applies to my original message of “treating the online world in the same way we treat the offline (real) world.” What I wanted to communicate in my message was that blatant self promotion without an existing relationship is not the best approach. It may result in some business in the short term, but IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) the potential negative impact outweighs any short term benefits. We are talking about your reputation, the most sacred thing in any business. If you are “that guy” that walks into the party and hands out your business card, before even asking someone their name, chances are you won’t build lasting relationships. The original inspiration for sending out the message to my NAHREP friends was based on the fact that I see people doing that online and I’ve made this mistake both in the online and offline world.

You are totally right about needing to jump on opportunities. If you overhear or see an appropriate opportunity to help someone solve their problem, e.g. I need to sell my house or even, ya best believe that you need to be involved in that conversation.

Thanks a lot for your message because it helped me improve my original communication. Let’s make 2009 an awesome year!

He responded:

There is a pro and con to either points of view. Do you ever go to an open air market? Do they have them where you're at? I was exposed to this in Central America as a child, and I recall that the person who out-sold the majority was the one that "sang" their goods the best or the loudest or in the most attractive way. It is no different than the big conglomorates trying to sell their stuff here (only in that case they hock their goods via multi-million dollar ad campaigns, e.g., Beer on the superbowl?). So, the silence could be deafening for someone trying to sell something whether in Espanol (en el mercado) or in English on National T.V. (or for us online). I for one tend to be a bit conservative on the approach, but I do my best to get my point (services, etc.) across. The rest is up to the receiver of the message. Thank you for your dos pesetas, I trust my "toston" is received in a positive light. Cuidense.

I just finished writing the following response:

Mario, your toston was delicious. I think we call tostones, patacones down here in Colombia, but I get your drift and I totally respect your opinion. There are many ways to slice an apple. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but my personal opinion is that things are headed in a certain direction. I respect the singing at the market for attention to bring people to your place of business and this is still a very common practice in most open air markets around the world. I think this works if you are selling frutas or verduras or something of that nature and it probably could work for selling real estate, but I believe that interruption advertising is on its way out. I am not saying it doesn't work, I'm just saying the rules of game are changing. Let me illustrate with an example. Just last night, I went out to dinner here in Colombia in a nice neighborhood with a few bars and places to go dancing. While walking past several night clubs I was approached by numerous promoters hyping up different venues. I personally get the feeling that these promoters are "selling" me on their place. I don't know about you, but I don't like to be "sold". Social networks, Web 2.0 and google have brought us to the "recommendation age". People are less persuaded by telemarketing and other forms of aggressive (hard) sales tactics. Again, I don't say they don't work, but I can tell you I rarely even answer my land line because more often than not someone is trying to "sell" me something. Granted, you've got to hustle. It you don't go after it, you are just sitting on the sidelines, however, I believe that there are other ways of prospecting.

With regards to your reference to large conglomerates trying to sell their stuff via multi-million dollar marketing campaigns, I actually think a majority of big companies really fail at being effective with their huge ad spends. Let me take a page from a book I really like. It is called the New Rules of PR and Marketing, by David Meerman Scott. I highly recommend it.

"In the summer of 2006, I was thinking of buying a new car. As with tens of millions of other consumers, the Web is my primary source of information when considering a purchase, so I sat down at the computer and began poking around. Figuring they were the natural place to begin my research, I started with the big three automaker sites. That was a big mistake, At all three, I was assaulted on the home page with a barrage of TV-style broadcast advertising. And all the one way messages focused on price. At Ford, the headlines screamed, 'Model Year Clearance!' 0% financing! 0 for gas!' Chrysler announced a similar offer: 'Get employee pricing plus 0% financing!' And over at GM, they were having a '72 hour sale!' I'm not planning to buy a car within 72 hours, thank you. I may not even buy one within 72 days! I'm just kicking the virtual tires. All three of these sitesassume that I'm ready to buy a car right now. But I actually just wanted to learn something."

Different strategies work for different people. Maybe I just speak for my generation (I'm on the cusp of Gen X and Gen Y), but we are much less tolerant of those campaigns that don't do something to engage us. That is why more and more people turn to the internet because it allows for two way conversation rather than a force fed marketing campaign.

I am opening up new markets for my business in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil this year. This doesn't mean that I won't employ some telemarketing or even dropping by the office of potential clients as a strategy, however, I will not depend on this as the core part of my marketing.

Once again, I totally respect your opinion and I continue to agree that singing your business remains effective, but I believe that things are shifting in a different direction as the internet evolves.

Today I am feeling exceptionally good. Not too sure why, but I just am. I thought I would sit down and share some funny experiences I’ve had during my time living/traveling in other countries. Misunderstandings are one of the best parts of learning a language. Watch out for mixed messages!

Probably one of the funniest misunderstandings that I’ve had, came less than a year after being in Colombia. I had just started my business and I was interviewing to hire our second employee, a secretary. I had my questions prepared and I was set to go. Starting out, we had a pretty informal workplace (for the most part we still do, but we actually have a few rules sprinkled in now). The candidate I was set to interview showed up around 6:30pm since she was still working another job. I opened the door and to her surprise I wasn’t wearing any shoes. This kind of caught her off guard. We sat down and I started with the basic questions. At the end of the interview, I was trying to get an idea of what Sandra liked to do in her spare time. I improvised with the question, “So what do you like to do?” In Spanish I asked her, “Entonces, te gusta divertir? I thought the question was a completely reasonable one, because I prefer to work with people that have fun. What I didn’t realize when I asked the question was that by saying this I was basically coming onto her with something like, hey, wanna have some fun? She immediately responded with, Señor, I’m married, I have two kids. I thought to myself, why in the hell is this lady telling me about her family, she can’t have fun because she has kids? I thought her response was pretty off, but I just rolled with the punches during a few moments of awkward silence (much more awkward for her than me). The interview ended pretty quickly after that. Since our office was so small, Odacir Bolaño, who often times worked late, overheard the question and response. After she left, he came over to me to tell me about my embarrassing blunder! I called her and explained the misunderstanding and she told me that she pretty much figured it out. We ended up hiring her and she worked for us for several years. The sad ending to a funny story is that she stole a bunch of money from us. Anyways, Sandra, if you read this, it’s all good. I’m over it and the biz is doin great.

