Reorb Blog

Importance of personal connections in business

2010-09-09T20:00:08+01:00

Six Degrees of Separation for the whole of humankind but I think we could safety say that the property industry probably spits out 2 or at most 3 degrees of separation. The importance of personal connections in business cannot be underestimated. Instructing someone you know or someone who has been introduced through a trusted contact immediately irons out many concerns and uncertainties. The property world, perhaps more than any other industry, still hinges to a greater extent on personal relationships and it is no surprise that “networking” in its various guises is always actively encouraged by employers! It stands to reason: the bigger your own personal network the easier it should be to get straight to the people that matter.

Invite your contacts and colleagues to join your network and use Reorb’s shortest path application to find out how you are connected to anyone on the site. Don’t turn your back on pubs / bars / lunches and industry events but do take advantage of the extraordinary reach and access that the internet provides!

Introducing Jobs

2010-08-26T19:44:44+01:00

What is the Jobs section?

Reorb includes a Services section, which enables you to:

- Search through a database of jobs, by title, organisation, location (including a Google Maps view), salary, sector, expertise, hours, terms and date.

- Add favourite jobs that you are interested in to a “Your Jobs” section, so that you can easily find them later.

- Save your searches to be updated on your overview feed and by email when new jobs matching your criteria are added.

- Add your organisation’s jobs, including the title, logo, link, location, salary, start date, terms, hours, expertise, sectors, description, experience and qualifications. Your requests will be automatically deleted after 90 days, but you will be given an opportunity to renew them after 60.

- Link jobs to your profile so that users have a clear point of contact, and so that they can be discovered by your contacts when they view your details or check their overview page.

What are the benefits for you?

Reorb provides you with a wide range of benefits, because:

- Your jobs are viewed by a targeted and receptive audience of commercial real estate professionals.

- Your applicants can discover your jobs in a variety of different ways from a single upload: by searching the Jobs section, saving searches to be alerted on their overview page and by email about matching new content, discovering it on their contacts’ profile pages, and sharing it with their contacts via internal messages.

- Our industry leading search engine optimisation means that your jobs can easily be found through keyword searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo.

- You are not dependent on your email bypassing spam filters and inbox limits, and are not subjected to the costs of conventional advertising or hard copy printing and mailing.

- All employees at your company can update and remove the jobs you upload, and you can easily change the profile linked to a job when key contacts change.

- Our users can add the jobs that they are most interested in to their favourites and can engage with them interactively, providing much greater exposure than a few seconds in their inbox or on their desk.

- Our Jobs section receives significant additional traffic as a result of Reorb’s many other features.

It is free for you to upload your jobs, and free for our users to explore them. We are generously supported by our advertisers, who appreciate the power of reaching such a specific audience.

Discovering relevant professional development events

2010-08-25T23:27:00+01:00

Professional development should really form a much more prominent part of all of our weekly schedules but I suspect that most of us struggle to prioritise researching and attending relevant seminars and conferences. Reorb is trying to make it easier to put your finger on those events that will be relevant and convenient for you. Search through our “Events” tab to find seminars and courses being laid on by the CPD Foundation, RICS and Henry Stewart Conferences and add them to your calendar. You can also add your own events and benefit from exposure to the whole of the Reorb userbase.

Tomorrow's news?

2010-08-19T08:55:12+01:00

With Rupert Murdoch and News Corp taking the first double footed jump into the world of charging for mass market online news, it will be interesting to see whether others follow suit in the future. For the moment however, we’re pleased to see that the sources in the Reorb News section continue to allow, largely unrestricted, access to their online news stories via their RSS feeds.

Click on the “News” tab and personalise your news feed by selecting your favourite sources; choose from the BBC, Financial Times, Property Week and Retail Week. If there are other news providers that you’d like to see and who have publicly accessible RSS feeds, then do let us know and we’ll do our best to pull them directly into the site.

Introducing Properties

2010-08-18T18:32:54+01:00

What is the Properties section?

Reorb includes a Properties section, which enables you to:

- Search through databases of available investment and occupational properties and requirements, by title, organisation, location (including a Google Maps view), size, price, rent, type, tenure, availability, condition, energy performance and date.

- Add favourite properties to a “Your Properties” section, and favourite requirements to a “Your Requirements” section, so that you can easily find them later.

- Save your searches to be updated on your overview feed and by email when new properties or requirements matching your criteria are added.

- Search through an archive of properties using the same fields as properties in addition to the occupier / buyer, final transaction value, and transaction date.

- Add the properties you are marketing, including the title, brochure, photograph, link, precise location, size, type, tenure, availability, condition, energy performance, price, rent, service charge, rates and description.

