There is no reason that your community should be on Social Media ~Right?

Since part of our chairman's Nelson Jacobsen, background involves a life time in emergency management and a new area called CrisisData he has been at the forefront of the social media citizen movement.

Specifically, This tread of using social media to communicate during a disaster is changing the whole world of emergency management.  Recently Nelson was part of a team of volunteers that assisted at the National Emergency Managers Association special workshop called SMEMCamp



This event allowed emergency managers "EM" to have access to social media practitioners who shared their experiences and knowledge in social media to help the EMs understand something that is completely overtaking their world.

More important to understand is that social media is 100 percent cloud based and this is really the forest behind the trees of twitter, facebook etc.  So yes what is popular is going to change and board's will have to learn to use new communications technology or skills and there is nothing else to do~  save to adapt.  

It should not be lost on boards and managers of Common Interest Communities that they need to adopt a social media strategy!  Not only because most of their members are already there; we know from recently disasters that citizens are going to turn to social media to communicate during them.

We have to wonder if the property management company in Georgetown, DC been on twitter would they would have seen the alerts that the DC government has posted. We saw them and changed our plans for the day.  They didn't and the outcome is a disaster

When your on social media it is interlinked and your emergency managers and national defense use these open system to look for what we call noise on the wire.

• For more information about CrisisData visit here. 
• To establish your community Twitter visit here

If you do one thing after reading this! We would advise that each CIC establish a twitter feed not only communicate with your membership -- it needs to be connected to you local government, utilities companies and emergency responders and you need to share this account with a couple of board members so what they can monitor and respond with it matters most in your community.

Here is a simple example of how to use Twitter during an emergency.

If your community is interested in Community Emergency Plans or how to establish a social media presence please contact. Hastatus, LLC follow @hastausllc or @intercommassoc

Once again Not paying mortgage not paying association assessments.

Home sales, prices below last year’s rate - Real Estate - MSNBC.com

Home sales, prices below last year’s rate
Foreclosures in April surged, according to National Association of Realtors
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Updated: 3:21 p.m. ET May 15, 2007

WASHINGTON - The pace of existing home sales slowed in the first quarter by almost 7 percent compared to a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

In the latest indication of the housing market’s slowdown, the NAR said home sales reached a 6.4 million annual rate compared to 6.9 million in the same quarter of 2006.

The report came on the same day that RealtyTrac Inc., an industry research firm, said mortgage lenders foreclosed on 62 percent more U.S. homes in April than a year ago.

I am not sure how many ways to post this but if someone is not paying their mortgage does anyone reading this actually think if they live in a Condo, Townhouse or Single Family Homeowner Association that the dues for the community are being paid.

So what happens when the dues or assessments are not paid? The community is now running a deficit budget and they means that the overall community is now not in compliance with Federal underwriting guidelines...........So let think Fannie, Freddy and any other backer of mortgages.....

Since wall street has been buying these for sometime as well do you think they are telling the investors in these companies that a potential problem exist. When I called the Wall Street Journal and talked to one of the reporters about this he pretty much blew me off.

So I wonder how long this house of cards is going to stand.....

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