2007 COCIE Governing Board Report

The Central Ohio Commercial Information Exchange: Look how far we've come

By David Hartsook
COCIE Governing Board

Central Ohio Commercial Information Exchange COCIE has continued to expand its membership and services in its 2nd year of our operation.

Since inception, our membership has grown by over 150% to 604. Our property inventory has also multiplied by 145% to 13,000.

Remember, we are a property, not listing based system. So when you investigate a property that may not be on the market, it still may be in the system with great property data (e.g. floor plans, survey, picture, property data, etc).

Highlights of 2007 have been:

• Concluding an arrangement with the Columbus Chamber of Commerce to use our listing data base for available properties to those companies or agents using the chamber accessing available properties in Central Ohio.
• Continued 2 monthly hands-on training sessions at CBR as well as in office training.
• Established Comp Service to be effected January 1, 2008 after surveying membership with an overwhelming endorsement to create this.
• Continue to establish the COCIE brand recognition
• Continue to work on other enhancements of our system to maintain a state of the art system with premium services available to its members
• Continue to work towards web site advertising to keep our membership costs at a minimum.
• We have recently added two online classes per week -- every Tuesday & Thursday morning at 11:30am Columbus time. Members can sign up for those classes at: http://www.xceligent. com/training_reg_form.asp
• An Advanced User Group that's currently made up of 40 members, continues to meet and provide hands on enhancements to our system.

Our Governing Board is modeled after the MLS board, and is made up of the following members:

Large Companies:
Mike Young, CB Richard Ellis - term expires 12/31/07
Mike Simpson, NAI Ohio Equities - term expires 12/31/08
Rich Schuen, Grubb & Ellis - term expires 12/31/08
David Hartsook, CB Richard Ellis - term expires 12/31/08

Small Companies:
Bill Greenlee, ROI Realty Services - term expires 12/31/07
Steve Mauger, Grabill & Company - term expires 12/31/07
Joe Polis, Polis & Simon - term expires 12/31/09

Developer/Subscriber
Diana Riffe, Crawford, Hoying & Smith - term expires 12/31/09

MLS Board of Director Representative
Greg Hrabcak, Group One Realty term - expires 12/31/07

Your participation is needed to make sure we continue to provide cost effective, state of the art, commercial real estate information. Several Governing Board members terms are expiring this year and next. Large Company and Small Company appointments are needed to keep an appropriate balance & perspective. Please contact Joe Polis at JoePolis@polis-simon.com to express your interest in being part of the Governing Board.

Xceligent's support to us in the Central Ohio area is incomparable, with Catherine (Cat) Erney and Angie Utz leading the member interface and ReBecca Hendricks recently coming on to handle the comp service for us. Xceligent continues to be responsive to our requested system changes to enhance its operation for our members.

Joe Polis will assume the Chairmanship responsibilities as of January 1, 2008. Joe has a passion to assure the COCIE system and our platform is the best it can be at a cost effective price for our membership.

Please continue to follow the monthly COCIE articles written by Cat Erney providing new, updates and "how to's" for our member driven Commercial Information Exchange.