Transcript: WGAN-TV Virtual Tour Super-Heroes at Your Service13624
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85-WGAN-TV Virtual Tour Super-Heroes at Your Service: How Business communities Inspire Creativity to Mitigate Crisis with Texas Tech University Marketing PH.D. Candidate Kelley Cours Anderson, M.S. (@kcoursa) | Wednesday, 18 November 2020 Reprinted with permission of Researcher Kelley Anderson, M.S., PH.D. Candidate at Texas Tech University. -- WGAN-TV Live at 5: Virtual Tour Super-Heroes at Your Service: How Business Communities Inspire Creativity to Mitigate Crisis with Texas Tech University Marketing PH.D. Candidate Kelley Anderson, M.S. Hi All, Transcript (video above) If you are a Matterport Service Provider, you are a Super-Hero and it's likely that your virtual tour business has increased as a result of COVID-19, concludes a survey of WGAN Forum Members conducted by Researchers Kelley Anderson, M.S., PH.D. Candidate and Ashley Hass, MBA, PH.D. Student at Texas Tech University. 71 percent of WGAN Forum Members saw their virtual tour business increase, according to the research paper. While ALL services - photography, video, drone, 360 imagery, Virtual Tours - increased - virtual tours increased the most. 90 percent of those surveyed anticipate that virtual tours will be more essential following COVID-19 too. On WGAN-TV Live at 5 on Wednesday, 18 November 2020, I interviewd Researcher Kelley Anderson, M.S., PH.D. Candidate at Texas Tech University ✓ WGAN-TV Live at 5: Virtual Tour Super-Heroes at Your Service: How Business Communities Inspire Creativity to Mitigate Crisis with Texas Tech University Marketing PH.D. Candidate Kelley Anderson, M.S. WGAN Forum Members are Super-Heroes according to the Summary of the research paper titled: ✓ Super-Heroes at Your Service: How Business Communities Inspire Creativity to Mitigate Crisis "[WGAN Forum Members took on] a new identity of a ‘super-hero,’ where they assist to bring normalcy and sustain the market while keeping others safe," according to the study's authors that researched the impact of COVID-19: 1) How do [virtual tour photographers] react and modify strategies to maintain services during a crisis? 2) How [does the We Get Around Network Forum] influence strategic changes? "76% participated in [the WGAN Forum] because of information exchange is beneficial for them and their businesses, concludes the researchers. The researchers methodology also included content analysis of the We Get Around Network Forum: "1001 total posts; 221 discussions from [WGAN Forum was] scrapped (NVivo NCapture January to June 2020)," according to the Summary Report. The 14-page Summary Report - Super-Heroes at Your Service - is available free to WGAN Forum Members. (When you join the WGAN Forum, you automatically receive a link to this Summary. Or, Private Message me - @DanSmigrod - with the Subject Line: Super-Heroes at Your Service Among the quotes from the WGAN Forum included in the 14-page Summary Report: Ambiguity and Role Conflict - I live in a state that has a stay at home order....but.... Real Estate is considered critical...Photos/VR-tours are very important right now, under the circumstances. I’m just not sure if they are legally "essential" since Realtors can, technically, do them without a professional photographer. One of my clients thinks this is the exact time that you NEED professional help. (WGAN Forum post) Creative Community-Driven New Identity Practices - feel like people in the neighborhood look at me wearing a mask and going into the house. They know that I'm a service provider, and they respect that. Some of them even wave at me. ... It's nice. And it's also respecting their community because I don't want to be the guy that brings the virus to their community where they live, where their kids are... (WGAN Member interview) Outcomes of a ‘Super-Hero’ (or Villain?) Identity - ... Before the coronavirus, VR-tours were seen predominantly as a cool gimmick that many companies could live without. But since the virus started getting out of hand, and nation-wide quarantines began, VR-tours have become essential to businesses, which gives us VR-tour makers plenty to be optimistic about. (WGAN Forum post) This virus is beyond any global research and is evolving faster than any testing against it. It is self-weaponizing. The United States is now the largest carrier and sufferer. No money nor business acumen will stop it unless people stop spreading it. Stop scanning. Stay home. Save lives. (WGAN Forum response) And, this from the Study's section titled: Implications ● This study helps to answer calls for how [virtual tour photographers] can help others cope with the crisis and support the economy (Pantano et al. 2020). ● We find specifically that online business communities [WGAN Forum] can build creativity to manage a crisis and that there is an opportunity for business [virtual tour photographers] innovation to be a positive result emerging from COVID-19. Stakeholder Implications ● [virtual tour photographers] engage in [the WGAN Forum] to gain creative inspiration to pursue productivity ● Collaborative networks - there is a more significant role beyond information-offering, including prompting creative strategies ● Policy makers - play a greater role in protecting our service ‘super-heroes’ as they protect our community and the marketplace --- It's sweet to have independent researchers do a deep-dive into WGAN Forum posts and reach out to WGAN Forum Members to speak to at length. In an email to schedule her WGAN-TV Live at 5 appearance, Kelley wrote, in part: "... I wanted to let you know that the paper we presented this week was the piece where we used the “data” that came from your amazing Forum. It is de-identified purposely to maintain anonymity for the conference until this is accepted as a publication." "We’re still working to get this published formally in an academic journal, but I wanted to let you know of this progress. It received amazing feedback: This working paper won the best services paper for the conference – an amazing honor and a testament to the importance of your communities’ work! So thank you again for all of your support on this project. I will be adding a proceedings paper to my website in a week or two, but don’t want to do so before sharing some of the managerially important insights with the Forum as we agreed." "Again – I am still excited to share insights of this and any other insights