At the hotel I am staying at in Sofia, a conference is now going on. It is a realtor conference. I talked with a realtor from Washington D.C. to find out what this conference is all about and was impressed with  the similarity of what we are both doing here.The conference is being held by FIABCI, which is an international real estate federation. The economy here in Bulgaria is really emerging, as we are discovering wrt the software industry here. Real Estate is the next wave, but the realtors here don’t have the organization and business tools that are common in the U.S. and other areas of the world. MLS is a big example. The conference is a two-way street, with the local realtors teaching the internationals about the market here and the internationals sharing their experience and ideas with the locals. It’s so familiar and the woman I talked with was clearly as excited about what she is doing here as I am about having come here to participate in DevReach. Here is a link to the actual conference.

I know that the software industry isn’t the only one that is going global and has people who are championing it, rather than fearing it. But my personal experience is only limited to that and it makes me happy to personally see this happening in other industries as well.

I hope that someday INETA (and I am referring to all of the INETA regions as a whole) can realize the level and effectiveness of an organization like FIABCI.