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The History Of
CyberProfessionals™
The
CyberProfessionals™ got their start in the summer of 1995.
A group of RE/MAX agents chatting on the old RE/MAX CompuServe Forum had
an idea: Come together in one location, meet face to face and share marketing
ideas.
The first meeting was held at a hotel in
Stamford
,
CT
in
August of 1995. There were nine people in attendance, all but one from the
Northeast. The original members in
Stamford were:
Ed Bloom
,
Jon McLeod,
Tammy
Ross
,
Linda Davis, Judy Wolfson, Chris Petit, Joe Hirsch, Van Billings and all the way
from Kansas City,
Cindy DiCianni
. It was like they had known
each other for years. The
CompuServe forum was the catalyst of this initial meeting and three members in
attendance are still an active part of our group today. Linda Davis,
Cindy
DiCianni
and
Ed
Bloom
.
.JPG) The
original name of the group was not CyberProfessionals™. It was known as G.S.
which unofficially stood for "Group Sharing" and some other names
along the way. At one time, part of the group was known at the Couch Potatoes,
due to their habit of meeting on the hotel lobby couches to share ideas. No
matter what the G.S. group was being called, it was the beginning of a
nationwide networking and idea sharing group unlike any other.
With
the success of the first G.S. meeting in August, the group decided to take
advantage of the slower market time of December of that year to hold their
second meeting. This meeting was held in
Atlantic
City
,
NJ
and new members joined the group
including Cheryl Grossman and "Special"
Ed Haraway
.
With the popularity of this growing group, it was decided to begin meeting twice
a year. Some of the ground rules were formed in these early stages of the group.
Each meeting would be extremely casual.
T-Shirts, sweatshirts and blue jeans would be the dress of the meetings.
Only one member from an area would be invited to join the group in order to
allow a member to continue to feel free to share ideas.
Most importantly, each member would be required to participate at each
meeting by presenting marketing ideas with handouts in what was called "15
Minutes of Fame". This 15 Minutes of Fame concept is the core of the group
and is the most valuable portion of the meeting. In addition, knowing there were
other conventions and seminars to attend throughout the year, the meetings were
to be kept as inexpensive as possible.
The
third meeting of the G.S. group was held in
Baltimore
,
Maryland
in June of 1996. Each meeting grew in members. Some of the original members
would fall out, but there were always new agents interested in joining the
group. Many people would hear about
the G.S. group from the CompuServe forum or while attending RE/MAX International
conventions. More importantly, this small group of RE/MAX agents were making
friendships and connections to fellow agents across the country. Referrals
became common among the members.
.JPG) Meeting
four was in
Orlando
,
Florida
in November, 1996. Meeting five was held in
Atlanta
,
Georgia
in May of 1997. Meeting six was held in
Ft.
Myers
,
Florida
in November of 1997 and hosted by
Brett Ellis
.
In June of 1998, the group met in
Baltimore
,
Maryland
.
Meeting seven has been looked back upon as one of the best meetings of the
group. A somewhat newcomer in the technology field was invited as a guest to
address our group. Allen Hainge was known by a few of our members for his own
internet marketing group called "CyberStars". In addition to Allen, we
were fortunate to have Howard Brinton Superstars, Chris "CC" Cormack
and Mary Charters address our group. Everyone
left the
Baltimore
meeting extremely pumped up with great ideas.
In
November of 1998 the group met again in
Atlanta
,
Georgia
.
Major sponsors began to come forward and pay to sponsor parts of our meetings.
The ninth meeting of G.S. was hosted by member
Joe
Heffley
in
Denver
,
Colorado
in June of 1999. This was the first
time the meeting was held somewhere other than the east coast in consideration
of our growing national membership. RE/MAX International CEO Daryl Jesperson
addressed the group. We were
becoming a national organization with an unofficial membership of around 50
agents communicating online and through email with 20-25 attending each meeting.
The
November 1999 meeting was held in
Orlando
,
Florida
.
For the first time, we decided to hold our fall meeting in conjunction with the
National Association of Realtors convention. We found it easier to find speakers
and vendors who were in town to attend the convention. We would meet for two
days and take a third day to attend the NAR trade show.
During lunch we would meet to discuss what we found on the huge tradeshow
floor. We also voted at this meeting
to better organize our group and a new name and logo was created. November 1999,
the CyberProfessionals™ were born! A website was built and became a place for
the members to come together and see each other's websites. New meeting
information would be posted on the site as well as polls and conversation
threads. The website was also used in recruiting new CyberProfessionals™ members
for upcoming meetings. It was also
decided at this time to open the membership to agents from companies other than
RE/MAX.
May
of 2000's meeting was held in
Washington
DC
along with the NAR mid-year conference. Since
the mid-year conference held quite a smaller trade show, we decided that future
spring meetings would be held in other locations.
November
of 2000 was one of the more memorable meetings. It was held in
San
Francisco
,
California
along with the NAR fall convention. Because of time changes for many of the
members, several people arrived a day early. This was Election Day and while
most had voted by absentee ballot, the controversial election returns throughout
the night kept many of our group up and glued to the television. The meeting
went off without a hitch however and for a second time in our group’s history,
we were videotaped by RE/MAX Satellite Network for later broadcast on RE/MAX's
RSN network.