related to this research stream with the community via the WGAN-TV Live at 5. Nonetheless, I would like to share a report summary ahead of this. I’ve attached a report that you can share with the WGAN community. If you have any questions or suggestions related to this report, let me know. This report from the working paper should only be shared with your WGAN Community (and not shared without prior approval from us)." --- Best, Dan --- Free Text Reminders for WGAN-TV Live at 5 shows: Text Me 5 Minutes Before Air! ---- Transcript (video above) - Hi, All. I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Wednesday, November 18, 2020, and you're watching WGAN-TV live at 5. We have an awesome show for you today. I have to read it. The title's so long, we may not even be able to finish the entire show. Virtual Tour Super-Heroes at Your Service: How Business Communities Inspire Creativity to Mitigate Crisis. And here to talk to us about that is Kelley Anderson. Hey, Kelley. - Hello. Thank you for having me. - Thanks for being on the show. Kelley is a Texas Tech University marketing PH.D. candidate. And while you may not be familiar with Kelley's name, Kelley Anderson, you're likely - as a Matterport Service Provider - to be very familiar with some of the statistics that Kelley has teased out of data. So, two that come to mind, they're statistics that Matterport uses all the time, in terms of residential real estate listings, up to 9% of residential real estate listings sell at a higher price when using a 3D tour, and up to 31% of listings with a 3D tour sell faster meaning fewer days on the market. And during that study, Kelley also teased out of the data that 90% of the tours were actually Matterport. So Kelley, as a Member of the Community of Matterport Service Providers, thank you for those two numbers. They're just awesome to help the community succeed faster. - Absolutely. It was a fantastic study. And then it covers four geographically diverse markets. And so we were really excited to be able to tackle that data and really understand what was happening in the marketplace. - Cool. So you're almost like a Super-Hero or celebrity for us as the actual author of the study that teased out that data. So, for our audience, if, for those watching, if you're a Matterport Service Provider, you ARE a Super-Hero. And it's likely that your virtual tour business has increased as a result of COVID-19. Kelley, that is like, how did you ever come up with this whole concept of virtual tour service providers being Super-Heroes and what did your study reveal? - Sure. So, the Super-Hero is a bit of a play on words, but I think we all understand there's a lot of Super-Heroes in today's environment with the pandemic. So, a lot of people are going out and doing what they can to help people live their lives. And you guys are an important part of that, especially in the real estate market. The study itself that we're talking about today is one in which a co-author and I have really investigated the platform. And thank you all for helping to contribute to that. And so by monitoring the WGAN Forum, we found a few interesting things. ... Similar to other small business owners, we're struggling to figure out what our role is right now. What is it during the pandemic? How can we help? And we saw very clearly that struggle early on in the Forum, on the Forum, during the pandemic. But ultimately what we found is that the Forum itself is very special. It allowed everyone to really communicate and start collaborating and understanding what that role is and what it can be. And certainly some discourse, interaction there, but a lot of it is really revealing that it can help verify a lot of the practices that you guys are doing to help make this happen, to help real estate continue. - So, obviously we're talking about COVID, COVID-19. I think of Super-Heroes, really, as the doctors, the nurses, the healthcare workers, the cashiers at grocery stores. Even today, Wednesday, November 18, 2020, in the US alone, there's more than 250,000 deaths. I think we're talking about almost 12 million people infected. So Super-Hero seems a little bit strong. So, I mean, how do we even elevate a Matterport Service Provider, a virtual tour creator to a Super-Hero status? What is it that you teased out in from reading the We Get Around Network Forum that kind of led to that conclusion? - Great question. So, I think what we really are talking about is how that Community came together to really figure out how to continue doing things in everyday life while keeping people safe. And that came through in our interviews with individuals as well as on the Forum, where photographers felt that they were really helping to keep their community safe. So it is, as I mentioned, a bit of a play on words, certainly, and not to devalue the Super-Hero efforts that are done by the medical professionals and other essential workers. But certainly we see that the service can help to facilitate people's normalcy during this time of a crisis. I think when you reached out to me in March, or I actually, I reached out to you and we had a conversation in March, I seem to recall that your initial reaction was there might be some concern about how service providers, virtual tour - Matterport Service Providers - would do during the pandemic. And I suspect the results actually surprised you. - Right. I think when Ashley Haas, my co-author and I, started to talk about this project, there was a concern simply because small business owners, this is - over half of the population in the United States are employed by small business owners. Yet a lot of the statistics that were coming out show that many of these individuals don't have enough cash on hand to sustain their businesses. So small business owners specifically, which ends up being our, really, our research on a topic that we're interested in, we were concerned about small business owners in general. With technology, there's a lot of potential opportunity. I think what we saw very early in March, so it was a concern because there's essentiality questions as I, as a VR photographer, Matterport Service Provider, is my job, is my role essential or is it not? And that was not consistent, right? I know many of you communicated that. In some states, it was very clear, but in other states or areas of the world, it wasn't so clear as to whether that role was essential or not. So certainly, I think what we saw though, to your