VOTE for the Most Influential Women in Real Estate Leadership

What started as Trend #10 in my annual Swanepoel TRENDS Report 2008 nine months ago, has evolved into one of the best example of how viral a story can become on the Internet.

Originally titled “Shattered Glass” in his Trends Report, I discussed how the impact of Women, the Youth and Minorities were shaping the real estate brokerage industry. In the section about women I listed numerous examples of high-powered women that have moved into the #1 or #2 positions at many of the country’s largest real estate companies.

Recently I decided to post a blog on ActiveRain, and invite readers to participate in identifying other women in leadership roles. In less than one week the list exploded to well over 100 names. After trimming the list to 100 we decided to have the industry vote on who they thought would be The Top 20 Most Influential Women in Real Estate Leadership. (By the way various of the regular Columnists here on Inman are the list such as Bernice Ross, Ilyce Glink and Tara-Nicholle Nelson).

Meanwhile what a flurry of activity this post has created with follow up posts popping up on RealTown, RealBlogging, NewsGenius and of course right here on Inman Real Estate Trends. And at the time writing this post the number of votes cast were already rapidly approaching 1,000. Voting closes this Friday at noon Pacific Time and you can see the impressive list of 100 women that were nominated and cast your vote here.

What a awesome of how viral the Internet can be and how a story can grow and spread across the industry.

Wow!! The timing of this list coincides not only with the national upcoming Presidential election in some 40 days but also with the Forbes magazine list of “The 100 Most Powerful Women” that hit bookstores this week. Heading up that list was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, followed by Americans Sheila Bair (Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp), Indra Nooyki (CEO, PepsiCo) and Angela Brady (CEO, WellPoint). Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State) was listed 7th while Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom was placed 58th.

The results of the “The Top 20 Most Influential Women in Real Estate Leadership” will be announced on Monday on ActiveRain where this post started as well right here on Inman Community in the Real Estate Trends Group, as well as various other websites.