The
next meeting of the CyberProfessionals™ was held in
Scottsdale
,
Arizona
May of 2001. The group enjoyed some of the best weather in
Arizona
during our stay and
Troy Jarvis
was a great host.
After dinner, instead of heading to the lobby couches, we met around the
pool and shared more ideas.
A
major challenge of the group has been finding an LCD projector for the group to
use at each meeting. After several close calls it was decided in
Arizona
to charge a $75.00 association fee to become an official member of the group.
We currently have 52 paid members and our own LCD projector. We also have
a private members only Intranet website where we can meet for online chats,
share files, and participate in discussion threads. .
Our
14th meeting was held in
Chicago,
Illinois
again just prior to the NAR fall convention. We were very fortunate to have
Howard Brinton Superstar Buddy West address our group. We were also given an
advanced
peak
of On-line
Agent’s new software due
February 15, 2002. Meeting 15
was held in May of 2002 in Naples, Florida. Our next meeting was November,
2002 in New Orleans, LA.
.JPG) Meeting 17 found the
CyberProfessionals™ in Indianapolis, IN in May of 2003. Besides having a
fantastic meeting, we were entertained one evening by riding a bus out into the
countryside of Indiana to Bonge's Tavern. What a wonderful
experience! Thank you Roger. Later that fall we were back for the
second time in three years to San Francisco. What can you say about San
Francisco! Most of our group attended the Trade Show at NAR! Some of
us even discovered that you shouldn't encourage local taxi drivers to "see if
they can get their taxi off the ground"... Hey, it wasn't that bad! We all
survived didn't we?
In 2004,
CyberProfessionals™ celebrated their 10th anniversary, first with our May
meeting in Providence, Rhode Island hosted by Linda Davis. Besides being
one of the best organized meetings (no surprise there), we also were treated to
some fantastic food and fun in the heart of Providence. We ended the year
with our 20th meeting in Orlando, Florida. We had record attendance at
this meeting and for the very first time in our existence, our meeting was held
in a Castle. Ok, it wasn't a REAL castle, but at least we could spot our
hotel from anywhere on International Drive. The hit of this meeting was
the trade show at the NAR convention where we identified unique and popular
vendors with a "CyberProfessionals Cool Spot" sticker. We are anxious to
incorporate our improvements for this new member "alert" system in time for our
Fall 2005 meeting in San Francisco.
2005 brings familiar
cities for our meetings. In May we enjoyed Southern Hospitality in
Atlanta, Georgia. Hosted by members Sid & Nancy Minor, we had a
wonderful time and even a visit by Elvis! We returned to San Francisco, California
in late October. This was our third return to the
city and we never fail to find great food, great entertainment and of course a
great meeting!
In 2006 we were back on the
East coast in Annapolis, Maryland. This was the first time our group
met in Annapolis and "Special" Ed Haraway was a fantastic local member host! November, NAR decided to move forward with the
original convention plans in New Orleans, LA. NAR cooperated with us
to find appropriate meeting space due to the Hurricane. We hit our
favorite restaurant in the city, K-Paul's Louisiana Restaurant. K-Paul's
is rated
as the best food by many members of our group.
2007 took
us to Albuquerque, New Mexico in May hosted by member Mark Fiedler. We met
at the Sandia Resort on the outskirts of Albuquerque. What a beautiful
part of the country. Many members stayed on a couple of extra days to take
in the sights and scenery.
 The
November 2007 meeting was held in conjunction with the NAR Convention in Las
Vegas, Nevada. The caliber of our group continues to evolve with new
additions to our membership. At the end of 2007, we are just over 50
members strong.
The end of April, 2008 the CyberProfessionals
gathered in Pittsburgh, PA. This was the first time we met in the month of
April as several of our members are becoming involved in the NAR Mid-Year
conference. Pittsburgh weather was beautiful and the location was superb!
Our next meeting will be in Orlando,
Florida in conjunction with the NAR convention in November.
Our Board of Directors is an informal group who make the few decisions necessary
to keep the group running and organized. Linda
Davis serves as the unofficial “mom” who collects the dues, keeps the
membership list and plans the meeting agendas.
Les Sulgrove administrates our websites, creates our programs and “orchestrates” the
meetings with our new LCD projector. Cindy
DiCianni plans the dinners during our meetings.
We have had such great meals that the dinners have now become a special
part of our meetings. Some of our
best ideas have been shared over good food!
Cheryl
Grossman
, Sid Minor, Judy
Burkett, Bunny Mostad and Deb Alderson
serve as sounding boards for meeting ideas.
We have come a long way since the days in
Stamford
,
Connecticut
.
Friendships have formed and business relationships have grown through our
nationwide network. We are looking forward to the next time we all get together
as CyberProfessionals™.
- Les
Sulgrove, self appointed historian of the CyberProfessionals™.
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