Generation X – Caution: Read Instructions Before Use

October 31, 2007
By: Denny Oh
Author's Website: http://www.sandiegoh.com

iPods. Treo 700p. Torents. Guitar Hero. Jager Bombs. Flash Drives. Wikipedia. Google Earth. Rehab (not the AA kind). 802.11a/b/g/n. SMS/MMS.

If you just read this and have no idea what I’m talking about, then chances are, you’re not part of my generation. What is my generation? Well, depending on who you ask, having been born in 1980, I’m a Generation Xer. The “technical” definition is those who were born immediately after the Baby Boomers. The exact end date (roughly 1980 – Generation Y or the Millenials coming after us) for this generation is debatable, but that’s not the point. The point is, with approximately 49 million text messaging, Bluetoothing, pho-hawk wearing, DVRing, Blackberry multitaskers, all you pre-Gen Xers need to adapt.

This applies not only applies to the business world, but everything out there. When I look at my parent’s lifestyles, versus mine, I’m blown away at Bluetooth-suit how different our daily lives are. I use my Treo 700 as my alarm and one and only phone – they use a regular clock radio alarm (no iPods in this house), have an answering machine and have to hold their cell phones as far away from their faces so they can just make out the buttons. I am connected to the Web 24/7 and write emails from my cell, while I’m talking on my Bluetooth earpiece as I drive to an appointment – they check their email once, or twice a month (at least they don’t use AOL) and drive with their hands at 2 and 10 and probably think Bluetooth is some new rock group. I DVR 10 different shows, shop on eBay and read the paper online – they have a giant antenna on top of their roof (and it’s not a satellite), look up phone numbers from the Yellow Pages (yes they still exist) and ask people for directions instead of Map Questing it.

Ok, so they’re a bit out dated…so what? By no means am I saying that Generation Xers are better or somehow superior to Baby Boomers. I’m just saying that technology has become so integral in our lives and society, that if you are in the real estate industry, or practically any people-oriented industry, you have to adapt. And don’t think that my parents work in a peanut factory, or have no education – my father is an aerospace engineer and my mom is a registered nurse – this is why it amazes me even more that we’re so technologically apart. Case in point, “The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes“…thanks Sen. Stephens (ok so I cheated a bit – Stephens was born in 1923!).

Wifi-hifi I work for Prudential California Realty in Downtown San Diego and I deal with a lot of clients and a lot of Realtors. I say this not because I want you to think that I do a lot of business, but because it substantiates the comments I’m about to make.

Excluding a few of you technologically advanced Baby Boomers, there is a very big difference in how I deal with people who are, well…older. For one, I’ve noticed that my clients who are younger, are typically much quicker to respond. This is great because, if we’re in the middle of an escrow and I need something reviewed and sent back to me, my Gen X clients (or agents) will get my emails on their PDAs, read them wherever they are and then respond, providing the ever so familiar “Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device” signature. My older clients will typically get back to me hours, or even days later, unless I call them and tell them it’s urgent.

Cartoon above courtesy of CartoonStock

To piggyback on this, here are a few reasons why I love emails…

Unlike phone conversations (unless you keep a conversation log), e-mails keep a record of your conversations and can serve as evidence when the other agents says, “You never told me that.”
Emails are often quicker than phone conversations and more precise – you can’t use bullet points on the phone, nor do emails ever say, “What? Can you repeat that? You were cutting out.”
You can email anyone, anytime. There’s no bad etiquette on how late, or how early you can email someone.
With email, you can respond to questions at your convenience, knowledgeably and competently and even provide useful links, or pictures.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that my clients who are more Web savvy will often send me listings that they have questions about. Even though I may have already seen this home and have filtered it out because it didn’t match what my clients were looking for, it still helps me because I can pick up on the qualities that they’re looking for – like the large backyard, or the remodeled kitchen, or whatever. It seems like my younger clients are more interactive and have typically done more research by the time they contact me to help them find a home – Googling market statistics, checking out homes online, reading real estate blogs, etc.

