Search the App Store for “To Do” and you get 249 hits.
Do the same search for “Address Book” and you get 43 results…and half of those are utilities for cleaning up your contacts, not apps for managing contacts.
This is a little weird seeing that your “Rolodex” is supposed to be the most valuable tool in your career toolbox.
As an introvert (someone who is not, by nature, good with people) I’d love to get a little help with the way I handle my contacts. Something like Getting Things Done, only for getting people done. Apparently nobody else has this problem because there aren’t a whole lot of good solutions out there.
What Makes a Good Address Book?
What I want is something to help me do better at managing my social ecosystem. Ideally it would help me understand who I connect with, who I’m losing touch with, and it would help me discover new connections in specific interest areas. Is that too much to ask?
And it should be automatic. I’ve got better things to do with my time than fiddle constantly my contacts list in an Excel spreadsheet (I’m looking at you, Mashable).
Tip #1: Addresses Need to Be On Your Phone
This seems like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised at the number of contact management systems that silo your contacts into a proprietary database. This goes double for Excel sheets, Access! or FileMaker databases.
When you want to make a call or send a text, you want that number in your native Contacts book…especially if you use Siri to make the connection.
Tip #2: One Place to Manage All Your Connections
Different people like to interact in different ways. Some folk like to text, some like to call. One contact responds to email and another to a LinkedIn message. Ideally your magic address book app will collect all of these and at least link you to the relevant app.
Tip #3: The Software is Not the System
One of the great things about Getting Things Done is that David Allen’s signature to-do list system is software agnostic. You can effectively run his technique using Omnifocus, Outlook, Remember the Milk or even a paper-based Baron Fig Atomic notebook.
No software is going to help you manage your contacts if you’re not a little bit organized and disciplined about contact management. That said, I have yet to find a people-connection system that covers all the bases the way GTD or Mark Forster’s Autofocus system does.
The Contenders
This post is already getting a little long so I will detail with my findings in a follow-up blog (or two). Below is a list of the address book apps that I’m trying on for size. But right off the bat I have made a discovery – no address book will help you discover relationships between your contacts. For that you will need another tool, sometimes called a CRM or Customer Relationship Manager.
Address Books
Contacts – This is the native address book on the iPhone. iCloud can link contacts across all your Apple devices. BUT YOU CAN’T MANAGE GROUPS!!!!
Full Contact – A better address book for iOS with it’s own cloud based system. Syncs (sort of) with iCloud.
Covve – Also better than the native address book. Syncs with iCloud. A little weird.
Circle Back – Automates clean up and improvement of your contacts. Doesn’t always work the way you’d hope.
Interact – It was nice while it lasted.
MacOS
CardHop – Launchbar simplicity that power users say revolutionizes they way they handle their contacts. MacOS only.
BusyContacts – Integrates contacts with email, Twitter and calendar entries (on BusyCal). The most CRM-like solution of them all. MacOS only.
CRM Systems
CRM systems are very sales-focused and have a lot of lifecycle tools that are meaningless to writers, researchers, activists and others who could use a powerful relationship management tool. ALSO CAN BE VERY EXPENSIVE. Here are a few of the best I’ve found so far.
Nimble– A truly great design, easy to use and integrates social feeds. 14 day free trial.
HubSpot – A free CRM that’s easy to set up and use. Most of the value comes if you use your website to capture leads. Did I mention that it’s free?
Cloze – This CRM ranks your contacts by frequency and type of interaction and lets you know when you’re losing touch. Integrates social and email. Free version with some key features disabled.
Nudge – I’m not sure what Nudge is – it functions very differently than other sales-driven CRMs and sometimes coughs up some interesting discovery.
So those are the main tools that I’m looking at and will be reporting back about. Feel free to give any of them a spin and let me know what you think in comments.
A word to the wise – if you try more than one of these at a time you WILL hose your contact list. So there’s one final entry –
Contacts Cleaner – Merges duplicates, fixes names, bad phone numbers and more. Worth every penny.
