Earlier this week, Scott Forcino, Joe Ferrara’s [1] close friend and business partner told me that Joe is very sick. Joe has an aggressive malignant brain tumor. He is in a hospital ICU undergoing treatment, chemo/radiation and he has a speech pathologist. I think the symptoms became more serious in the past month.
Although I am married to a cancer survivor I still only have a small inkling of how tough this must be for Joe and his family.
[2]
Join Friends of Joe Ferrara [2]
It took me a few days to collect my thoughts on Joe. A lot has been written about this unfortunate situation [3] over the past week – which is completely awesome and shows how much we love Joe – its all been said better than I ever could. A special thanks to Jay Thompson [4] for leading the effort to get the word out to help Joe and his family.
Donate to Joe’s Medical Expense Fund!
[5]
Right now we can all help Joe by donating what you can [5] to help out his family from the incredible medical costs they are facing. Please help.
I will only think positive thoughts about his health and his future.
I first ran into Joe back in the prehistoric days of real estate blogging circa 2005-2006 when I started. A formally trained lawyer, he was a fountain of ideas in the social media space and along with Rudy Bachraty, they co-founded Sellsius Real Estate and began cranking out content on their Sellius Blog [6]. He embellished a bit [7] too.
My first interaction with Joe was after he made a presentation in Atlantic City, I blogged about their real estate concept here on Matrix and quipped that the bad link on their logo was probably a good sign of their focus on content quality rather than bells and whistles. Joe sent me a nice note commenting on how the bad link had been fixed and the relationship began.
He has been a fixture at Inman conferences and other social media gatherings, genuinely happy to help people find their way in an easygoing style.
I have to chuckle about his Blog USA tour back in 2007. I was the first stop [8] on his cross country RV trip from Boston via New York to the San Francisco/Inman Connect conference. He and Rudy were supposed to arrive at my house at 9pm but didn’t get there until much later, 2am I think – they didn’t want to wake me so they slept in the RV in my driveway. We did a 6:30am video interview of me walking around my house – a bit surreal but fun. Next door to my house the movie Revolutionary Road [9] was being filmed and we asked the film crew on the way out where Kate and Leonardo were – LOL. We took the RV from Connecticut to Manhattan – right to the front door of my office building – Joe promised door-to-door service – and then took off for California (the long way). A month later – as I walked into the Inman Conference in San Francisco – I happened to walk next to their famous Blog Tour USA RV [10] and smiled in amazement – they made it!
Last October I interviewed Joe for my podcast, The Housing Helix [11]. It was a fun conversation – and as usual, he was full of ideas. Please have a listen.
We’re pulling for you Joe!