The ride is 320 miles over five days, a scenic (and perhaps grueling) route between Eureka and our hometown of San Francisco.  Each night, speakers will address the 125+ riders on issues relating to climate change—everything from renewable energy to bicycle infrastructure.  Ken aims to raise $2800 by the ride’s start on October 2^nd; proceeds from his ride will go to some of his favorite charities:  Rails to Trails Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, East Bay Bicycle Coalition, and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.  This year Climate Ride expects to generate almost a quarter million dollars in grants for the organizations it benefits.

As he writes on his Climate Ride page, Ken feels especially deeply about this cause, especially when “looking at my kids and thinking about the world we’re leaving for them.  The chance to do something, no matter how small, to make that world better is what inspires me and will get me through the challenges of the ride.” After dedicating years contributing to the success of MyNewPlace, Ken is now enjoying the opportunity to give back—and it’s not the first time he’s dedicated himself to serving the community.  Recently, he participated in Ride for a Reason, a 100 mile one-day ride from Oakland to Sacramento in support of public school funding, and between his previous job at AllApartments and co-founding MyNewPlace, Ken spent several months helping construct two community-built playgrounds in Oakland.

Ken writes, “The importance of giving back to your community is something that my parents, both successful business people and entrepreneurs, have impressed deeply upon me. Building a successful business like MyNewPlace requires intense focus and dedication. When I heard about Climate Ride I knew it was how I could apply that same intensity towards making the world a better place.” His enthusiasm has motivated former and current MyNewPlace employees to donate $700 out-of-pocket to the cause.

This announcement comes on the heels of the apartment industry’s increasing support for charities.  In January 2011, MyNewPlace started MyNewPlace PINK, a $100,000 national fundraising campaign for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  Other examples of the apartment industry giving back can be found here.

If you want to learn more about Ken–or donate to his ride!–check him out at www.keho.com/ride.

1) Provide clear career path

Let your employees that if they do well in responding to renter issues and anticipating renter needs, they have a place in the company’s future. Show your employees this by supporting them to develop career skills that will serve them (and your company) in the future, encouraging them to attend conferences or webinars on what they are most interested in about their job, be it mastering social media or writing successful descriptions of properties.

2) Recognize the importance of work-life balance

Be sensitive to, and supportive of, your employees’ life outside work. Remember what they tell you about their personal life and ask them about it later on. Going to work is more fun when you care about the people you’re working around, and one way to find common ground is through conversation about the loved ones you spend time with when you’re not in the office.

3) Give credit where credit is due

Did your employee do an especially spectacular job responding to an irate renter, successfully salvaging the relationship? Or perhaps her new plan for advertising properties on a new social media outlet has resulted in a doubling of prospective renter interest. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a small-scale victory; as a manager, your vocal support for and recognition of your outstanding employees makes your employee realize you’re actually paying attention to his or her work, even if you appear to be super busy.

4) Listen

Your customer service employees are your ears on the ground. They’re the people who interact with renters and as such, are in the best position to observe any trends in renter interests, complaints, or feedback. Information on these trends, of course, is incredibly helpful to help you make business decisions. Work together with your team to encourage them to share ideas and feedback with you about their daily activities, and let them know they can come to you with questions or concerns. Open lines of communication can help you build a strong team and a workplace that’s pleasant to be a part of.

5) Stay organized

Make sure your management system is organized. Nothing is more stressful to employees, new or old, than to have to wade through a bevy of disjointed paperwork or an inefficient reporting mechanism to find what they need.  There are many types of property management software available to help make day-to-day operations more efficient.

Want to chime in? We’d love to hear your thoughts here or on our Facebook page!

We are growing! MyNewPlace, headquartered in San Francisco since we opened up shop in 2005, is opening a satellite office in Reno, NV this month. The new office will act in part as an extension of our client services division and will initially create up to 20 jobs for a region that was hit perhaps even harder than California by the economic downturn.

“The combination of a strong rental market and MyNewPlace’s success developing innovative online marketing tools for apartment owners has positioned us  to expand our workforce  to meet the needs of a  growing client base,” said John Helm, CEO and Founder of MyNewPlace. “The Reno market offers affordable access to a very talented labor force and is a great complement to our San Francisco headquarters.”

During the last few weeks we have sent several scouts from our San Francisco office to set things up and begin making hires. Just four hours away by car, Reno is covered with snow while our native San Francisco is misty green. It never ceases to surprise me how so many different climates can be so close to each other! It also serves to remind me that winter is very much still wreaking havoc in most other corners of the country.

We are very excited about our opening in the Reno-Tahoe area! Have you been?

Upload your pictures on our Facebook page!

Picture courtesy of Jonathon Anthony, Reno Enthusiast & one of our resident IT specialists

Press questions? Please see our Press section!

A couple of months ago, we invested some green in four Juicy Couture handbags to raffle off during Brainstorming.

Our raffle was a success and we had four lucky winners! MyNewPlace would like to offer its congratulations to:

Kim Birkholz of Dominium!