To add to my generation of 49 million or so, the younger Generation Y, or Millenials, are 73 million strong and even more tech savvy. If you think I’m wrong, just watch a teenager play a video game…any video game. And if you really want to feel old, just challenge the kid to a round. As computers become faster and more powerful, games, applications and life in general has the potential to become more complex and interactive.

This is why I think the real estate Texting industry is seeing and must go through, if you will, an upgrade. Real Estate 2.0. For example, the biggest factor I’ve noticed in successfully converting a lead into a client is response time. If you, the home buyer, are browsing the web and email an agent a question about their listing, or about a building…the agent better get back to you within minutes – not hours. Gen Xers have no patience. If you want a perfect example of what it’s like to be a 20 or 30 something year old, just read this article (the video at the beginning is the best part) that Jason Benesch of the Real Estate Tomato wrote.

Here are a few reasons why text messages are awesome…

They’re quick and to the point (does this sound familiar?).
You can quietly check them in a meeting, at lunch, or even while on the phone and reply just as discretely.
You can cut and paste the info into your phone – phone numbers, addresses, emails…etc.

Google-maps-treo-lg And I know you might think that emails and text messages are impersonal, but that’s okay. I don’t rely solely on these tools, but I do take advantage of them when possible. The other day my client texted me that he was running late for our appointment because he was lost. I texted him the address of the house we were supposed to look at, he copied it into Google Maps on his phone and instantly had a turn-by-turn route to our meeting point. Another time, I was out with a client and as they always do, he asked, “What about that house?” And if you’re a Realtor, you know I’d already pulled up every house that even remotely fit his criteria and that the one he was standing in front of wasn’t one of them. But, because I could pull up the listing on my Treo, I quickly told him that it was $200K over his budget and we moved on.

But you are right, even with all this technology, I still call my clients, meet them for lunch and send them hand written letters. It’s all about taking advantage of every tool you can. Just keep in mind who you’re dealing with — the text messager, or the No.2 pencil user. And now, I have to go explain to my mom that I can’t hear her when she leaves a message on my cell phone, asking “Denny, are you there?”.

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SanDiegOh » Generation X - Caution: Read Instructions Before Use on October 31, 2007 2:51 pm

[...] To read the full article, click here. [...]
Lani Anglin-Rosales on October 31, 2007 4:49 pm

I won’t reveal my age, but I’m GenY, thus I completely agree with you- I used an IBM in elementary school, took computer science in middle school and had a Yahoo account and a cell phone in high school. When it takes my grandparents weeks to respond to a sweeeet email I send, I can’t even comprehend that emails aren’t on their cell or checked by the minute (and I tend to forget that I send an email in the first place, to be honest).

My generation and yours have the attention span of a fly which is great for instant productivity, but marketing to these generations have to be tech savvy and get attention within the first ten seconds before the mouse clicks past your site!

Great to see you expressing your inner Geek over here, Denny- welcome!
magnus on October 31, 2007 5:28 pm

Great post. I’m happy to see that people at ‘your side of the pond’ are taking on the habit of sending SMS. It’s quick, straight to the point and you don’t disturb the receiver as with a call.
Denny Oh on October 31, 2007 5:40 pm

Thanks for the comments. What can I say…technology is great! And Magnus, I don’t think we’re to the texting level of some other countries, but I’m working on it.
Brian Wilson on October 31, 2007 8:30 pm

I loved this post! I think about these generational differences a lot as a 31 year od real estate broker with most of my agents in their 40′s & 50′s.

It took me until just a few years ago to stop feeling ashamed that I still love playing video games like Halo as an adult. I cannot even visualize my 56 year old dad ever sitting in front of a video game console… ever. Now, I hear things like my son saying (when he was 4), “Can we Tivo Batman?” He was legitimately confused when he watched a cartoon that was not Tivo’d because he did not understand what the commercials were…

It seems like the speed of technology innovation is SO FAST, that the generation “gaps” are very dramatic.

