BatchBook is Great for Contact Management
BatchBlue Software was kind enough to give me a big sized account to try out managing my contacts with their BatchBook product. They let me do five things, if I’m so inclined: manage contacts, keep track of my communications, slice my contacts into lists (remember this one), manage to-do lists, and use their SuperTags to build small custom databases of meta information around my contacts. All of that is relatively neato, and something that lots of us aren’t especially doing well today (how many of you use a spreadsheet somewhere to track your important conversations?)
I should state that I know Michelle Riggen-Ransom (marketing goddess) and Adam Darowski (UX prince) through meetings at various social events, like SXSW, the occasional Tweet-up, etc. When you know the people who make the things you’re using, there’s a whole sense that everything could be customized or something. When I talk to Mario Sundar at LinkedIn, I feel the same kind of thing: like they care about their user base. Well, with BatchBlue, they are passionate about their customer base.
Things I Like
In the fun category, I like the little touches they’ve thrown in. I went to upload my latest LinkedIn database into BatchBook and combine it with my Gmail accounts. That ends up being around 6,200 contacts (boiled back down with dupes to 4760). When I uploaded the CSV file, here’s what I got:
Yep, the little touches like that are great.
Because I can tag things lots of ways, it means I can sort them lots of ways:
I further like that I can upload pictures for contacts, should I want a visual reminder of who they are:
But what’s coolest is the list feature.
Messaging Distinct Sets of People
Here’s where BatchBlue does something that most of my contact systems do not. Plaxo shares a lot of features with BatchBook, and it has one over on BatchBook insofar as user data on there updates when the other contacts change their information. Meaning, if you’re connected to someone on Plaxo, and that someone changes jobs, phone numbers, email addresses, your files are updated right away. Okay, cool.
Try messaging more than one person on Plaxo. Ditto LinkedIn. Ditto Facebook.
Grueling.
BatchBook has lists. For every one of the tags you assign a contact, you can sort those tags into lists, then download those lists into distinct addressable groups. So, for instance, if I want to email all the people I know who are related to PodCamp, I can. If I want to message everyone in the Boston area, I can. If I want to message people I’ve labeled as “mediamakers,” I can.
That’s the clever bit.
A Quick Note About SuperTags
They also have this feature called Super Tags. Basically, you can add all kinds of other fields and metadata around certain tags, such that you collect even more useful, sortable data on different kinds of contacts. I haven’t dug into that yet, but judging by the way Michelle and Adam talk about it all the time, I suspect that’s a cool feature and that I’m missing out.
In the End
I recommend BatchBook for the list sorting ability, for the tagging and slicing ability, for the Super Tags (though I’m not 100% clever on them yet), and if you have no other form of client relationship management software, this would be a great lightweight tool. I’m not using their todos or several other parts of the software, but that’s okay. I think it’s worth it for what I’m getting. Hey, I’m not a DBA, and this is a whole lot better for me to manage than a spreadsheet.
If you check it out, I’d be interested to know your take.
BatchBlue Software’s BatchBook might be just right for you.
Threading the Social Needle
One thing I try to do often is connect with people across all my various social networks. If you’re following me on Twitter, I invite you to add me at LinkedIn. Likewise, if you’re a reader and contributor to this blog’s community, I invite you to join me at those other two places. If you’re reading the blog, but not yet getting the newsletter, which is totally different, I invite you to get that. If we’re not Facebook friends, add me there. It’s all part of a concerted effort. The goal? Threading the social needle.
Networks Loose and Taut
Imagine you’re looking for a job. Where do you start? What do you need to know? I’ll give you a hint: the first letter is “p” and the last few letters are “eople.” I have spent time and effort building a robust social network across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, this blog, and beyond, because it’s my goal to be helpful in as many ways possible. It’s how you were able to help me send a woman to college in under 2 hours. It’s how I help friends find work, get projects, or just connect with like-minded souls.
That doesn’t happen on the fly. Jeremiah covers this very well. Networks are the lifeblood of this new human computer we’re building. You want the network connections to be there ahead of when you need them. And here’s where we get a little more human still.
Be Human About It
Connect with people from the mindset of wanting to be helpful to THEM. Learn what you can do to be useful FAR before you ask them for anything. And do this because you care, not because it’s a strategy, not for some long flung business project. Do it because being a good human matters to you. If you do this, and I mean it, no faking, it will become a very powerful thing. People remember your efforts to be helpful. They remember all the ways in which you do good things for them. And it never has to matter a lick, except sometimes it does.
How this SHOULD Work
In the future, this will be a lot more dynamic. When I show up at a social network, it will ping my profile server, will ask me which personae of mine to expose, and then see which connections I have from other networks that have similar credentials, and offer connections without me thinking much about it. I’ll be able to write metadata above every one of these contacts, very visual stuff, that will allow me on the fly to draw little lines between one person and another few people, showing VISUALLY the networks of people that I’ve met, and how they might relate.
With this information, I’ll be able to pluck threads quickly, and know that someone who has a PHP need is connected through me to someone who’s a PHP expert. I’ll be able to see my network by proximity, by home base, by corporation, without much fuss. I will be able to apply endless filters so that I can squint into the tapestry and find the exact right two people to work with me on a project.
But until then, while it doesn’t work that way, I’m building my own variations on the theme and threading the needle by hand.
If you’d like to connect with me on various social networks, here’s a short list:
- LinkedIn - my email linkedin at chrisbrogan dot com.
- Flickr (photo sharing)
- My newsletter (different than the blog)
Pretty much every where else, I’m also “chrisbrogan.” Feel free to connect.
What do you think? Where should this all reside? What’s the best place to put all this kind of information, and how else might we want to use it in flexible ways?
Photo credit, Twenty Questions
