NOTE: The title originally said “more of a #hacker mentality” but then it dawned on me that there really isn’t one to start with. It made me both sad and excited. Sad because we’ve been given the blueprint and haven’t done anything with it. Excited because the opportunity is still in front of us.
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This week Facebook announced that they were killing their Messenger application. It got me thinking about Zuckerberg’s “Hacker Way” Manifesto and what it should mean to all of us.
Hacker’s find the limitations in a system (not just computer systems) and exploit them to make them stronger. This could mean noticing that CoStar sucks as a reflection of real market activity and building a tool to account for that weakness. That’s hacking.
Hacker’s build quickly. You won’t see a lot of philosophical conversations among hacker’s because they’d rather put an idea into practice than sit around debating the finer points of a plan that likely can’t be implemented anyway. A motto of mine over the past month is that meetings should contain “no philosophical discussions.” If the discussion is not focused on a real solution it gets shut down.
Hacker’s don’t play politics. The best rise to the top based on capability. Basically the complete opposite of the regular CRE world where grey hair is revered and Gen Y is seen as a pain in the ass. (My apologies for gross exaggeration but the point is largely true.)
Hacker’s are never happy with the status quo. They seek to improve everything they have done. They don’t seek perfection because they know the world changes too quickly to ever achieve “completeness.”
So what are you doing to become a CRE hacker?
3 thoughts on “#CRE needs to have a #hacker mentality.”