I attended the TriValley Mixer last night at the Alameda County Fairgrounds and was really disappointed. There were a couple dozen booths from Mary Kay to the World School of Massage, the food was good,  but the organization of the event left me flat.

Rick Silva had a lot of activity in front of his business networking booth. The City of San Ramon had a booth, but civic faces of Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore seemed to be missing in action. 

I have no problem in circulating and introducing myself to others and I am always curious about people and what they are doing with their business marketing and the Internet as I used to have and Internet Marketing and Promotion company.

I collected cards from: Sheri Sudra from Deco Home Design; Curtis Susuki and Rebecca Flores from Paupaiz Fine Coffees; Diane Rocket & Karen Pilcher from Nationwide Mortgage;Anastasia Sen-Beals from the Pleasanton Hilton; Joseph Tanner from the City of San Ramon;  Phillip Vermont from Randick O'Dea & Tooliatos LLP; Mary Jaramillo from World School of Massage; and Shari Schierloh who is with the Livermore Chamber and also has a Mary Kay business. 

I avoided talking about real estate as much as possible, mostly talking to people about the power of blogging and how it can help their Internet presence. I'll be teaching blogging classes this month in Marin and Danville with Pat Kitano from TransparentRE.

I'm new to the "mixer" scene, but I've put on events before and it seems to me more could be done to facilitate the mixing as what I mostly observe is old friends congregating and new people either going the wallflower route or the more assertive ones taking the bull by the horns and initiating contact. I was always taught that a good host helps to make introductions and certainly welcomes newcomers.

The Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce mixer I attended in December had the same issues, but it still beat this affair hands down which surprised me given the PR this event had.

A Couple of News Items for Today 

Contra Costa Times article relates opinions of some top California real estate brokers on what they expect in 2007 – Real estate in transition, experts say

Most residential real estate professionals are calling 2007 a transitional year, for better or worse. Although there's some disagreement about what the new year will hold, the only consensus is that it will not be a year of booming appreciation or sales like those seen in the past five years.

The majority also said that home prices will drop slightly in 2007, but sales may stabilize to historically normal levels. Most said that sellers have to be more realistic and buyers should be warned that there is no huge decline in prices projected, even by the most objective economists.

Jonathan Miller over at the Matrix has a good post today that brings the mortgage rate picture into focus – [Getting Graphic] Mortgage Rates Ain’t What Ails US

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