- You can archive your properties and can optionally record the occupier / buyer, transaction value, and transaction date. Your properties will be automatically archived after 90 days, but you will be given an opportunity to renew them after 60.

- Add your clients’ requirements, so that agents marketing their properties will get in touch with you with relevant suggestions. Your requirements will be automatically deleted after 60 days, but you will be given an opportunity to renew them after 30.

- Link properties and requirements to your profile so that users have a clear point of contact, and so that they can be discovered by your contacts when they view your details or check their overview page.

What are the benefits for you?

Reorb provides you with a wide range of benefits, because:

- Your properties are viewed by a targeted and receptive audience of commercial real estate professionals, including many of your clients.

- Our users can discover your properties in a variety of different ways from a single upload: by searching the Properties section, saving searches to be alerted on their overview page and by email about matching new content, discovering it on their contacts’ profile pages, and sharing it with their contacts via internal messages.

- Our industry leading search engine optimisation means that your properties can easily be found through keyword searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo.

- You are not dependent on your email bypassing spam filters and inbox limits, and are not subjected to the costs of conventional advertising or hard copy printing and mailing.

- All employees at your company can update and remove the properties you upload, and you can easily change the profile linked to a service when key contacts change jobs.

- Our users can add the properties that they are most interested in to their favourites and can engage with them interactively, providing much greater exposure than a few seconds in their inbox or on their desk.

- Our Properties section receives significant additional traffic as a result of Reorb’s many other features.

- It is free for you to upload your properties, and free for our users to explore them. We are generously supported by our advertisers, who appreciate the power of reaching such a specific audience.

Major commentators point towards a softening in the UK

2010-08-17T15:54:47+01:00

To keep property professionals up to date with the latest statistics and opinion, Reorb provides a hub for industry research. It seems strange that in an industry where market information and data are so important that there is no other aggregation of publicly available research reports. We currently have regularly updated UK and market or sector specific research uploaded by over a dozen of the major UK property research houses.

So, if you want to find the latest (or historic) research on any specific market, or just get a UK wide overview, click on the “Research” tab and filter through over 600 research reports. If its a commentary on Leeds offices that you’re after then Sanderson Weatherall have a quarterly market review which tells you all you need to know; for a UK market over-view then Knight Frank, CBRE, Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, GVA Grimley and the Property Archive all produce excellent monthly and quarterly updates. You get the idea!

It’s interesting to see all of the major commentators tentatively pointing towards a softening in sentiment in the UK market. Despite a strong start, all are identifying an altogether weaker second half to the year; a number of underlying reasons and indicators are proposed with Knight Frank amusingly suggesting that the cause of this slowdown is “not only because we’re British and we don’t like to be happy for too a long period. Although of course that might be a factor.” KF might be onto something there!

Is an increase in recruiter numbers indicative of an improving market?

2010-08-12T17:22:51+01:00

Employment markets are a great weather vane for any economy or industry. The team have been interested to see a range of specialist property recruiters signing up to Reorb. There are not so many jobs being uploaded yet but is the general surge in recruiter presence a sign that headhunters are building up the number of individuals on their books or an indication that we might see a resurgence in the number of new positions to be filled in an improving market? Investment in recruitment resourcing is an inevitable show of faith in the prospects of the industry. Either way we look forward to finding out!

Introducing Services

2010-08-11T17:13:26+01:00

What is the Services section?

Reorb includes a Services section, which enables you to:

- Search through databases of specialist services and service requests, by title, organisation, location (including a Google Maps view), sector, type and date.

- Add favourite services to a “Your Services” section, and favourite service requests to a “Your Requests” section, so that you can easily find them later.

- Save your searches to be updated on your overview feed and by email when new services or service requests matching your criteria are added.

- Add your organisation’s services, including the title, brochure, logo, link, location, type, sectors and description.

- Add your service requests, so that service providers will get in touch with you about your requirements. Your requests will be automatically deleted after 60 days, but you will be given an opportunity to renew them after 30.

- Link services and service requests to your profile so that users have a clear point of contact, and so that they can be discovered by your contacts when they view your details or check their overview page.

What are the benefits for you?

Reorb provides you with a wide range of benefits, because:

- Your services are viewed by a targeted and receptive audience of commercial real estate professionals, including many of your clients.

- Your clients can discover your services in a variety of different ways from a single upload: by searching the Services section, saving searches to be alerted on their overview page and by email about matching new content, discovering it on their contacts’ profile pages, and sharing it with their contacts via internal messages.

- Our industry leading search engine optimisation means that your services can easily be found through keyword searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo.

- You are not dependent on your email bypassing spam filters and inbox limits, and are not subjected to the costs of conventional advertising or hard copy printing and mailing.