Brian Wilson http://www.zolve.com
Jay Thompson on October 31, 2007 10:06 pm

Hell, I’ll reveal my age…

I’m 47, often act like I’m 18, and sometimes feel 65.

I quit playing video games with my son when he was 6. Or maybe it was 4.

My 14 and 16 year olds can text faster than I can read, and can carry on in 12 different chat windows at the same time.

But I’m trying to keep up. The other day I sent my regular waitress at the bar I play poker in a text message to bring me another beer. And she did. And I have a client that prefers to communicate through Facebook. He told me it was cool that someone my age even had even heard of Facebook.

Those that can’t (or won’t) adapt are doomed to fail.

Are you going to be a regular here Denny?
Todd Carpenter on November 1, 2007 1:26 am

This summer, I was in a real estate office, handing out fliers for a blogging seminar that I was hosting. There was an agent in the mail room asking what my “fiesta” was all about. After I told him, he said to me, “Boy, I’ve been in this business since before you were born. 40 years in fact. And the last thing in the world I need to learn is to sell homes on the Internet”. To which I said, “Sure, but you’ll be dead soon, and the guy who replaces you will probably want to learn about this stuff”. He thought that was pretty funny.

In defense of baby boomers. My mother is LinkedIn, has three email accounts, a blackberry, a wireless network in her home, and knows what RSS stands for.
Ben Martin on November 1, 2007 6:30 am

Great post. Thought the readers would also enjoy this post on the same subject, if you haven’t already seen it: http://realdiablog.typepad.com/weblog/2007/10/realtors-are-to.html

Apparently what I’m trying to do at VAR is moving some of the other REALTOR® associations in the right direction:
http://realestatezebra.com/the-2007-nar-bloggercon-is-on
Denny Oh on November 1, 2007 9:21 am

Will I be a regular here? To be honest I’m not sure. Maybe if you send enough text messages with “Denny Oh” to 1-800-GEEK-ESTATE, they’ll ask me to stay. Or…you could just leave comments here.

And don’t get me wrong. I have a client who’s twice my age and make Bill Gates look like a novice and a freind my age who calls checking his email, “checking the internet.”

Thanks for the comments.
Ken @ Realivent on November 1, 2007 10:04 am

Nice post Denny! Generational gaps may be one challenge, but the other fact is technology is moving so fast these days, it’s not only hard to keep up with the latest tools but there are so many choices…with the iPhone and possibly a Google Gphone coming in the future, there will be tons of new real estate mobile apps & technologies that will make communication with buyers and sellers even easier…but which agent will adopt which app and how fast ?
Joanne Hanson on November 2, 2007 8:51 pm

I am a baby boomer, in fact at the leading edge of the baby boomers. I often feel very inadequate when I know there is no way I can learn all the info I need to learn. It is a bit like learning trigonometry when you didn’t have algebra. However, my goal is to know *what* I need to do to keep my business moving at the speed of Gen-Xers, and I will hire them to do the *how* part of it. So far, it is working. Great post, thanks!
Carnival of Real Estate #66 by Real Estate Convergence: Real Estate Marketing for the Modern World on November 4, 2007 10:14 pm

[...] Oh on the tech savvy Geekestate blog writes about one of my biggest pet peeves, how some tech-resistant Baby Boomers still believe BlackBerries are best served with Vanilla ice cre… He makes the case that it’s the members of Generation X who are really pushing for greater and [...]
Trulia Blog » Carnival of Real Estate on November 5, 2007 1:26 pm

[...] ‘Generation X – Caution: Read Instructions Before Use’ by Denny Oh of Geek Estate Blog [...]
Rebecca Levinson on November 5, 2007 2:44 pm

Isn’t the whole technology phase just fascinating when you talk about adoption? I blog, text and use a VOIP phone line in my house. I use my cell when I am out and about and connect thru another VOIP system to work. I prefer google docs and texting to email, which has proved to be annoying to me over the past year. I don’t like talking the time to organize and archive, I want it all to be in a consistently chronological list. Also I have accidentally deleted items too many times.

