Sold Out RESO Tech Summit in Austin Has Come a Long Way

Michael Wurzer, RESO board member who is celebrating his 20th year at the helm of FBS, a RESO charter member and creator of Flexmls, flew into O'Hare Airport for his first RESO conference in 1999. "There were actually quite a few people at that first meeting," Michael recalls, "I'd estimate about 50." That RESO conference was held in a conference room at a hotel that was attached to the airport.

Fast-forward 18 years later to Austin and next week, five times as many people – more than 250 attendees – will pack a 3400 square-foot ballroom at the Omni Downtown Austin Hotel as well as the Austin Board of Realtors' Canyon View Event Center for two and a half days of meetings, presentations and panels. The RESO Austin Tech Summit will feature nearly three dozen presenters and panelists covering more than two dozen technology and real estate data standards-related topics. All the details are in our free RESO conference app, available in the App Store and Google Play.

Summit Preview

The theme of the RESO Spring Technology Summit is "Orchestrating Collaboration and Innovation," and RESO is collaborating with a host of partners and member firms to put on what has become a massive undertaking - when compared with the early years of RESO conferences.

We have been working closely with the local Austin Board of Realtors or ABoR, our Platinum Sponsor that will host most of our workshop meetings on Monday at their incredible facilities. We will shuttle folks to ABoR on Monday morning, after the Internet Tracking Workgroup meets at the Omni from 9-10:00 am.

We're also collaborating with sponsors that include CoreLogic, host of our Welcome Reception on Sunday night, April 23; Homes.com, hosting our Monday night reception, April 24 at ABoR's Canyon View Event Center; and Realtor.com, who is hosting our Tuesday night, April 25 reception at Old School Bar and Grill.

Uniquely RESO

What RESO attendees have come to expect is that our main conference days – Tuesday and Wednesday – start things right, beginning with a full breakfast that is covered by their registration fee. We provide the fuel for your brains because we want everyone at full strength when we begin a series of back-to-back conference sessions that will require your attention.

For you to get the most out of your attendance at RESO, and for us to get the most from your attendance, we want your feedback and input after these presentations, and that's why we encourage Q&A. This is where some of the best ideas for future RESO work comes from, so we want your participation, even if this is your first time attending a RESO conference; please ask your questions, and don't forget to rate each session in your RESO app.

Stellar Sessions

Among the conference topics and highlights you can expect to see next week:

"The Future of RESO," RESO officer Cary Sylvester, VP Industry Development, Keller Williams

"The Future of the MLS," an exceptional panel discussion moderated by Eric Byrn, Digital Marketing Analyst and Strategic Consultant, BoomTown; with panelists Matt Cohen, Chief Technologist, Clareity Security/Clareity Consulting; Chad Curry, Managing Director, Center for Realtor Technology/CRT Labs, National Association of REALTORS; Philip DesAutels, Senior Director of IoT, The Linux Foundation, and CTO, Houze; and Michael Lane, President, ShowingTime.

"Data Management Platforms of the Future," featuring Alon Chaver, Chief Information Officer, HomeServices of America.

"Using RESO compliant Web APIs to distribute IDX data helps everyone in the value chain." How MLSs save time, money, and reduce liability using APIs to provide IDX access to their members. Brokers and agents get a better IDX website that costs less, is setup faster and works better than IDX websites built using RETS. Consumers get more accurate, up-to-date and complete property listing information when it comes directly out of the MLS database from an API featuring Troy McCasland, CEO, AgentSquared.

"Search is broken and Zillow can't fix it," a look into why consumer property search is fundamentally broken and how Keller Cloud aims to fix it by incorporating AI and Data Integration, thus eliminating the true/false barriers of today's search experience, featuring Josh Team, Chief Innovation Officer, Keller Williams.

"Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence," another remarkable panel examining how VR, AR and AI are used in the industry, changing the future landscape of real estate data and the need to evolve standards with moderator Chad Curry, Managing Director, Center for Realtor Technology / CRT Labs, National Association of REALTORS, and featuring panelists Ville Hulkko, Chief Commercial Officer/Co-founder, CubiCasa; Mark Tepper, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, Matterport; Shira Libman, Senior Director of Product Management, Move, Inc.; Nick Kijaic, CEO and Co-founder, Apartment Ocean; Damia Garcia, Chief Growth & Biz Dev, restb.