point of being a little bit surprised, the [WGAN] Community effort and really trying to evaluate what that role can be. It certainly is a surprise to see the significant propel of technology, of this technology, in the real estate market, but it's something that was probably a pent up demand. And then this unfortunate circumstance has shown what this kind of technology can provide for the everyday consumer. - Before we go back and talk more about the timeline of starting this research and around March when COVID was first starting, at least for us in the United States, let's kind of fast forward to the conclusions. You sent me a 14-page Executive Summary. If I turn over and I look at the back page, really some amazing statistics of what you teased out. And granted, the sample size wasn't all that large, but you did do a lot of lengthy interviews with members of the We Get Around Network Forum Community. What were the... Take us through the highlights. - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what we found, really, is that through this question of essentiality that we were just talking about, individuals, small business owners were turning to the [WGAN] Community. And that's not surprising. Many people in that small sample study said that they really turned to the Community because they feel like it really can help them and their businesses. And which is really important. And that ends up being something we tease out that small business owners have a very unique identity comparative to a larger organization, right? Where you have to negotiate some of these things. Small business owners ultimately bring in their own personal values into their businesses. And that's something that really hasn't been discussed at least from our standpoint. So that was a big key insight that emerged from that. But more importantly, how in turning to the [WGAN] Community that allows for some of that verification that, "oh, I'm doing the right thing." ... let me ... become more creative in my practices so that we can make this happen. We can maintain our productivity during this time of a crisis, and ultimately to be able to help others and help the larger community. But from the end result of what we're really trying to propose and recommend, for small businesses, even outside of this [WGAN] Community, we feel there's an opportunity. What you guys have is very special. The [WGAN Forum] Community itself is not something that's done in all industries. So the development of this Community really helped to propel and sustain some of these businesses, if nothing else, from having some colleagues to talk about your business. So we recommend small business owners to really leverage some of this online space to build that Community. And for Communities themselves, you showed it within WGAN, but other communities may not happen. We have other research from other industries as well. It shows this is unique. Even small business communities that are existing maybe aren't talking about those creative practices. They're talking about the funding, of course, governmental assistance, which is absolutely pertinent and important right now. But that there might be a larger role for them. And then the third, of course, being policy makers. we, unfortunately, one of the things we find in real estate is, and I'll throw the word out, but understand it's not to demean any of our real Super-Heroes out there, but you kind of end up being an unsung hero as a photographer. You go in there, you're kind of invisible. You do your thing and you come out. But, and that ultimately came out in a lot of the guidance that came from the states and from different countries where you weren't clear what your role was. So we do feel there is an opportunity for policy makers to make sure individuals such as VR photographers and 3D tour photographers have .. are recognized and understood in some of those policies. - I think this is all, this is an interesting kind of backstory. But I think my key takeaway from your work, 71% of the photographers that responded saw an increase in their 3D VR tour service, larger than any other photography service. They all saw their business increase. Photos, videos, drone, web, whatever it was that they were working on. But the one that really stood out was 3D/360 tour creation, or mostly our community, Matterport Service Providers. Do you think that ... that was even a surprise to those that you talked to? That all of a sudden, here comes this crisis, it's called COVID-19. I don't know what's going to happen to my business. And all of a sudden they found that their phone was ringing, their emails were coming in, they were getting texts, they were getting business, or they were somehow getting business. Did that surprise you? Did that surprise the service providers that you talked to? - No, I don't think so. We have to keep in mind what this technology affords consumers and sellers. And I think many felt that they saw, at least through the interviews, which were captured a little bit later than some of the other data that was collected in the Forum. They recognized - you are entrepreneurs. And we recognize there is a lot of opportunity for this service to replace some of what was not being allowed at the time. Allowing people to really go into the home, imagine how they can live there. Or for sellers to be able to allow other people to view the home, but still keep safe, not having to bring as many people into their homes. And so I don't -- I wouldn't say people were surprised. And I certainly could see this application growing. To the height that it has; is what's interesting, right? So it has substantially increased, I'm sure, at Matterport. And seeing other competitors coming in on the market right now too, and seeing how they're flourishing and maybe filling some of the gaps that other brands have. That's been an interesting market development. What's also interesting is to see how it's really helped to propel into other industries beyond just real estate. And so that's a lot of what we talked about too, is how else is this growing? Where else can this help? Seeing it being used in schools to really help replace, some of those visits to the museum they weren't allowed to do. We're seeing new uses come from this. And this is really, this has been an, more of a surprising and interesting development for me. - So tell me a little bit about the methodology that resulted in these conclusions. 