One note, I am of the “early” Gen X’er. I was born in 1974. I have four siblings in the Gen Y era 3 of whom are 24 or younger. They had a MySpace page before me-but didn’t text before me. They used Facebook before me, but didn’t blog regularly before me. They started most of their internet knowledge before me, but now I mention applications and sites to them that they have never heard of before.

So my point? Maybe the key is to find out what technology your real estate clients are using- what they don’t like and do like about it- and then find the methods best suited to their needs. It is supposed to be customized service- right?
Denny Oh on November 5, 2007 3:09 pm

I agree…people who use technology just to use it are missing the point. I text people when it’s appropriate, call them when I need to talk to them and email when email’s are best.

Technology is moving so fast, that there’s no way to always keep up to speed. And as Ken and Joanne indicated, its up to you to determine what you need to know, what will help you the most and most importantly, what your clients expect you to use.

Maybe we need a Part Two of this post….
Drew Meyers on November 5, 2007 4:28 pm

I think a part 2 (and 3, 4, etc) would be great

Communicating with generation x & y is a topic that doesn’t get enough attention — at least in my opinion.
PdaNet for Treos on January 23, 2008 12:11 am

[...] run a lot and don’t always have the luxury of being at my office. And in a time where a 5 minute response time is 5 minutes too long, I depend on my phone and my laptop. And while we all have problems with technology, the fact [...]
NEWS BLOG » Blog Archive » Top 10 Google Searches on February 6, 2008 4:11 pm

[...] Britney Spears, or MySpace. No, these top 10 lists, were probably the result of millions of Gen X and Yers, who were raised on pop [...]
Blogging is Like Dating | GeekEstate Blog on March 19, 2008 5:49 pm

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Carnival of Real Estate on June 2, 2008 4:49 pm

[...] ‘Generation X – Caution: Read Instructions Before Use’ by Denny Oh of Geek Estate Blog [...]
Enterprise Media » Archives » Gens X, Y, Z?, V? and C? on March 5, 2009 7:51 am

[...] Generation Xer’s blog and his take from the real estate market: http://www.geekestateblog.com/generation-x-caution-read-instructions-before-use/ [...]
Enterprise Media » Archives » Gens X, Y, Z?, V? and C? on March 5, 2009 8:08 am

[...] Generation Xer’s blog and his take from the real estate market: http://www.geekestateblog.com/generation-x-caution-read-instructions-before-use/ As seen on 60 minutes: millennials [...]
johncortelione on September 30, 2009 8:22 pm

Okay so baby boomers sort of get along with gen y because gen y is also about the community. Gen x is about society and it has collapsed. Instead of hiring people they like Baby Boomers should hire talent. Baby boomers have been known to discriminate in the 90's especially in the 80's. They don't like to hire talent, not, even from their own generation. Let's not push the baby boomer aside, like seriously the baby boomer should just get in their position when some one better walks in the door. I mean they were sold the company and have to forget about their selfish greedy indiference, and do for that company that they care so deeply about. Who's who among american h.s. students working a low level job.
johncortelione on October 1, 2009 3:22 am

Okay so baby boomers sort of get along with gen y because gen y is also about the community. Gen x is about society and it has collapsed. Instead of hiring people they like Baby Boomers should hire talent. Baby boomers have been known to discriminate in the 90's especially in the 80's. They don't like to hire talent, not, even from their own generation. Let's not push the baby boomer aside, like seriously the baby boomer should just get in their position when some one better walks in the door. I mean they were sold the company and have to forget about their selfish greedy indiference, and do for that company that they care so deeply about. Who's who among american h.s. students working a low level job.