matt tillotson dot com

Three long weeks, some amazing companies and a great place to call home.

Finally, I'm across the finish line from a long stretch of travel, out visiting PODS alliance companies as they gear up for a busy summer. I kicked things off with a visit to the Keller Williams Family Reunion in New Orleans. Then it was off to the UniGroup Learning conference in St. Louis, a day at the RE/MAX Annual Convention in Orlando and finally, the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? annual conference in Vancouver.

Three straight weekends on the road. I'm friggin' tired. Way too many rounds of Starbucks coffee and making sure my tray table was in an upright and locked position. And yet, it has been an energizing few weeks, too. People are geared up to get the hell out of this economic malaise. It's fun to be part of that spirit.

No one has had it tougher than real estate. But the Keller Williams Family Reunion, as always, was full of upbeat  brokers and agents eager to find new ways to serve their clients and move some properties. You can tell Keller Williams agents believe in their brand and the management team. That conference is always a fun one to work. Even on a Sunday.

The RE/MAX Convention always has high-end professional agents who are cordial and knowledgeable. PODS always gets a warm welcome and RE/MAX has been a great partner for us.

I was able to attend the UniGroup Learning Conference for the first time, now that PODS has entered into a strategic alliance to provide the company with additional capacity for its new container strategy. UniGroup owns the United and Mayflower brands -- two long-time full-service moving leaders in a space that is changing fast. But UniGroup isn't standing still -- it has new plans in place to keep its brands at the top. I'm glad PODS is a part of it.

Finally, I was in Vancouver this past weekend for the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? annual convention. What a great corporate culture and sense of mission that company has. GOT-JUNK has been through some big changes and challenges in the past year, but I have the sense corporate employees and franchisees have their eyes straight ahead and are ready for a big year. PODS is aligned with GOT-JUNK to help both organizations cross-market at the corporate and local levels. The GOT-JUNK team works hard but maintains a vital sense of humor and balance. Those traits are crucial in carrying forward through challenges. 

PODS is aligned with some of the best service brands out there. Companies that aren't dour, but find energy in trying new things to turn the tide.

Personally, it's tough to be away from family, tough to fall out of bed at 4 AM to catch a flight. But coming home, I always love flying in and taking that big turn south of the Gandy Bridge, cruising in over the bay and touching down at Tampa International. That's when I remember that I live in a great place. Floridians are fortunate to live here. It's easier to forget that when the economy is in rough shape and the winter has been unusually cold and gray. Sometimes, you have to get worn out on the road to remember how lucky you are to rest in the place you call home.

Great marketing position in Tampa Bay with PODS

Great marketing jobs are tough to come by these days - and finding them in Tampa Bay may be tougher than most places.

But I have a position open on my team at PODS that represents a great opportunity. We are in need of a marketing referral program manager. This person needs to be super-organized and ready to wear a number of hats. The program manager will make sure we hit all our communication deliverables in our partner programs in real estate, disaster restoration, retail and more.

PODS works will all of the major real estate brands to reach Realtors and educate them on the benefits of recommending PODS for home staging, storage and local and long-distance moving. PODS also works with AAA clubs across the U.S. and has some exciting things percolating in the retail space.

The successful candidate needs to manage these programs and may help us develop new relationships, too. We have aggressive revenue goals this year and need a star to help us get there.

Ideally, the person we select will have two years of marketing experience under their belt.

Sound interesting? To apply, please visit PODS.com.

Hopefully, less drama lies ahead for the Tampa Bay Lightning with new ownership.

Jeff Vinik, a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox, has grabbed ahold of the NHL's hot potato: ownership of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Lets hope Vinik has the finances and acumen to get the Lightning sizzling again. Following a stable period under Palace Sports and Bill Davidson, the Lightning's last owners, Oren Koules and Len Barrie, were an embarrassment. They struggled for power, whacked celebrity coach Barry Melrose after 16 games and finally went through a messy public battle before selling the team.  All that was missing from the circus atmosphere were home games at the fairgrounds again. 

But Vinik is promising more stability and wants to be part of the community:

“I don’t think there’s a person I’ve met here who hasn’t said this is the best place to live in the country,” he said. Along with his wife Penny and four children, he’s not immediately moving his family here, but has hired a real estate agent to scout out a local residence he said.