71% increase in business. All service providers seemed like all their services increased, or I think 90% of virtual tour service providers indicated that they saw an increase in their business, most of that actually coming in 3D-360. In fact, I'll mention for our viewers if they'd like to get your 14-page executive summary, to go to the website, WGAN.INFO/hero, H-E-R-O. And you can get a copy of Kelley's executive summary. I seem to recall you read a lot of the We Get Around Network Forum. - That's right. So, our methodology for the entire study is a little bit multifaceted. So certainly a lot of data-pull, reading along the way with you all, as this conversation was unfolding over the months of the pandemic. So, much of that was, as you kind of referred to, a content analysis of the We Get Around Network Forum. We had eight interviews with different VR photographers within this Network, as well as a couple of real estate agents that were also photographers. Spent a lot of time with you all. The interviews lasted on average over 80 minutes. Loved getting to understand the business and understanding their role currently. And then the other part was the survey. And so I think many of us were hopeful we might see a larger sample size from this survey. We didn't have a huge result in response. What- - I must say, Kelley, it doesn't surprise me at all. Because I know the photographers are so busy. - Yeah. - It was like almost overnight this light switch went off, and it was almost like they didn't have enough of their own time just to do all the jobs they were being asked to do. I think if we go back to March, and we were talking about, gee, and I do remember you were really concerned about typically solo business owners. Matterport Service Providers are frequently self-employed solo entrepreneurs, solopreneurs. And all of a sudden COVID hits. We're all told to stay in place, shelter in place. And I think you had some concern about what, what would happen to service providers that have been told to shelter in place? You mentioned, I think, a national statistic about how much cash people have on hand in case of an emergency, not a lot. And, I think we all went into this mode about, okay, we're starting to hear that you can get an exemption from sheltering in place if you're deemed essential. Excuse me. And that seemed that if the real estate agents were deemed essential, that somehow they needed digital assets, that their photographers were essential to helping the economy continue to move forward. I guess that's why real estate agents were deemed essential, is that real estate transactions, buying and selling, is such a huge piece of the economy that to have that come to a halt is problematic. And that if you can have a virtual tour, and photos, et cetera, then maybe you still had a way to help someone sell their home or help someone buy a home. - Exactly. - So, going back to March, I think a lot of us kind of just went into, okay, what states are you being deemed essential? And just gathering that information. And I think members just started posting to the Forum, "Hey, we're in New York. We're deemed essential." Or, "We're deemed not essential." So we really had some Members that absolutely could not go out and shoot, end of story, period. And that was a problem. But I think the vast majority, somehow some way, were considered essential and their business just took off like wildfire. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. And we saw even the response from the survey, as well as even qualitatively, that this realization that it was going to fast forward basically overnight, is going to make this more essential long-term. So the opportunities long-term for this technology in this market. And even really helped, triangulating that with some of my previous research, seeing what a difference it can make on the purchase price in the days on the market. If that continues, we're going to probably see this just continue to become almost as relevant as video or photography today. - Yes, my take on it, and I think other members of the WGAN Forum Community voice this similar sentiment, had similar thoughts that COVID did in three to four months what might have taken three or five years in terms of moving innovation forward with residential real estate agents where it almost became essential that a real estate agent offer a 3D tour if they were going to be able to get a listing and explain to a homeowner why they should still move forward and why this technology would help do that. So certainly, my impression, COVID helped move innovation forward in 3D tours in three to four months, would have taken maybe five or seven years, something like that. And I think you found that in your research as well that others had that same thinking. - Correct, yeah. Exactly. - Yeah. So, part of your content analysis, I think you actually looked at more than 200 topics in the We Get Around Network Forum, more than a thousand pages. How do you even begin to, I mean, I read every post, but I never think of somebody, like, who is a PH.D. candidate actually studying our Community. Anything surprise you about doing this content analysis of our Community? - I was actually just speaking with somebody about this, of recognizing that this process, I mean, just taking it to a personal level, was part of processing what was happening in the world. A lot of us had some good questions coming into the pandemic. We still have a lot, of course. But being able to process the pandemic through the lens of the Community was really insightful. And it helped to understand what people were going through, obviously, from a social study perspective, but also how creative individuals could be, really. That crisis mode was there, and even concerned and kind of disabled some small business owners, even though they are quite entrepreneurial. Small business owners tend to be. But this Community helped to really enable them and put them back on track. And that was something that was really special and exciting to learn through that process. - I seem to recall that, back in the early days of being deemed essential, that all of a sudden it was like, okay, I'm essential. What are then going to be the best practices? Oh, I should get gloves. I should get a mask. Maybe I need to wear booties. I shouldn't be touching anything. And I think all of a sudden there was this outpouring of, okay, you're going to shoot. What precautions should you take? What