Last night, I attended a speech given by Robert Scoble, and hosted by Rackspace.
Robert is “a futurist” – he looks at what’s coming, or what’s possible to create – and talks about real-world application. At least that’s my interpretation. He explains lots of ideas of his, like what is telekinesis and many more.
Blacksburg and the New River Valley has an incredible startup community that, while still in its infancy, is really, really exploding – there are some tremendous companies that have based themselves here doing some really incredible work. Autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, DNA study … really, really cool stuff.
So why would a real estate guy be thinking about this kind of technology? Because it’s coming – it’s here – and we at Nest Realty need to be thinking about how we can apply this kind of technology to the everyday experience of buying and selling homes in the New River Valley. The real estate industry as a whole is notoriously slow-moving, but companies like Nest Realty are doing our best to stay as innovative as possible, understanding and taking advantage the trends before they get here, not afterwards.
As Alex Obenaeur posted later on the luxury real estate South Lake Tahoe meeting (and if you’re not familiar with Alex, you should be – he’s part of the startup community here that’s really making a difference), it’s the difference between proactive and reactive tech:
These folks are working on proactive tech. They are pioneering. They are building things for a world that doesn’t even exist yet; that most of us can’t even fathom.
The world has changed. At Nest, we’re always going to be looking at what’s possible, and how to make it work for our customers and clients. That’s why we’ve made things like Matterport available to ALL of our Nest listings at the brokerage level – if a client wants to showcase their home in this way, we have the tools available to make that happen for them.
But what’s next? Will we use things like virtual reality to show off homes here at the office? Are we driving virtually to listings, showing a home buyer what the surrounding area looks like? Is it technology that helps home buyers and sellers integrate home systems, like Nest and Echo and smart home technology?
The beauty of the future is that we don’t know, and we can create it. Rest assured Nest Realty will be at the forefront of that here in the New River Valley. Thanks for putting this together, Rackspace – great experience. And thanks, Robert, for coming to our little corner of the world.