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I recently returned from the MBA Annual Convention in Atlanta, and must say I was impressed.  I’ve been to other conferences, and other MBA conferences.  The show was nice.  But that’s not what really caught my attention. What really stood out to me was that people were busy.  No, not the puffery-type of busy we hear so often (“How am I?  I’m busy!”).  I mean busy.  I mean running-from-meeting-to-meeting busy.  I mean meeting-schedules- in-20-minute-increments busy.  I mean top sales executives who never, ever admit they’re tired telling me they’re tired.

There was a real air of determination on the exhibit floor and at the headquarters hotel.  Yes, times are a bit uncertain, maybe even grim.  But I didn’t hear much whining about Dodd-Frank.  I didn’t see much wailing or gnashing of teeth about Foreclosure-pacolypse.  No, no one’s happy about any of these developments.  But instead of wringing their hands, they’re rolling up their sleeves.  Just another day in the mortgage industry, circa 2010.

And you know what else I’m seeing?  Collaboration.  A new spirit of understanding that Congress, your state’s Attorney General/Governor-in-waiting and a variety of federal agencies and bureaus with more letters in their names than people who understand the industry don’t really care if you are in title, appraisal, realty, mortgage origination or tech.  Right now, we’re all real estate and mortgage.  And, for the past decade, while we’ve sniped at the other silos in our industry, the mainstream has remained oblivious to what we do.

That appears to be ever-so-slowly, and finally, changing.

No, there was no hand-holding.  Nobody sang Kum Bay Yah to my knowledge, unless it was at one of the late, late afterhours parties.

But I think the good people of the industry are starting to understand that some level of collaboration will be necessary for survival.  Not to mention innovation and flexibility.

The wave of change is clearly not over yet.  There will be no return to The Good Ole’ Days.  But there is opportunity.  There is business to be done.

And it strikes me that the attendees of the MBA Annual in 2010 very much get that.  Kudos.