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What do you know?  It only took me about two weeks to get another blog posting together.  My apologies, but, as you might have guessed, I’ve been busy!  

But seriously, it’s a new year.  In some ways, for the mortgage industry, it looks a lot like 2010 will be 2009 Part II:  Return of Darth Regulator.  In this sequel (prequel?), I sense that the mortgage and real estate industry won’t be waiting around to see what happens much longer.  (Note to self:  blog about innovation and adaptation SOON.)  I’m seeing a lot more “doing” than I did last year at this time, and I applaud that.

For now, let’s start with my own little list of resolutions for the New Year.  And please just go ahead and assume I want to lose weight, buy a bigger house, witness a Cleveland world championship in any sport while I still have my eyesight and save at least two endangered species.  From there, I resolve to…

1. Write shorter blogs.  (Sub-resolution:  never, ever cave in to the need to use the words “epic” or “opus” to describe a previous blog post again.)
2. Travel more.  Social media is nice, but nothing beats face to face in any service industry.
3. Update my Web site.  A year and a half is long enough, I think.
4. Move beyond LinkedIn and Facebook.  The next wave is coming.  Time to prepare.
5. Adapt alongside the mortgage industry.  My clients will be adapting.  As a service provider, I will need to as well.  Those who aren’t….won’t be with us much longer.  Some of this will include, to the chagrin of some, speaking directly to the consumer.
6. Make the most of my LinkedIn forums.  I moderate a couple of excellent LinkedIn groups:  Real Estate and Mortgage Executive Forum and Title Insurance and Settlement Service Network (and yes, it is absolutely impossible to create a title in this industry which is under 10 words).  Great people, good discussions and idea exchange.  I think we can do a lot more, and I want to see more of the industry’s best and brightest getting more involved.  There’s a lot to be gained for them and for us.  A lot of potential which I’ll be looking to take to the next level very soon.
7. Use fewer em-dashes and parentheses.  I know they can get redundant—sorry Mom (and my other 8 loyal readers!).
8. Write more frequent blog posts.  If people are really finding value at one’s blog, they need to be able to go there consistently and find new material!
9. Do my part to remind the real estate industry that, to the outside world, it’s just “the real estate industry.”  Not the title industry.  Not the mortgage or realty or appraisal or vendor management industry.  Sure there are places where conflict is bound to arise amongst the segments.  But to the consumer and, more importantly, to the regulator just starting to get warmed up to it, we’re just the Big Bad mortgage or real estate industry.  They don’t have warm feelings or good intentions for our industry, and they won’t care if we’re vendor management companies, title agencies or abstractors.  Time for all of us to play on the same team.
10. Write shorter blogs.  Just reminding myself!  More soon…