The Center for REALTOR® Technology (CRT) holds an award each year to honor REALTORS® who have shown excellence and visionary use of technology. This year, an RMLS™ subscriber has been announced as a finalist for the 2010 REALTOR® Technology Spotlight Award. Congratulations are in order for Kelly Ranstad, principal broker and owner of Hybrid Real Estate!

According to CRT, the award aims to recognize those who have implemented, created or embraced technology in a way that shows understanding of the medium and therefore puts them in a ‘best in class’ category. In addition, these individuals utilize innovative and effective strategies and increase awareness within the real estate industry of technology trends. For more on the award, visit CRT’s website.

Kelly Ranstad has been kind enough to give us some intellectual morsels in response to questions regarding this award. Her answers provide key insights into how technology can be useful for real estate professionals. Below are her answers:

In what ways have you used or implemented technology to get you recognized for this award?

Kelly: It is very easy to get caught up with a lot of “meaningless” technology as a REALTOR®. Agents can spend a lot of time and money on programs that are ineffective and often difficult to use. One of my roles within my company, Hybrid Real Estate, is to train agents on how to implement technological tools that are relatively inexpensive, but extremely effective when used correctly. A lot of agents would like to do more with the Internet, but don’t know where to start. I offer a class called, “Tech Tuesday,” where agents get together to bring their tech questions and demystify the Web. We have covered a variety of things: From something as easy as e-mail signatures to Facebook and social networking to websites. I have agents that hardly used e-mail before and are now building individual websites for their listings. It’s beautiful!

What were your feelings when it was announced that you were a finalist?

Kelly: I was honored just to be nominated for this award and to be recognized for my efforts nationwide. I am ecstatic! We have put an enormous amount of energy to build our company’s practical implementation of technology and to not just gain Web presence, but to help our REALTORS® secure listings, buyers for those listings, and for the buyers themselves. To be associated with such a young company (only 2 years old in December) and gain this kind of attention already is truly awesome.

How do you think the use and knowledge of technology benefits REALTORS®?

Kelly: In the past many of the technology-based marketing tools that we use today were very expensive, not practical, or overly technical. The tools that make a difference today are affordable, intuitive to use, and can be quickly learned. My focus is to see technology for what it is in today’s market and implement it in a practical way. Our agents don’t want another tool that looks neat, but that doesn’t increase their bottom line. We are talking about “practical technology.” Practical technology is a tool that benefits an agent by attracting more business in an affordable way.

There is a tool right now that I’m anticipating implementing over the next year. I started looking for it a year ago, but it didn’t exist. Six months ago companies popped up and offered what I was looking for. It is very likely that in the next six months it will be affordable and I’ll look forward to implementing the tool into Hybrid Real Estate. It will save everyone time, the company money and allow everyone to do more. That is practical technology and that is what our company is about. It’s about merging everything you have come to expect from a traditional real estate company with that next step in technology. It’s also about understanding where we are with technology, looking for needs within our industry and then anticipating the changes that will happen before it’s already happened. That is what it takes to be on the cutting edge of our industry.

According to Kelly, Hybrid Real Estate’s motto is “Innovation is our Tradition.” The 2010 REALTOR® Technology Spotlight Award is designed to honor individuals such as Kelly, who believe that technology is a powerful tool in the real estate world.