So 2009 is drawing to a close, and of course, I’m reflecting on how much has happened over the past year. Social media conversations have loomed large in my life this year, and they are still continuing to amaze me when it comes to the way they can change or channel my thinking process. I read a post or speak with someone on the telephone and zip, zam, zow, pow, bam!  All of a sudden, my thoughts and the thoughts of others have become a chain of words; and often not just words, but supporting information that further broadens my horizons and gives me more information to bring to the next conversation’s table.
This week, one word chain started with the word “caution” which led to “cautious” and then to “careful” and continued until it lead, as it often does, to a link … in this case, an interesting little tidbit on Everett Rogers’ theory of the Diffusion of Innovations.  Rogers’ Innovation Adoption Curve is a model that classifies adopters of innovations into various categories based on the idea that certain individuals are inevitably more open to adaptation than others.  In the simplest of terms, it talks about how people deal with new ideas.
Innovators: Brave people, pulling the change. Innovators are very important communication.
Early Adopters: Respectable people, opinion leaders, try out new ideas, but in a careful way.
Early Majority: Thoughtful people, careful but accepting change more quickly than the average.
Late Majority: Skeptic people will use new ideas or products only when the majority is using it.
Laggards: Traditional people, caring for the “old ways”, are critical towards new ideas and will only accept it if the new idea has become mainstream or even tradition.
One of the things that the diffusion of innovations curve addresses is that it’s useful to remember that trying to quickly and massively convince “the masses” of the validity of a new, controversial idea is useless. And this made me laugh. Why? Simple…  having “been there” myself several times over the past 20 years has made me sensitive to those people going through the process themselves right now.
Over the past many years, I’ve heard lots of people classify our industry as “slow to adopt,” but the fact is, our industry is made up of individuals, and has a delightful mix of Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards. Of this mix, it is the Early Majority group that tend to ask questions before making statements and decisions. Late Majorities and Laggards are the groups that I am cautious and careful of listening to because they tend to be naysayers. But anyway, I found myself thinking about the Innovators.
That’s when I found myself thinking about Eric Urbane.
Let me tell you a little about this guy who started his career 32 years ago, building apartments for his father’s construction business while he was still in high school. You won’t find a college degree on his resume, but you will find that he’s built/rehabbed and developed over 14,000 units that include tax credit, assisted living, market rate and luxury apartments. He’s worked for only three employers over a thirty year period: fourteen years at Village Green Companies (twelve of the fourteen as a Senior Vice President, reporting directly to the CEO/Owner) and at one point responsible for $150,000,000 a year in construction volume scatted over seven states and concentrated in the Midwest.

In 2003, Eric set out on his own with Village Green’s blessing (and, in fact, he continued to work for VG part-time while he grew his business).

Now, let me introduce you to Urbane Apartments, which operates in the Detroit/SE Michigan, ranked #8 in The Largest 50 Metropolitan Areas and their Major Constituent Cities , and specifically in the cities of Birmingham and Royal Oak in the heart of Oakland County. While Oakland County is the fourth wealthiest county in the nation, Michigan continues to rank #1 nationally for unemployment for the fourth year running, making it tough as hell to do business there, period.

Urbane’s communities have achieved the highest rent per square foot/unit in SE Michigan, some exceeding $3.00 per S/F in a market where the “competition” is priced at less than a buck. In fact, one of their challenges with financing has been that they created their own real comps, because they’ve essentially created their own market. While it’s true that Urbane has only a total of (310) units at (14) scattered locations, it’s important to note that the multiple locations are more difficult to manage profitably than (310) units at a single location. And yet keep them profitable, at 92% occupancy and holding, is exactly what Eric does.

But that’s not what makes Eric an innovator … this is what does:  Since 2004, Eric has marketed his communities entirely, 100% via social marketing online.

Today, and thousands of inbound links later, UrbaneApts.com, UrbaneLobby.com and UrbaneBlog.com receive over 15,000 visitors month (and in case you’re not sure how good that is, we know of one major player with 42,000 apartment homes who drew 38,000 visitors per month to their web domains; another whose monthly visitors start at under 3,000 for 4,500 units; and yet another that does better than most at around 8,000 monthly visitors against 2,500 units, and is better approaching Eric’s example thanks to a noticeable surge when social campaigns are deployed).  Eric has a year-long consulting contract with Paragon Properties to help them enter the Social Media marketing world. Eric has set some lofty goals that demonstrates how someone can scale his efforts.

Performance goals for 2010 for Paragon Properties:
Increase Web Traffic by 60%
Increase Physical Traffic, (Guest Cards) by 20%
Decrease Market Costs by 30%

And on Eric’s own sites I quote: “We have achieved some excellent results at Urbane with our internet marketing strategies, and we have figured out “How to Move the Google Needle”.”
·    Increased on line web site traffic by over 110%,
·    Increased actual walk-in the door traffic by 58%and our rentals (net rentals) by over 68%,
·     LOWERED, our Cost per Lease by 50%.

Now that you know Eric a little better, let’s circle back to old Rogers and his Innovation Adoption Curve … because, not remarkably, what has made Eric Urbane infamous in thought and word chain circles throughout our industry has less to do with his success than his innovative strategy.
Checkout an Resident Event Eric created and then promoted on Facebook . The recent Draw on the Walls Sharpie Party was over the top, and was brought to national attention by Sharpie!

In short, Eric Urbane has rocked the web; and because he has, I know that the rest of us can, too.
Stay tuned to this blog for a series of posts in 2010 titled “Multifamily Innovators” Do you know someone we should feature?