Upstream Project Update - August 2016

PILOT
 
The pilot testing continues with MLSListings, RMLS Portland, West Penn MLS, North Texas Real Estate Information Service (NTREIS) and NorthstarMLS.   Broker site visits continue giving UI demos, customizing training needs, identifying broker business rules and qualifying vendors.  We have determined that one of our broker participants isn't an ideal fit for the pilot and are pausing their participation.   RE/MAX Gold in MLSListings (SF Bay area) has offices throughout Northern California but primarily operates in the Sacramento area (MetroList).  They have one small office in MLSListings and when combined with the added burden of managing a pilot remotely made pilot participation sub-optimal.   As soon as we begin to integrate into the Sacramento area, they'll be first on our list of brokerage participants.  As a reminder here is the final list of pilot brokers:

• MLSListings Inc.
  • Pacific Union International, Inc.
  • Keller Williams Los Gatos Estates
  • RE/MAX Gold (paused)
• NorthstarMLS
  • Edina Realty, Inc
  • RE/MAX Results
  • Keller Williams Classic Realty Northwest
• NTREIS
  • RE/MAX DFW Associates
  • Keller Williams Arlington
• RMLS
  • Coldwell Banker Bain/Seal
  • RE/MAX Equity Group
  • Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Properties
  • Keller Williams Realty of Eugene and Springfield
• West Penn MLS Inc.
  • RE/MAX Select
  • Northwood Realty Services
  • Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices The Preferred Realty
  • Howard Hanna

 
We are working closely with our pilot brokers and have added 20 additional vendors for a total of 39 to begin testing.  A few notables include LoneWolf, BackAgent, Blueroof360, Showingtime, and Obeo.   
 
The team continues to de-compose the business rules collected from each Pilot organization for use in the system.  They delivered a complete rule set back to NorthstarMLS and progressed in translating and mapping rules for NTREIS, West Penn, RMLS, and MLSListings. Additionally, the team contributed additional rule definitions to the RESO workgroup engaged in standardizing business rules.
 
DEVELOPMENT
 
Sprint 8 completed August 10th.  Key functionality delivered in Sprint 8 includes: determination of required and available fields for listing input based on a user’s memberships, listing entry validation, implementation of core rule types and enumerations, delivery of notifications to the user, and a new metadata resource to make it easy for developers to generate Software Development Kits (SDKs) that are easier to use than REST in their development environments of choice.
 
The development team contacted Pilot program developers to offer support and troubleshoot any issues identified by the organizations currently testing the API, including CoreLogic (vendor to West Penn MLS and North Texas Regional Information Systems-NTREIS), MLSListings, RMLS Portland, and Northstar MLS.  These support interactions led to a number of enhancements in the development backlog and documentation.
 
Sprint 9 is well underway and has a targeted completion of Sept 14th.    Sprint 9 prepares the system for demonstration of working integrations with pilot market MLSs and other data recipients, and to support the efforts of the recipient system software developers in achieving the same milestone from their end. We expect this to be the ongoing theme through Sprint 10 as well.
 
STAFFING
 
No headcount changes or additions occurred in August.  We are running lean!.
 
AGREEMENTS
 
The Agreements Work Group continues to refine participation agreement templates between Brokers and 3rd Party Vendors, Upstream and MLSs, and Upstream and Participants to help define usage rights and protect the confidentiality of proprietary information Upstream maintains in its system. 
 
GOVERNANCE
 
We had a full Board of Managers meeting on September 13th.   At this meeting we reviewed status, operations and go to market strategies.  Additionally, we voted on:

• Language modification to the Operating Agreement to better define system user requirements. 
  • We determined that there are two types of Upstream users: a “member” and a “user.”   The term “member” assumes the users has paid the $100 fee and has voting rights. We determined that not all users must be members.  There is a case for non-voting users in the system.  However, all users must be a practicing brokerage.  The only difference is voting rights
  • The second issue reviewed whether brokers must upload all, some, or none, of their listings to the Upstream database, or be allowed complete discretion to decide what, if any, content to upload to the database.   We determined brokers do not need to enter all listings. This would enforce an unnecessary control over the broker that Upstream does not intend to do. How a broker chooses to use Upstream in the listing cycle is up to them and no one else.  However, participating brokers must enter and edit all MLS listings via Upstream. In this statement, we are flipping a switch in the MLS that disables listing add/edit directly in the MLS and requiring any listing maintenance for the brokerage to originate in Upstream.  We aren’t controlling how much or little information they store in Upstream, only enforcing one place to maintain a listing that is entered into the MLS.
• Extension of board seats.  Many of the Upstream founders have board seats that expire soon and need to be extended.  The Operating Agreement states that new seats must be voted in by the membership.   Unfortunately, until we are in production, there aren't members for voting.   Additionally, terms have similar end dates, so we needed to develop a staggered expiration and voting strategy to maintain continuity.   The board voted to extend all BOM terms one year.   We are determining which of the board of managers will be extended two years to begin staggering terms. 
• Delegation of Power.  The Board determined the powers it wished to delegate to the CEO and Executive Committee to exercise without the need for further Board approval.  Normally, corporate Executive Committees are empowered to hire staff executives and bind the company to contracts with vendors and other service providers up to a certain dollar amount.  Further delegations can be made to the Upstream Chief Executive Officer to make decisions on a day to day basis, such as hiring non-management personnel within the confines of a budget adopted annually by the Board.  The board ratified a delegation proposal after make modification to the proposed draft.    The proposal manages exceptions outside the budget.

NOTE FROM THE CEO
 
As you may know by now, I'm focused on communication and transparency.   Each week I'm in a different city educating our stakeholders and clarifying misconceptions.  To extend our reach, I'll be: 

• Creating an MLS Advisory Board to get input from non-pilot MLS teams and share what the pilot group is experiencing. We are excited to be working with CMLS in the formation of this group.
• Creating a Participant Advisory Board (similar purpose).  Scheduling a monthly webinar to answer questions, give updates and talk openly about the project. Everyone is welcome!

 
To that end, look this month for announcements on UpstreamRE.com and our Facebook page.