precautions should you communicate to your client? What expectations do you have about your client not having other people around, et cetera? So I think there were some practical, tactical things that came out of the Forum. I guess, even before that is, people kind of sitting around reading the Forum. I think our audience more than tripled overnight in March. And I think that was pretty amazing as people were seeking, well, what are other virtual tour photographers doing? What are other real estate photographers doing? Am I deemed essential? How do I get classified as a category of essential? What kind of, how should I run my business? And so do you want to speak at all to that Community of what all that conversation turned into? - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you communicate it beautifully. I mean, that discussion early on is, certainly from a researcher perspective, is really fascinating because it came to that convergence of understanding what those regular and assumed expected practices should be. So really developing that for a global state. I mean, you guys are not just in the United States. So even that folds into a larger community across the globe. And so by really going through that process of understanding and kind of negotiating with each other of what's necessary and what's not really helped to develop some of that. And we saw that even, you posted it, I want to say in April, of Matterport's recommendations. And you could see you came up with those even before those were posted, right? So, those- - They probably read the We Get Around Network Forum, "Aha, look at this, we better write all this down, put it into these copious notes about best practices." - Yeah, but, I mean, and that's an important aspect of the Community, what thought leaders you have within the Community to come up with that list. And even have those sometimes uncomfortable conversations of whether it's appropriate to do scans right now or not, right? So that kind of- - Yeah, and we had that pushback. I think you reported in your research that not everybody was, "Hey, let's wear your gloves and shoes and go out and shoot." Some were, "Stay in place, shelter in place, shelter in place. Don't create more problems for everybody." So do you recall some of those kinds of pushback conversations in the Forum? - Yes, absolutely. There is a good one that talks about stop scanning, stay home, right? And then that's, and some of the conversation there was even just personal stories about who they've potentially infected because of that. And that kind of a more informalized conversation and communication really created some education, I think, within the Community as well about if you're going to continue, what is it you need to do? (Continued ...) |
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| (Continued ...) What precautions do you need to take? But obviously also trying to keep that in mind as you're developing some of these important, new expectations within this environment. - I don't know if you saw the show, but we did a Town Hall with a number of Matterport Service Providers. Was that part of your research or not? Did you happen to see that show? - It wasn't part of the analysis, but I do remember the show, yes. - Yeah, so even that was interesting because I remember clearly ... and I thought it unexpectedly. It just, I think that's probably one of the great things about having a Community, is an opportunity to crowdsource answers very quickly and discover differences of opinions. because during that program, one of the members said, "Hey, I got infected. I passed it onto my wife without knowing it. You don't want to do that. I'm in Europe. It's way more pervasive here in Europe, but it's going to come to the United States. And you really don't want to be in the position of going out, scanning, getting infected, and pass that on to your spouse or kids or friends, family, whatever." And it was like, wow! That was an interesting perspective. And, but I guess also I would imagine a lot of Members of our community being self-employed were trying to balance this decision about ... do I stay in the house and go bankrupt or do I go out and take as good a care as I possibly can and earn a living. And then I think where this Super-Hero kind of metaphor or analogy turns into was by just doing their job of creating virtual tours, and photos, and video, and other digital assets to sell a home, they essentially we're helping power the economy. - Exactly. I mean, and part of that policy implications that we're trying to communicate and dig into is really reflected in that as well. Understanding risks that are being taken because real estate is an essential, is deemed essential at least in most of the states. That ends up putting individuals in that position to take on that role in order to make that happen. In as far as the Community, being able to have those conversations where sometimes there is some pushback I think is an important component. Being able to have an open communication that really can discuss it. And I'm even seeing it today, right? Where individuals are not -- have decided it's just too large of a risk for their health and their family's health. And they've decided to close businesses down. Individuals I interviewed, even some of them said, "I just decided for the first month to not scan, to close that business." But as entrepreneurial as they are, maybe pivoting some of their businesses to going into website development, to doing other things to really help sustain their living during this time. That was at the time we weren't sure how long that was going to last. - Yeah, I think everyone needed to make individual choices. I know for me in Atlanta, it was really amazing the number of emails or calls that we got from potential new customers. And, hey, I'm sheltering in place. I'm happy to pass that on to another Matterport Service Provider, whether it's in Atlanta or across the country someplace else. But we really did have this dramatic influx. I want to say probably in April, I think in March, I think the entire United States, if not the world, or certainly in our Community was just trying to process, what does this mean for me? Where do I fit in? How am I going to make a living? And, again, even today for November 18, 2020 here, I still don't go out. I shot one job, where I was totally assured that the space would have nobody in it, no one had been in it. It's a