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What is your favorite tree? Perhaps you have one from your childhood or one where you vacation? If you think about it, most of us have a special tree. You’re not alone. There are almost 7 million photos of trees on flicker.com and about 5 million people a month search for trees in Google. Bolin discovered that no-one has organized this every day passion so we are developing a website called MyFavoriteTree where individuals can upload and share a photo of their favorite tree. Others will be able to comment on your tree and rate it. You can even promote your tree on Facebook. We pursued this idea so that we could give green building products brands a platform to demonstrate all their sustainability efforts into an engaging campaign. In addition, the MyFavoriteTree platform provides a green building products brand an interesting way to get into social media. Bolin imagines a green building products brand sponsoring a competition where the state with the most tree photos uploaded wins 1000 trees planted in a place of their choice.

Gas Lamp from Travis Industries

With many of our clients in the building products industry, Bolin travelled to Las Vegas for the 2009 International Builders’ Show. As predicted, the attendance was well below 90k. Exhibitors were at 1600. One interesting effect is that many exhibits brought far few people to work the booths. The result was that these people were much busier as they were outnumbered by attendees. Sustainability continues to be a trend. In fact, Whirlpool’s exhibit theme was “Green”. It’s obvious most companies still aren’t sure how to utilize green as a competitive advantage. We shot some undercover photos with our camera phones of new products. See them at the the Bolin Photo Blog.

Senator Norm Coleman speaking at the 2008 Minnesota Housing Summit

Here are my notes from the 2008 Minnespota Housing Summit. Keynote speakers, NAHB Sr Economist, Dr Elliot Eisenberg, MN Senator, Norm Coleman and 9th Dist Fed Reserve Economist Toby Madden.

Sen Norm Coleman:

Coleman says the holiday season has him counting and recounting his blessings!

Coleman blames regulators, banks for current woes. Says change in leadership will help no matter who it is. Leadership is about credibility and Obama has it.

Bottom line: 1. Do no harm. 2. Need short term fixes. 3. Need vision. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. However, MN is north star state and we will lead nation out of this situation.

Pawlenty administration says we need to build consumer confidence.

Toby Madden, 9th Dist Fed Reserve:

Derivatives and credit default swaps were the incentives created that built 40,000 homes in MN and each state. Problem is these were not regulated.

2009 9th Dist Fed Reserve forecast:

7% unemployment

-17% housing starts

 “Remember all recessions end and expansion happens.” Not worried about the long term because we have good system.

NAHB Sr Economist, Dr Elliot Eisenherg:

2009 will be the bottom of the housing market in MN but not in states like FL. In MN, overbuilding of multifamily construction was the issue. Population will save the day. US growing at 3 million people a year. US needs 1.6 to 1.8 million new homes a year. Housing prices largely driven by land prices. Land prices driven by govt regulation. That is why CA, Boston and Seattle are expensive. Regulators need to understand that each action causes an equal and opposite reaction.

Builders concerned that credit available but appraisals prohibit equity needed.

Recessions last on average 18 months.

Dane presenting social media concepts to NARI board

Originally uploaded by Dane Hartzell’s Building Industry Blog

Presenting social media and web 2.0 concepts that NARI can implement to help better connect their remodeler members with homeowners.

Dane and Jack with Gwen Biasi of NARI

Originally uploaded by Dane Hartzell’s Building Industry Blog

Bolin presented an integrated online and offline branding campaign to the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) at their spring 2008 Board of Directors Meeting in St. Petersburg. On the digital front, Bolin will create search optimized Remodeler locator sites for each market that will compete with Angies List and Service Magic.

Not pretty but it works!

Originally uploaded by Dane Hartzell’s Building Industry Blog

Testing different landing pages for campaigns will increase your conversions. This example almost doubled leads compared to the default home page.