broader lake view

Finally, several weeks after launch a flurry of postings and news about the statewide whatever launch in Lake County. A familiar tune--new system, inevitable fine tuning, customization issues yada yada yada. There's a bigger view that most commentators don't address. From a vendor perspective how does the business model work? A huge effort, beset with delays, preceded the launch (for a mere 450 users). That has evidently been followed by a major push to correct 23+ issues by a date certain, plus acquisition of rights to an outside CMA package (unknown cost there). So maybe the system gets massaged into satisfactory condition for a majority of the users. At what cost? The per member/month fee from 450 users probably doesn't cover the total expense of paying one tech employee's salary and perks for a month. It's safe to assume there are several employees on the payroll. In the meantime, who's working on launching the other MLS conversions in the pipeline and configuring the hybrid application for some of them, etc, etc. Not to mention who's doing R/D on future system advances? Remember that this initial development/launch window has been open over a year now. The rest of the real estate data technology world has not taken any time off during that period--R/D happens every day of every year. For example, RPR by LPS is impressive and sets the bar a few notches higher. Where will this statewide effort be in the technology race after 3 years or 5 years? It doesn't look encouraging, based on recent performance.

Here are the broader questions that should be asked--SOON. Why isn't this statewide MLS application where it should be at this time in terms of development and market penetration? Despite claims of transparency, I don't see anyone running to the microphone. Clearly there are problems, most unknown, even to the State Directors. Whatever those problems are, the present combination of technology, organizational management and leadership are evidently not having much success at solving them. This large team of volunteers and highly paid professionals has been at that task for over a year, supposedly with ample financial and intellectual resources. Real estate data applications are not rocket science. There are a number of MLS application out there in the market and ALL are customized for each installation. Most firms achieve relatively smooth conversions without unexpected delays--it's essential to their business success.

It may take one or more independent review committees to objectively investigate what went amiss AND attempt to craft a technological/organizational program of action that has a chance of reaching the original goals of the planned statewide system. On the other hand, objective analysis may show those goals are now unreachable after over a year of inevitable frame shifting in MLS ecology. BTW, I'm not holding my breath waiting for that corrective scenario to materialize.

Final note: I read about the symptoms of Groupthink and Doublethink a few days ago (in researching another project--check out Wikipedia for a grin-examples abound). It seems this curious statewide journey may well represent an example of both organizational maladies rolled into one exciting episode.