business. It's totally empty. It'll be pristine and you don't need to touch a thing. It'll be perfectly staged. But otherwise, literally, I just kept referring those to other Matterport Service Providers that felt that they didn't need to shelter in place. So I think everybody made their own decision to shoot, not to shoot, or to take on other kinds of work at this time. Are there any stories that come to mind either from those interviews or in the Forum that was just, they just kind of stick with you? - Yeah ... I'm reminded especially of a couple of individuals who started their businesses during this time that recognized the need, maybe were in real estate beforehand, and decided to start their businesses. And you saw that influx even coming into WGAN. And some of those stories about the positivity and really the excitement for where they can see that this grows, and having that same positive thing that we found in the survey that they anticipated this was going to be essential, even post COVID. So that encouragement and positivity there, it certainly sticks with me. Finding out, and this is more of a general conversation that I saw in multiple different places, but the marketing, the differences in need for marketing. One of the things we found even in other industries, not necessarily within the WGAN Forum, but a lot of people were throwing marketing ... throwing money at marketing and not seeing any return because ultimately many small business owners right at the start of this kind of you go through a freak out, and you throw a lot of money toward it. And everybody did. Even larger companies and organizations were doing the same thing. So it ended up not being something that was beneficial for the business for that short term. And so there was a lot of recognition throughout industries of that process. In this Community, I would say most people said they, some of them increased it, but I found a lot of people who didn't, who said they turned their marketing off because there were so many people coming knocking on the door for this service that they didn't need it . So those types of stories certainly are really important. - Yes. I recall getting calls. Okay ... I'm going to say adult living community. Typically, what would that be? Memory care, independent living, assisted living. And, oh, by the way, we do that in multiple states. And none of our prospective clients or the family of the clients can actually come visit. We need these tours done as soon as possible in multiple states. And again, I think in terms of an example of crisis meets innovation, that same multi-state adult community might've taken years to come around to the decision that maybe virtual tours might be a good thing from a marketing standpoint. But, like that, overnight. In a similar way, I think some of the largest developers, property management companies in New York that comes to mind, all of a sudden has -- 10% of their inventory or more in multiple buildings across New York City. And they have a need for tours. Also for investors that can no longer travel to come see. And so I think there was a lot of... we've been talking about innovation in terms of Matterport Service Providers saying, "Okay, well, I can do this. I can go out. My phone's ringing, I can take this business. I just need to be really good about gloves, mask. What are the tools that I'm going to use to make sure? What are the process and procedures? What's the CDC saying on this topic?" But a lot of businesses were being innovative in their way of reaching out to service providers, as you said, I think not just in residential real estate, but in all kinds of businesses that have spaces. And so I guess we were helping activate their needs for helping, I guess that's where... Maybe in your own words, Super-Hero. Just tell me more about that metaphor and how that came together for you. What was, maybe you had an aha moment of trying to understand what was happening. - Yeah. It came from honestly a lot of late nights at a whiteboard, drawing out, recognizing how people were moving. We had at one point a two by two we're still playing around with, where we recognized there are individuals who were forced to be Super-Heroes, right? We're talking about the medical workers. We're talking about the frontline service providers at grocery stores and at restaurants. Forced Super-Heroes versus recognizing that others were forced to stay home, but how were they actually going to be inventive and innovative on their own to really being able to propel and help others during this time. And I think a lot of people were in that mindset of trying to figure out how we can help others? How can we keep our community safe, but help others? And, those are the individuals usually propelled with technology that move into that. Not a forced Super-Hero, but a self-determined Super-Hero activity. So, along with their flexible entrepreneurial skill set that they brought in, but that use of technology ends up being what we even discussed, it's like a costuming effect. You come in with your gloves, you come in with your mask, and your booties, and then your camera ultimately ends up being an entry card to being able to help the community. - Wow. So, we literally went through this transformation of maybe who disguised as Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Metropolitan goes into that phone booth and emerges with this outfit that turns into the gloves and booties and the Super-Hero tool, a Matterport pro 3D Camera. - Right. - And is transformed. It's funny because if I probably said to the Community, "Hey, did you know because you create virtual tours during a pandemic you're a Super-Hero?" And I think they would respond, "No, I'm just doing my job. This is what I do. I create digital assets to help residential real estate agents and other businesses succeed faster by providing a way for people to tour a residential listing in the only way that they can during a pandemic. I'm not a Super-Hero, I'm just doing my job." And that's -- I doubt there's any member of our Community that actually thinks of themselves as a Super-Hero. Yet by providing this service, they are propelling an economic engine for the country, and actually with our WGAN Community throughout the world, by helping facilitate business transactions. - That's right. Real estate is a large portion of the economy. So we have to keep that in mind. I mean, it's significant. So the loss of that, certainly