Successful hockey is good for Tampa Bay and especially downtown Tampa. Anything (legal) that keeps people downtown after 5 PM is a plus. Let's hope Vinik proves to be a rinkmaster, and not another ringmaster, for a franchise too long distracted by sideshows.

For Florida real estate, happy times will not be here again any time soon. So what's next?

Florida, we have to figure out what is next. Two stories in the Sentinel help illustrate that yesterday's growth engines -- construction and new residents -- are stalled and aren't coming back any time soon.

First, Orlando's home prices will likely continue to fall before edging up slightly late this year and next:

Economist David Stiff said that, if he was moving to Orlando, he would rent for a while before he considered buying a home.

Orlando house prices will fall by double-digit percentages through the third quarter of this year and then increase by less than 2 percent from late 2010 until late 2011, said Stiff, chief economist for Fiserv Inc.

Other areas of the state -- Sarasota, for example -- are likely to fair better. But Florida has plenty of inventory and a building boom isn't going to rescue us any time soon.

Neither will a population boom:

Demographers estimate the state will have grown by 23,000 between April 1, 2009 and April 1, 2010, following an estimated decrease of 57,000 the previous year."The point is both years are extremely low by our historical standards," said state demographer Stan Smith.

[...]

"The question is how long is it going to take to get back into a little stronger growth," Snaith said. "What we forecast is a state that is much slower in growth than we have historically seen in Florida."

In some ways, this represents opportunity. Florida has been hooked on growth like it was heroin for too long. Now, there's no choice but to go through rehab.

So what's next? It's not aerospace. Alternative energy? Shipping due to the Panama Canal expansion?

It's probably not a single answer. I'm just not sure enough of us are asking the question. We have lots of sand here, but that's no excuse for burying our heads in it. 

Baseball and iPhone nerds rejoyce; MLB @ Bat 2010 uncorked

It's back. And kicking even more ass than last year.

Today Major League Baseball released MLB @ Bat 2010 in the iTunes store, and the app will be available for Android and Blackberry, too. Last year the the app brought streaming live video, highlights, audio, stats and a lot more. MLB @ Bat '09 was easily the best app of the major sports leagues. This year, it looks like new features will put more distance between baseball's app and the other major sports:

• Spring Training statistics, live audio and live video (mid-March)
• Live audio and live video (mid-March)
• Breaking news, as well as schedules, interactive rosters and player stats for every team
• Video library searchable by player and team
• Enhanced live game video (regular season)
• Home/Away broadcast feed selection (regular season)
• Background audio playback

The two biggest additions are in bold. Finally, MLB will start to take advantage of its endless supply of game video. Looking forward to seeing how robust the library is that they make available. And background audio playback is huge for the iPhone. Last year if you were listening to a game, that's all you could do. Now you can tuck a radio broadcast into the background while doing other stuff on your phone.

The app has bumped up in price to $14.99. Subscription fees to get access to all the live streaming games will cost more.  Last year, MLB usually offered up two games per day for free with other games available for $.99 if you didn't want to pay the monthly subscription fee.

The MLB.com article says that more features are forthcoming as the season unfolds. Last year they dropped the live streaming video bomb in-season. What more could they add this year to sports' best mobile app?

AT&T, I knew you knew me.

I'm really not an AT&T basher. After eight years with T-Mobile, I switched to an iPhone last summer. I've had mostly good experiences with AT&T and find the former T-Mobile dead zones I used to curse at regularly in Tampa are covered by AT&T. And my limited customer service experience has been positive.

That said, in doing some research on Canadian usage with a U.S. voice & data plan, I found this content from AT&T's site hilarious:

AT&T knows that the mobile Internet on your iPhone++ is indispensable to you. That's why we want to remind you that international data usage is not covered under your existing U.S. data plan.

Wow, thanks AT&T! You dug deep, understood my indispensable needs and stepped up to tell me that ... you're going to charge massive fees if I dare use my iPhone data plan in Canada.

I knew you cared.

Florida's next real estate meltdown will be commercial

It's debatable whether Florida's housing market is poised for a rebound, with distressed properties making up so many of the residential sales today. But here we go with round two of the crash -- commercial real estate:

The retail vacancy rate in Tampa Bay shopping centers has grown to 10.5 percent or enough empty space to fill International Plaza about 10 times.

[...]

the hotel and shopping center industries are the biggest parts of the commercial real estate industry that dramatically built far ahead of demand during the boom years of easy credit and soaring land prices. Now they are plagued by slack demand, no population growth, fewer tenants, reduced rent and shrinking property values at a time when many of their debts are coming due.

