Gist

by francine Hardaway on January 2, 2010

This morning I looked at Gist closely for the first time. I signed up for it months ago, and it sends me highlights of my new connections by email every day.  Because I'm unsubscribing from unwanted emails (one of my New Year's Resolutions),  wanted to know if I should include this one on my blacklist.

When I looked carefully, Gist began to seem phenomenal to me — a simple interface that takes my social connections, my email and contacts, and tells me who is most important to me and what they're doing. If I used it faithfully (will I? That's always impossible to tell at the beginning) I could organize my entire life.

Sure enough, my daughters came up first as most contacted,, followed by UserVoice, with whom I've been working for six months, and my business partner at Stealthmode, then  the chairman of my foundation board. You will recognize other important people and companies in my top fifteen list.

 i can sort these by most recent news, by importance, by companies, by people. If I were in sales (I suppose we all are) I would love this.

 I can use it to update my information, for example, about my friend Dan Willis, who left Microsoft for HP and fell out of touch. One thing I'd really like — to be able to automatically upload from LinkedIn, a site I hate to go to directly, but so far I must manually export and import my contacts. I can do that with Gmail, Twitter and Facebook, so why not LinkedIn. Gist also supports Salesforce, and a number of other formats.

 I can use Gist to see who I'm spending my time with–family first, followed by paying clients, followed by investments. I can learn who I'm meeting with next week, and what's new with them.

The problem with powerful tools like Gist: sometimes I just don't take the time to learn them or see what they can do for me, so they drop off my radar screen. How, as an application developer, does Gist fix that? It's as if they had to take the "error" factor out of "pilot error."
 

Posted via email from Not Really Stealthmode

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

GregAtGist January 2, 2010 at 10:45 am

Francine –

Thank you for your insightful comments. I'd be happy to take the time to walk through Gist with you, to share best practices, and to hear more feedback.

Please contact me at @GregAtGist or at greg@gist.com.

Regards,

Greg Meyer
Customer Experience Manager, Gist
http://blog.gist.com/what-is-gist/

Dr. Thomas Ho January 2, 2010 at 11:40 am

THANKS so much for the “nudge” about Gist. Like you, I had signed up for it, BUT unlike you I had NOT gone so far as to configure it so I wasN'T even getting my notifications into my email Inbox.

I have now remedied this oversight and so far, I am IMPRESSED by what I can now see about my correspondents. I am most impressed by the integration of my Outlook contacts with my social media connections, especially Twitter.

I am looking forward to receiving my FIRST email from Gist!

GregAtGist January 2, 2010 at 5:45 pm

Francine -rnrnThank you for your insightful comments. I’d be happy to take the time to walk through Gist with you, to share best practices, and to hear more feedback.rnrnPlease contact me at @GregAtGist or at greg@gist.com.rnrnRegards,rnrnGreg MeyerrnCustomer Experience Manager, Gistrnhttp://blog.gist.com/what-is-gist/

Dr. Thomas Ho January 2, 2010 at 6:40 pm

THANKS so much for the “nudge” about Gist. Like you, I had signed up for it, BUT unlike you I had NOT gone so far as to configure it so I wasN’T even getting my notifications into my email Inbox.rnrnI have now remedied this oversight and so far, I am IMPRESSED by what I can now see about my correspondents. I am most impressed by the integration of my Outlook contacts with my social media connections, especially Twitter.rnrnI am looking forward to receiving my FIRST email from Gist!

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