it hits the economy, but more than that, it hits ... everyone is moved into a place at this time where nothing is normal. So being able to provide some normalcy, to allow people to even buy or sell homes when they need to ends up being a new act that really kind of drove us to that. And again, intended to be metaphorical in this analysis. But it is, it's a service that ends up being really a pertinent one in this real estate context. But also we're seeing it starting to flourish in other industries too. - Yes. Again, in innovation, in an unexpected way. I would say all our Forum members would probably say, "Well, 24/7 open house tour, every real estate agent should be doing this." But from a practical standpoint, that hasn't been the case. And all of a sudden, COVID-19, a pandemic has actually lit a fire under people to force them to innovate for them to stay in business. So when you think about residential real estate agents, a hundred percent, near a hundred percent self-employed, so they have to be innovative. And whether -- and even if the last thing that they ever wanted to do was using that new technology because they're technology phobic, they really didn't have a choice. They really had to embrace the technology if they were going to succeed, and then logically reach out. And I suspect our Community would say, "Our conversations never went faster than going from I need a tour, to showing up and shooting." As opposed to, "Well, I'm gathering some information, and then I need to go back and talk to six other people, and ..." No! "Hey, I'm available to shoot, but that window's going to disappear. So if you're ready, let's book it and schedule it." - Right. And, the alternative, there's things like FaceTime, which I know have been increasing for real estate agents as well. But this removed even additional contact needed for that. If you can do it against the seller, the selling listing versus having a buyer's agent come in and do FaceTime, it removes that need. - So you delivered a paper and you won an award. Talk about that, please. - Yeah. This is the paper. So based on those qualitative results, again, that quantitative good directional really awesome statistics that kind of come from that. But the sample's too small for us to do anything academically with, unfortunately. But the qualitative analysis that I was sharing at the very beginning - won for us - the SMA, Society for Marketing Advances Conference that just happened last, a couple of weeks ago. So that conference, we were awarded the best services marketing track paper. And so that was an exciting, exciting award. And I think really speaks to the importance of what we're talking about today, of really being able to provide some fantastic services to help not only sustain businesses, but sustain a larger economy. - Sharon Beatty, Best Paper in Services Marketing? - Correct. - SMA 2020 Conference. What is an SMA? - Society for Marketing Advances. - So Society for Marketing Advances gave you an award, you and your co-author? - Yes, Ashley Haas. - Ashley Haas, who is an MBA/PH.D. student also at Texas Tech University. So congratulations on your honor. - Thank you, thank you. - Your award. And plans to have this study published? - That is the ultimate goal. So that's ... we wanted to share some of the early findings with the Community and be able to pass that forward. But that is our next step, is to get this into a publication format and get it published at one of our top academic journals in marketing. - And who wants to read this and why? I mean, I know I'm totally interested. It was about the Members of the We Get Around Network Forum Community, but why would an academic journal be interested in this topic? - Yeah. We have a very rich services focus in marketing. That's a good subset of our discipline, is to really see how people go through the process of services. There have actually been a number of calls, for obvious reasons, on how businesses are maintaining or maybe even struggling, and what that process is like during the pandemic. So this is something that is certainly of interest currently for academics, so that we can understand and transfer some of that knowledge and learnings into other services to help other businesses. - So what would be some of those learnings to pass on to other verticals with self-employed people? - Right. I think the big one is really understanding that benefit of an online Community that's really business facing. We've done a lot of research in academia about consumers, communities, and how that can help with their identity, how that can help with really understanding who they are and understanding their relationships to brands. This is unique. No one has really even talked about business facing communities, Forums for business owners. And we're seeing that this is an important component for small business owners to really be able to co-create a lot of what you do to really understand what your practices are, not only during a crisis, but that really relates even further beyond that. How you manage other things that come along as a larger business community. Especially technology driven communities, that's important. But I think it really does go into other business communities too. - That's pretty crazy. I just take it for granted why we run a Forum. And, I'm looking at the front page, We Get Around Network Forum, WGANForum.com, 77,000 posts among 12,500 topics. I could imagine that a lot of Members Google a specific thing, they find a post, they discover the We Get Around Network Forum, and then they stay for the Community. And that that Community is like this amazing thing about giving and getting help. And it is remarkable that somehow, some way, we are a Community, even though it's virtual. And, some of us have been lucky enough to meet up in person at trade shows, conferences. I always find that fascinating. And I try my best anytime I'm traveling, which hasn't been for a year, to say, "Hey, We Get Around Network Forum meetup at, in Tokyo, at the Google Street View Summit; in San Francisco at whatever, conference." And I always find that fun getting together with Members. But I've never really thought about like an academic PH.D. candidate, studying our Community as maybe this, what would you call it, sociology to some extent. I guess maybe mostly marketing, but it is like somehow some way we've come together as a Community and faced the crisis together, and maybe came out