So that last little incident was kind of embarrassing. Another embarrassing moment took place in Costa Rica. I was walking home from the mall and I clumsily tripped and fell, but I had kind of one of those landings where I rolled up onto my feet after hitting the ground, trying to act as if I didn’t just totally stack. I got a nice scrape on my arm that was noticeable. There were a lot people around and it was pretty embarrassing. When I arrived at my home stay family’s house, I tried to explain to them what happened. This was back when I was 17 and I was just starting to learn Spanish. I did a decent job reenacting the fall and they got the idea. I then said, “Estoy embarazado.” The whole family burst into laughter. I just tried to tell them that “I am embarrassed” and they are laughing at me. What’s up with that? My Tica (Costa Rican) Mom was literally rolling on the ground dying. She couldn’t talk because she was laughing so hard. Finally, after getting her breath, she made a cradle with her arms and said, “bebe!?” For those Spanish challenged I had just announced that I was pregnant.

In college I minored in Portuguese. During my junior year I spent a month in Faro, Portugal. I really like Portuguese and Andrea and I would like to spend a year in Brazil at some point. Anyways, my funny misunderstanding took place in a convenient store. My disc man had run out of batteries. I walked in and asked a women working, “estou procurando umas pilas,” to this day when I am in doubt I speak portanhol (like Spanglish, but Spanish and Portuguese). Pilas in Spanish mean battery, but what I had just said was “I am looking for some penises.” The lady gave me a really strange look trying to find out what I could possibly be asking for. The manager came over who spoke Spanish and he realized what I was trying to find. We all had a good laugh.

Andrea and I have been married for almost five years now. I am extremely lucky to be married to such a sweet, caring, beautiful person. I can be kind of intense and she is my “equilibrio” balance. We rarely have misunderstandings. During the years we’ve had different language phases. We used to only speak Spanish, then when we spent time in California we pretty much spoke English and now for the most part I speak to her in English and she speaks to me in Spanish. It works just fine…usually. Last year Andrea and I were talking and she told me that she thinks it is a good idea if we lock our apartment when we leave. I responded in total agreement, “You don’t have to tell me twice.” In her head she translated this word for word and understood something like, “That is really annoying you are telling me this AGAIN.” I could tell she was kind of bothered by my supposedly rude statement. I finally figured out that she misinterpreted, but since we started arguing about nothing the communication became more difficult. I decided to bring in a third party to explain that this is indeed an American expression that truly means, “I agree.” I took her to the computer to Google the phrase just so she could see I didn’t make it up. What would we do without good ole’ Google?

There are countless other funny misunderstandings, but these are probably some of the funniest. What funny misunderstanding have you had?

I have a hard time translating the popular Colombian idiom “Se le tiene.”

More or less it means, “I can get that for you,” or “that can be hooked up/arranged.”

So how would this be used in a sentence?

Bob says, “I’ve been living in Colombia for 4 years and I haven’t been able to find pepperoncinis anywhere.

Joe responds, “Last time I was in the states I bought a jar and brought it back with me, se le tiene.”

So why is this interesting?

My belief is that it represents something at the core of the Colombian culture. On numerous occasions I have been pleasantly surprised to find people go out of their way to hook something up. Many times my experience has been around food. For example, last weekend I was in Villa de Leyva at a nice restaurant just off the main plaza in what used to be a large hacienda. We sat down to order. I had a hankering for French onion soup. It wasn’t on the menu, but I went out on a limb and asked the waitress anyway. I was the last person at the table to order. When I asked her, she paused, thought about it and told me she’d be right back. She returned 15 minutes later with a steaming hot bowl of French onion soup…SE LE TIENE! She didn’t actually say that, because it is used more amongst people you are very familiar with.

Often times I think about how culture is strongly reflected in language. I had a Spanish linguistics professor in college (Hola Mr. Ron Young) who used to always say, “lengua es cultura” or language is culture. Another common saying in Colombia is “a la order.” This is used synonymously with, “de nada” or “your welcome.” Translated literally, to me this means "at the order," or maybe better put, "at your service." Perhaps this represents, what I believe to be to some effect an obliging culture (well more so than the US).

What prompted me to ask outside the menu was a discussion I had had earlier that day with some of Andrea’s family. They were talking about how much more helpful Colombians are than other cultures. They cited an example of how in a remote bar in a small town in Colombia you could order a boiled potato and even if they didn’t have one, someone would go find what you want. On the contrary, in the US you would get some kind of rude response or dirty look. I agree that this is less likely to happen in the states, but I doubt you would get a rude response, more likely confusion because you ordered a boiled potato at a dive bar.

People like to compare themselves with others because it makes them feel good. Americans often tend to be a target. People from other countries like to poke fun at us. I have learned to use this to my advantage. I find it enjoyable to break stereotypes. You can actually make a game out of it. I guess I am easily amused.