CMLS asks -“Do You Know Where Your Data Is?”

I’ve been on the board and now working with the Council of MLS (CMLS) for many years. The group had been a organization that facilitates the discussion and sharing of best practices for MLS providers for over 50 years. The main way of doing this was through an annual conference. A couple of things that make CMLS unique is that every year a different MLS provider hosts the conference in their city. The other is that the conference is very inclusive to vendors.

Over the past 3 to 4 years a shift has been happening where CMLS has been taking more of an active role in the issues that effect the MLS industry as a whole. This has been facilitated by the overall success of the conference and a lot of forward thinking board members.

At this year’s Clareity MLS Executive Workshop many of the biggest discussions centered around to topic of Listing Syndication. Some meeting participants even called out CMLS specifically o help educate the industry on the benefits and pitfalls of this practice.

Merri Jo Cowen, this year board president of CMLS, was quick to act. So this year CMLS is doing something new. During the upcoming NAR Midyear Meeting in D.C. CMLS will hold a Listing Syndication Workshop. This is free to CMLS members but seating is very limited. To find out more information please visit the CMLS blog.

If you would like to whet your whistle with some discussion about Listing Syndication here are two recent blog posts about the subject:

Listing Syndication 2.0 – A brief white paper put out by Victor Lund of the WAV Group outlining some of the issues regarding Listing Syndication.

More thoughts on Listing Syndication – A blog post by Matt Cohen of Clareity. Matt goes a bit more in detail on challenges of some possible solutions regarding Listing Syndication.

See you there!

UPDATE: Here’s another blog post by Clareity that does a great job of outlining many aspects of the issues. “The New Listing Syndication Bill of Rights“