- All employees at your company can update and remove the services you upload, and you can easily change the profile linked to a service when key contacts change jobs.

- Our users can add the services that they are most interested in to their favourites and can engage with them interactively, providing much greater exposure than a few seconds in their inbox or on their desk.

- Our Services section receives significant additional traffic as a result of Reorb’s many other features.

- It is free for you to upload your services, and free for our users to explore them. We are generously supported by our advertisers, who appreciate the power of reaching such a specific audience.

Exciting new version of Reorb

2010-07-15T15:51:53+01:00

We’ve listened to your feedback and have just launched three new
sections on the Reorb website, which enable you to list, search,
and be alerted about services, service requests, job vacancies,
properties, property transactions, and property requirements.

All of these sections have powerful filters, and the items
uploaded to them are linked to peoples’ profiles and appear in
their contacts’ overview feeds, ensuring that there are myriad
ways for them to be discovered. This connection between content
and people is unique to Reorb, and is an extraordinarily potent
new way of generating business.

Please take the time to explore these new sections and try
sharing some content. Reorb is free for you to use, generously
supported by our advertisers. It is now an incredibly broad and
capable platform, which provides superior functionality to
competitors who often charge a substantial sum.

Over 3000 commercial property professionals are now using Reorb

2010-05-21T10:50:56+01:00

There are over 3000 commercial property professionals from over 1200 organisations now using Reorb to connect with surveyors, investors, developers, occupiers, bankers, and lawyers, to stay up to date with the latest research from the leading surveying firms, and to keep informed about key auction, seminar, conference, sporting and networking events.

Put your contacts and events on the map

2010-04-16T11:45:54+01:00

You can now see where your contacts and events are by viewing them on a Google map.

When you are browsing or filtering your results for contacts and events, you are able to click to see where they all are on the map.

When you are looking at an individual contact or event, you can click to show their precise location on the map. (Your office location will only be shown to others if you are sharing your contact details with them. You can change this setting at any time in by clicking on “Profile” and then “Privacy”).

Reorb is hosting the DTZ Surveyors Hockey League

2010-04-16T11:36:30+01:00

Reorb is hosting the forthcoming season of the DTZ Surveyors Hockey League in our Sports section.

If you’re part of the league, sign up now to join your team. Once there, you’ll be able to:

- see results, fixtures, and announcements for the league at a glance.

- view the team sheets for opposing teams.

- manage your availability for fixtures.

- update your team’s results, including who played and who scored the goals.

- discuss your team’s progress throughout the season.

The league starts on Wednesday 21st April and runs through to the final on Thursday 15th July. There are twenty teams in the league including: Lloyds TSB, Cushman and Wakefield, Savills, Cluttons, Colliers CRE, Nash Bond, Gerald Eve, Jones Lang LaSalle, NB Real Estate, Allsop, King Sturge, Coutts, Schroders, PRUPIM, Knight Frank, CB Richard Ellis, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Drivers Jonas Deloitte, GVA Grimley and DTZ.

If anyone else reading this is interested in hosting their professional sports league on Reorb, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, and we’ll explain the benefits to you. It’s a free service, and one which would make running your league a lot easier!

Reorb held a successful seminar in Cannes

2010-03-19T14:15:19+00:00

Reorb held a successful seminar in Cannes, where we heard from three main speakers and most of the attendees had a chance to contribute to the discussion.

Tom Inglis, Director of Reorb Ltd, spoke about the future of social media in commercial real estate. He discussed how business is currently using social media, why commercial real estate can particularly benefit from it, and how Reorb provides an essential platform to facilitate this.

Karen Cooksley, Head of Planning and Regeneration at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, spoke about her experience of using social media for public consultation in planning and development projects.

Lynette Lackey, Chairwoman-elect of Association of Women in Property, spoke about her desire to use social media to help her organisation’s members network with one another more and directly share business opportunities.

After the main speeches, the attendees discussed a number of relevant issues, including the importance of trust in building professional relationships online, the best ways to use microblogging as a business tool, and whether companies will adopt social media because they recognise the immense opportunity it affords or because they feel threatened by how their competitors and potential customers are using it.

We're holding a seminar about social media in commercial real estate in Cannes

2010-03-03T07:54:58+00:00

We’re holding a free seminar about the future of social media in commercial real estate as part of our presence in Cannes.

The event will be held from 10:00 – 12:00hrs on Wednesday 17th March at The Scotland Club, 55 La Croisette, Cannes. Tea and coffee will be provided.

So far the speakers include:

- Tom Inglis, Director of Reorb Ltd, who will be discussing how business is using social media and why commercial real estate can particularly benefit from it.