No one knows yet how much of the $3.5 trillion commercial mortgage debt bubble nationally that comes due for refinancing over the next three years is backed by distressed property. 

The only thing worse than all the sprawling strip malls that dot Hillsborough County? Empty strip malls.

"Shamu attack exposes social media risk." What?

The Orlando Sentinel meticulously explains all the "problems" Sea World had with its social media initiatives following the tragic death of a trainer this week:

When big companies like SeaWorld use Facebook, Twitter and blogs effectively, they scrape off a layer of shiny corporate veneer and engage in a more intimate relationship with both customers and critics.

We are seeing just how difficult it can be for companies to navigate that newfound intimacy with the death Wednesday of killer whale trainer Dawn Brancheau.

The tragedy forced SeaWorld to temporarily suspend comments on its Facebook site, react swiftly on its blog and, most dramatically, silence its enormously popular Twitter account written from the voice of Shamu himself.[...] It would be easy to use Brancheau's death to point to the risks a company takes when it stops communicating with its customers and the media solely through official press releases and, instead, opens the door to a two-way conversation with an element of edgy humor and candor.

But, in fact, this heart-wrenching crisis will ultimately reveal the strength and resiliency of a brand that establishes a loyal customer base that feels a more personal connection to a business.

Eventually, the piece gets beyond its sensationalistic and technophobic headline and acknowledges that social media can actually be a positive in crisis situations. Direct, two-way communication with customers and fans is not a negative, even when tragedy strikes. Common sense and decency provides the road map and Sea World is doing well. 

Sea World's Facebook page includes this latest post:

Our thanks go out to the many people that have expressed concern for our SeaWorld family. We're closing down the wall this evening, but will resume tomorrow.

That's an appropriate measure, as is re-engaging with the public after a short pause. An earlier post also informed page visitors that crude or insensitive comments would be deleted -- also an appropriate step. Staying engaged with the public doesn't mean you have to tolerate classlessness, or that an organization cannot pause to collect itself, especially following a death.

The Sea World tragedy illustrates that the corporate use of social media does not create risk. The conversations about company crises will happen with or without the company itself being engaged. The only risk is in not participating at all.

I wanted to leave a comment on the Sentinel's detailed analysis of Sea World's social media strategy. But the Sentinel's site does not accept comments on the piece.

With Florida’s consumer confidence falling, being remarkable is required

Consumer confidence is on the wane again, across the U.S. and in Florida:

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell almost 11 points to 46 in February, down from a revised 56.5 in January. Analysts were expecting only a slight decrease to 55. It was the lowest level since the index recorded a 40.8 reading in April 2009.

Florida's consumer confidence index fell two points to 72 in February, after a sharp rise in January. The index, compiled by the University of Florida, fell primarily on concerns about rising unemployment.

"This month Floridians may be coming to terms with the possibility that Florida's economy will not recover at the same pace as other states," said Chris McCarty, survey director of UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

It's hard to see how growth will be anything but close-to-flat for a long time. Ordinary won't be good enough to cut it anytime soon, if ever. And that goes for businesses, those of us who work in them and of course those who teach tomorrow's workforce.

I don’t think remarkable has ever mattered more.

Can any of us not afford not to pick something to be the best at? Can any of us afford to do it just like we always have?

The City of Tampa again faces a shortfall. It’s time to address pensions.

Tampa again faces a budget shortfall, and Mayor Pam Iorio says the city is running out of places to cut. But take a look at these two quotes from the story juxtaposed against each other:

Tampa officials are digging in for another year of tough financial decisions that - barring an unforeseen economic turnaround - will lead to more employee layoffs and a reduction of services in a city that increasingly is running out of places to cut.

Much of the projected shortfall can be attributed to increases in payroll and pension costs, she said, which have gone up despite layoffs and a wage freeze this year.

The city hasn’t run out of places to cut. It has run out of easier places to cut. The elephant in the room is being ignored: pensions. Government pensions are a huge problem across the country. Those of us in the private sector should be asking – loudly – why we have to continue to support these entitlement programs. How many people in your office have a pension?

Times are tough. Pensions are a thing of the past in much of the private sector. There is no reason struggling taxpayers should be forced to fund pension entitlements any longer.

Unfortunately, it takes fortitude to face the pension problem head-on. How deep does a budget crisis have to get before the problem is really dealt with?