(since we don’t have her picture, we’ll just make her name really big)

Congratulations to Justine Robare of Drucker & Falk!

Congratulations to Shanteil Taylor of CLK Multifamily Management!

Congratulations to Patti King of Looking for Open Doors!

Congrats again, everybody, and be sure to keep an eye on our website and blog for more raffles and contests in the future!

Beth Yesko, MyNewPlace Employee and Guest Blogger

With less than 3 weeks to go until the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for a Cure I’m still $1,000 shy of my fundraising goal and it was an incredible feeling to have my colleagues rally behind me.   I’m so grateful to them for really going above and beyond when they thought of a way to help me reach my fundraising goal for the 60 mile walk and kick some ass Street Fighter style at the same time!

My sister-in-law lost her mother to breast cancer over 13 years ago and she wanted to do this walk to honor her mom.  I couldn’t let her do it alone and vowed to be with her every step of the way.  It has been a tremendous experience training for this walk while sharing this journey with her and I’m looking forward to the final steps of mile 60 in October!   It’s awesome to know that my fellow MyNewPlacers were willing to donate their hard-earned cash to this great cause for a chance at office glory.

All proceeds from the 3 Day are invested in breast cancer research and community programs.  If you are interested in donating any amount, please click here!

Joe Takeuchi, MyNewPlace Employee and Guest Blogger

With our MyNewPlace.com Street Fighter 2 “Fireball for a Cure” fundraising event in mind, we here at MyNewPlace would like to take a more introspective look back at the high-flying and powerful moves that inspired us all beginning in March of 1991. Many of us couldn’t wait to toss our allowance into arcade cabinets, and were floored when given the opportunity to perfect each move on home consoles throughout our adolescence. For some of us, this fascination with the best fighting game of all time has followed us into adulthood. Even if you haven’t played the game in years, most can recall the trademark battle cries of the series’ characters.

You may have wondered, however, as you flicked your arcade stick and button-mashed your way to victory as a player, what exactly are those fighters saying when they unleash their famous fireballs and high-flying kicks? Today, we will look at two of SF2’s signature characters, Ryu and Ken, who are brothers, but not blood brothers. Actually, they were trained by the same sensei, Gouken. Their three famous special moves will be highlighted, with translations as well as the moves’ martial arts foundations:

Fireball Attack “Hadoken” – From Japanese Ha Dou (Wave or Surge) and Ken (Fist,Technique, or Attack); a blastwave or fireball formed from a martial artist’s life energy (or ki/ch’i). The hands are brought together, heels of the palms touching, and moved to beside the fighter’s waist (which is as close as one can get to the center of the body, where the most ch’i gathers). The energy is then focused into the hands, and when both arms are thrown forward, palms outward, the energy wave is fired in the same direction as the double palm punch.

Flying Uppercut “Shoryuken” – A Japanese phrase that literally translates to “rising dragon punch”, used to describe one of the most powerful strikes utilized in the martial art discipline of Shotokan Karate.

Hurricane Kick “Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku” – Literal meaning, Tornado Whirlwind Foot. This attack is performed by focusing one’s ki/ch’i beneath himself or herself into a small tornado, which lifts the practitioner off the ground and spins him or her around in a circle while propelling them towards their opponent. Usually the user will outstretch one leg while using this in order to hit the enemy with it multiple times, hence the name “Tornado Whirlwind Foot”.

Official move date is April 1 (no joke! Or, joke on us? Guess we'll see how the move goes!). Now that we're approaching 20 people in the office, it's become a little cramped…and hot…and loud…and lets not even talk about the single bathroom shared by all (I'm taking sign ups now for your place in the queue)–that practically requires a post of its own. Ok, it at least deserves a paragraph…. Ladies, there are only two of us women in this office–Mandy and myself. You do the math. Need I say more? In any event, on April 1 we move to 425 Bush Street. Did I mention that we're in the middle of doing all of the heavy lifting (no pun intended) to create v1.0 of our service that is launching later this spring? No stress here.

My First Day at the office – by Zero Ken finally brought me to the office. He’s practically been living there for the last six months, but frankly, I don’t see the attraction. Everyone pretty much sits. No one plays ball or takes walks. I sniffed the earthquake kit in the kitchen, and it doesn’t seem that Micki has included any dog treats – what kind of disaster preparedness is that?!? No treats? That’s a disaster! Luckily I did find some in John’s office. Technically they belong to Coal, but he and I are both old .com office dogs (veterans of AllApartments/SpringStreet) so I don’t think he’d mind sharing; besides, who’s to tell (does Coal read the blog?)

Lest you think we’re crazy, dog blogging is not an unheard of occurrence. Here’s proof:

• doglbog
• A Husky’s Life
• Bark ‘n’ Blog, published by Kim, written by Shadrach the Neo Mastiff

Of course, you may still think we’re crazy.

Of course, now all we need is a product that renters and property owners can use. Details. Details.