- Karen Cooksley, Head of Planning and Regeneration at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, who will be discussing her experience using social media in planning and development projects.

- Lynette Lackey, Chairwoman-elect of Women in Property, who will be discussing her hopes for using social media to encourage more women to engage with her organisation.

We've added "people you may know" and "saved searches"

2010-03-02T08:27:23+00:00

We’ve added two new features to Reorb to help you discover new contacts and research: “people you may know” and “saved searches”.

You’ll see a new page when you click on “Find contacts” which presents you with three columns of suggestions. The first shows you members who have recently joined Reorb, the second people you may know, and the third people from your saved searches. You can still use the search fields in the sidebar to find the people you are looking for and browse the full database by clicking on a separate link.

People you may know ranks everyone in the database once per day based on whether they are connected to you, they are at your organisation, they are near your location, and whether they share sectors, expertises, and motivations with you. You will be shown a random set of results from your most likely matches on the new Find contacts page and on your Overview page. People you may know is a great way to discover new contacts who are relevant to you, which was becoming more difficult now that we have so many members!

Saved searches enable you to enter items in the search fields in the Contacts and Research sections to find the people or reports you are looking for, and then to click on “Save this search” to store the search for future use. You can click on your searches in the sidebar to load them again in the future to find new people or reports that meet the same criteria. People from your saved searches will appear in the right hand column on the new Find contacts page, and by default, you will receive an email alert informing you when new research matching your criteria has been uploaded.

We will be implementing similar features across all sections of the website as they gather more and more content.

Reorb is sponsoring a YEP / CoreNet debate this Friday

2010-02-24T00:23:46+00:00

Reorb is sponsoring a debate held by Young Entrepreneurs in Property and CoreNet Global UK this Friday, entitled “Do on-line networking sites have a place in real business activity?”.

The motion is being debated by Davis Langdon’s Foresight group, and the event is being held at The German Gymnasium near Kings Cross in London. Over 200 people are expected to attend, and they will have the opportunity to ask questions about and sign up to Reorb at our stand.

Please get in touch with YEP if you’d like to go: http://www.yeplondon.co.uk/events-forthcoming.cfm

Cushman & Wakefield research

2010-01-22T13:07:31+00:00

Cushman & Wakefield are now providing content to our Research section, so please keep an eye out for it.

If you’ve got research that you’d like to contribute you can do so by clicking on “Research” and then “Upload research” and filling out the details. If you’ve got a lot of research or simply want to ask some questions, please get in touch with us!

Over 2000 commercial real estate professionals have signed up to Reorb

2010-01-19T08:21:58+00:00

Over 2000 commercial real estate professionals from over 800 organisations have signed up to Reorb.

They are using it to further their business by connecting with surveyors, investors, developers, occupiers, lawyers and other professionals using powerful filters, staying up to date with the latest research, keeping informed about key events, collaborating in industry groups, and promote their experience and expertise by uploading a robust set of property-specific details to their profiles.

You can sign up to Reorb today for free in two simple steps, by visiting our signup page at www.reorb.com/signup.

BNP Paribas Real Estate Lionheart league joins Reorb

2010-01-14T14:14:45+00:00

We’ve just launched the BNP Paribas Real Estate Lionheart Midlands 7-a-side Football League on Reorb!

If you’re part of the league, sign up now to join your team. Once there, you’ll be able to:

- see results, fixtures, and announcements for the league at a glance.

- view the team sheets for opposing teams.

- manage your availability for fixtures.

- update your team’s results, including who played and who scored the goals.

- discuss your team’s progress throughout the season.

New profile fields and better search engine optimisation

2010-01-14T14:04:39+00:00

We’ve just pushed live some changes which significantly improve the information you can include in your profile, and which will make the content you contribute optionally more accessible to search engines.

In your profile, you can now add descriptions to your current and past jobs and qualifications, you can include a secondary email address, Skype name, Twitter name, and blog link. You can also choose from a list of motivations for using Reorb, which includes:

Connect with industry professionals, Consolidate your relationships, Match property requirements, Showcase your properties, Locate specialist services, Exhibit your services, Stay up to date with research, Publish your research, Keep informed about events, Promote your events, Collaborate interactively in groups, Broadcast your organisation, Expand career opportunities, Advertise your job vacancies

Users are able to filter their “Your contacts” and “Find contacts” lists by motivation, which should better enable people to find and be found by relevant interested parties.

On our welcome page you can now click on the stats to display the titles and descriptions (where available) for all of the content on the website. This will enable search engines like Google or Bing to associate your content with keywords, so it will appear in peoples’ searches. Each item of content has a checkbox which enables you to hide it from public view in this way, and confidential events or groups will not be visible by default.