better individually as our own businesses because we had other people to learn, well, what are you doing? And what are you facing? And what kind of problems, and then how are you overcoming that? But what about this is? And there's that... That has some value to share in an academic journal with other professors, researchers that are interested in teasing out how a Community can help businesses succeed faster. - That's right. I mean, and even pulling from the quantitative survey numbers, I mean, you saw three quarters of those individuals really come for that information exchange but really stay for other reasons. And so that certainly speaks to the importance of a community like this that many small business owners don't have. And I think that's one of the important things when you think about small business owners. Many times you're left to your own devices and you don't have that network to lean on. Again, going back to a larger organization, when you're thinking about a brand identity, or a company organizational identity, it's usually something that while the original owner might have some say, it's an aggregate of many different people's opinions and thoughts on what the business should do, while a small business owner doesn't have that luxury, right? So you have to really focus inward and reflect on your own experiences. And so you're right, from a sociological perspective, this is quite interesting because we start to understand as individuals start to come together how in this space, in a very innovative space, you're not competitive. The goal is really to be able to improve each other's businesses, which is very unique and is something partially related to that technology that brings you all together, but it ends up being something on the far end that is more meaningful to yourselves and to your own businesses, more than just the technology. - It's crazy, isn't it? - It's exciting. - Isn't it crazy? I mean, ... oh, okay. I guess if you work at a large company, you've got a lot of people you can talk to. Yet for our Community that's pretty much all self-employed, it's hard to have a conversation, me included, hard to have a conversation with my wife about, well, should I do this or this or this? Well, I ... But you talk to someone else who's in the same shoes with the same problem or the same challenge, typically in a different location. So you don't really feel like you're talking to a competitor. You're talking about like, wow, this is a community of like-minded people who are interested primarily in maybe making a living as a professional real estate photographer that wants to offer 24/7 open house virtual tours. And, gee, there's 150 plus platforms in this space. There's 50 plus cameras in this space. Maybe I've come to the Forum because I've found Matterport, but I'm interested in other things too. And what do people who don't have a vested interest have to say about one thing or the other? And then I think probably where your research jelled was, okay, let's just focus on COVID-19 meets virtual tour photographers. And what has that impact been? And I think you, I guess it's just fascinating to have you study the Community, and then actually recognize that the Community does have a lot of value, and we may be a little bit unique that other verticals don't have a Community like this. - Correct. Yeah, and, I think the benefit of having this be an innovative technology has allowed the Community to grow and to be able to lean on without having that fear of competition. So that's an important component, as far as making that recommendation. It certainly -- we see local businesses have their communities not usually online, but in this instance, during COVID, this [WGAN] online Community became even more important than even some of those local better business communities. So I think one of the good things to think about with WGAN is the opportunity to really be that global Community, of course, but being able to do so in a safe space where you really kind of lean on each other and not fear that competition, for sure. - Yeah, and... I lost my train of thought on that was- - My light went out too . I have one of those automated lights, but you can see me okay. - I can see you. So, anyway, I just think it's totally fascinating to have you study the Community, the We Get Around Network Forum Community. Detailed reading of 200 plus topics, more than a thousand individual posts in the Community to come to some conclusions that turned into this Virtual Tour Super-Heroes at Your Service: How Business Communities Inspire Creativity to Mitigate Crisis. I just think that just, that's cool. And I do hope you find a journal in the marketing space that finds this topic of interest in order to perhaps share the message that communities can have an impact, online communities can have an impact to help businesses succeed faster. I guess the point I was going to make earlier was, how lucky are we that we're in a space where probably everyone who comes to our Community in some way or another is an early adopter. They're into technology. They're kind of probably geeky. And somehow some way, all these first quintile innovators in new media, new technology are able to rapidly iterate on what things are working and what things are not working to help everyone succeed faster. Anyway, this has been a fascinating conversation with you, Kelley. Thank you so much for being on the show. - Thank you so much for everyone's support and allowance to be able to do this research. And thank you so much for having me today, giving me some time. - Awesome, we've been visiting with Kelley Anderson. Kelley is a Texas Tech University marketing PH.D. candidate. You can see her research on this topic as well as other virtual reality meets residential real estate studies, as we've talked about at the top of the show, at KelleyCoursAnderson.com. K-E-L-L-E-Y C-O-U-R-S A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N.com. KelleyCoursAnderson.com. Fascinating read of all the different research that you have, including this topic. And, again, for anyone that wants to get the 14-page summary, WGAN.INFO/hero. WGAN.INFO/hero … So, Kelley, thanks again. For Kelley Anderson in Lubbock, Texas, I'm Dan Smigrod, founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. And you've been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5. - Thank you, Dan. # # # # # # |
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