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Finally, I found some downtime today to gather my thoughts from last week’s 2010 Inman Real Estate Conference in San Francisco. It was a busy week networking with customers, old friends and new ones and this week was all about playing catch up with my daily to-do’s.

Here we go:

On Monday, I attended the 3 year anniversary of Rebarcamp. It was held at the historic Fort Mason along the Gashouse Cove. As we gathered in the early morning, I noticed attendance seemed rather low compared to past events. This could have been due to a competing event by Inman called Agent ReBoot which was happening at the same time. Nevertheless, the folks that attended REBC are early adopters of technology and actual practitioners within the space. Sharing information and actual real life experiences is what REBC is all about. I enjoyed it.

While having lunch with Jay Thompson at REBC, I mentioned how many people were asking me about how our long time friend Joe Ferrara was doing - he’s battling a brain tumor now. Each person wished him well so I asked Jay what he thought about doing a video of his friends wishing him well - well, you know what Jay said of course.

Here’s the video - For Joe

I learned about Yahoo’s Tag reader from Jeff and Kirstin at 6-Degrees Group which is similar to the QR code. They have implemented this in their marketing for Blu Condos in SF.

I attended many sessions and even led one myself. The topic: What I learned about Social Media over the last year. Now as I mentioned, REBC is about sharing thoughts and personal experiences, which is exactly what I did.

So what did I learn? Well, over the last year I really noticed that some people were really over-thinking what social media is and how to use the tools. For me and some of what I do at Trulia, using the many social media tools and channels that are out there really helps us get closer to our customers and consumers as well. I learned that when I spent more time with the folks I met via these social media channels, the relationship would get stronger. By purely helping them with what ever their specific need or question happened to be was rewarding in and of itself. For us, providing great customer service by helping and caring about our customers via social media is what it’s all about.

If you were in my session then you probably witnessed someone who claimed it was all about selling rather than possibly using social media to build meaningful relationships. Many went back and forth with each other on this issue and it got heated at times but at the end of the day, no one has all the right answers. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.

We also provided the birthday cake w/ a big thanks to Pierre from Trulia for the design. Thanks to Maya for the pic.

During the first day’s cocktail hour, some of us were having such great conversations that we actually closed the vendor hall down.

Trulians love to work out. A couple times a week, the team does push ups together as you can see in the above video - a great way to get the day started. Our Co-Founder Sami Inkinen is really fit and trains pretty heavily. As a result, his health and fitness regimen tends to rub off of some of us.

We thought it would be a great idea to get others in real estate involved in something healthy. So for the first time we invited real estate professionals who were attending connect to join us for a 3 mile run around San Francisco. We had a decent showing of some hardcore runners including Lauren from Active Rain, Stacy from Agent Applause, Michael from SVNGR, Greg from Dwellicious, Gahlord from Though Faucet and some fellow Trulians.

Yeah I know, it was a small turnout but lots of folks were out very very late so it’s understandable. We are planning on holding more realtor runs in the future including later this year at NAR in New Orleans and Triple Play in Atlantic City. We’ll have more details up soon and hope more real estate professionals will join us.

As you can see in the video as well, Pete met with some great folks at Meet the Leaders including Robin Taylor Roth.

Later that evening, we hosted a Trulia Customer Appreciation party at the Rooftop of the Clift hotel. We were very fortunate to have clear skies so people could enjoy the view. Indoors, we had great music, drinks and hors d’oeuvres. It was a chance for us to say thank you to the many industry supporters we have as well as an opportunity to learn more about them on a more personal level. There are just too many great conversations and pics to list. It was however, a night to remember.

With many meetings and 5 Trulia training sessions, I did not attend the majority of the sessions. Maybe next time.  So to everyone we met at ReBarCamp and Inman Connect last week, thank you. We’ll talk to you soon!

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