More Conference Highlights

My Theo's Dan Bremer, along with Henry Gooden, who is flying in from Australia, will present our first RESO Business Case Study during their session, "The RESO Data Dictionary and API Real World Implementation Case Study." Jonathan Spinetto, COO, Remine; Lucie Fortier, VP of Product, Remine will present at "Big Data Aggregation and Mashup." Tyler Gordon, CEO, Agent Inbox presents, "You already have the data - use it! How to simplify MLS onboarding, user experience, and support," while WAV Group Co-Founder Marilyn Wilson will unveil a new marketing kit to help push utilization of the Data Dictionary feeds and Web API during her "Helping your members harness the marketing power of RESO Standards" presentation.

The Big Takeaways

RESO Conferences always goes deeper – especially at the Spring Tech Summits – into providing key takeaways for attendees to bring back to their organizations. Austin will be no exception, with a number of sessions that will dig deep into the pragmatic and practical, looking as well at the best practices of others.

Two Blockchain Sessions: Dave Conroy, R&D Lab Engineer, Center for Realtor Technology/CRT Labs, National Association of REALTORS® discusses "Practical Blockchain Opportunities in Real Estate," while Ragnar Lifthrasir, Founder, velox.RE and the International Blockchain Real Estate Association will cover "Blockchain Real Estate Fundamentals."

Workgroup meetings and updates: These are always a core component of the Spring Summit and are open to everyone – just walk in and grab a seat, as no pre-registration is needed. Be on the lookout for pre-conference email updates that will attempt to bring you up to speed on where each workgroup is right now and what's on their docket for this meeting.

Rick Herrera, Director of Data Services, realtor.com, will present on "Open Source Data Mapping Solution Based on RESO Standards," with Mark Bessett, California Regional Multiple Listing Service Inc., Matt Casey, President and CEO at CRS Data, and Jon Mabe, VP- Engineering, Zillow Group, reviewing "Property Unique ID Workgroup and Proof of Concept Detail." Towards the end of the Summit, Paul Stusiak, President and Owner, Falcon Technologies will cover "The Final RETS 1.9 Specification Released" and talk about the future of RETS.

RESO Web API sessions: Michael Wurzer, President, FBS, Creators of Flexmls and Tim Kramer, also of FBS, will show how they're working on increasing utilization of the RESO WEB API using their Spark Platform during their "Increasing Utilization of the RESO Web API" talk; Gregory Lemon, Certification Project Manager, RESO, will actually demonstrate the RESO Web API Reference Client; and Paul Stusiak, President and Owner, Falcon Technologies, and Sergio Del Rio, CIO / Managing Partner, Templates 4 Business, Inc will give a RESO Web API Update.

More collaboration: We are always reaching out to others working on standards that parallel our own efforts, and we're featuring Michael Ashmore, Director-Global Geocoding Product Management, of Pitney Bowes, who will present on "Pitney Bowes' Master Location Data and pbKey™ Unique Address Identifier." And we've invited Richard Maxson, SVP of Catylist, to give a presentation on "How Commercial Listing Services Differ from Traditional MLS Service."

Not possible without our sponsors: You'll remember RESO conferences because they are done right, from the food to the facilities to the special events – all made possible because of the Austin Board of Realtors®, our Platinum Sponsor; CoreLogic, Homes.com, Realtor.com and ShowingTime – all Gold Sponsors; RPR – Realtors Property Resources, our Silver Sponsor; and CRS Data, DynaConnections Corporation and Flexmls, created by FBS – all Bronze Sponsors.

The Live Music Capital of the World

Finally, Austin is simply an amazing city to hold a conference, as the music scene is exceptional. And while we do try to pack as much as we can into your schedule, if you do have a chance to bookend your visit to this music city, here is a list of things to do.

While we are sold out for Austin, we do encourage you to think ahead to the 2017 RESO Fall Conference, October 17-19, in San Diego. And if you are interested in collaborating with RESO as a sponsor or speaker, please contact us early, as they are starting to fill up already, so just send an email to info(at)reso.org and we will follow up with you promptly. See you in Austin!