Stay in touch with hundreds of people

Hi how are you!!

This is hard to keep on top of but it's so worth doing.

Hi Derek,

Just wanting to say Hello. This month I am having my debut as a theater director. For the first time in a long time, I feel contented with my work. My job is to help the actors bring their best work to the stage....to tell the truth, communicate with as much grace as I can imbue while using all my senses, and focus. Not for my own star status on the stage....but to help tell a story, to entertain or influence the audience. I am so excited. My job is to make sure that the small details are taken care of so that the actors can tell a story that will allow the audience to see the word in a new way. What a great job :-)

Wish I had stumbled across this nugget of wisdom long ago. It's a shame to have unintentionally become a lone wolf in middle age. Coming from a huge family (my mom and dad had 16 and 14 siblings, respectively, leading to over 70 first cousins), having lived in different parts of the world, meeting hundreds, if not thousands, of good people, I'm embarrassed to say that all my contacts have dried up. If I were to call anyone I know, it would make for a very awkward situation. Que sara, ...

Wouldn't it be great if this idea could be made into a feature in, say, Google Calendars and Contacts? You'd get rolling reminders in your calendar to give someone a friendly buzz based on settings you've given to each person in your contacts.

If a such an app already exists, please let me know!

To anyone who is reading this,

I'd love to create the app that Derek mentioned. I am a 26 year old UI designer and developer from the Netherlands. I can design an interface of which it's sheer beauty will bring tears to our eyes. If you can do the back-end, we should give it a go :).

I think we can create it within a week or two. We come up with a name, start coding away using AngularJS, perhaps use Firebase as the back-end. And the rest will be history.

If you'd like to create this with me, please contact me: http://amineftegarie.nl

Best,

Amin

This is an important reminder, Derek.

1.What are the top contact mgt apps you use or recommend for one trying to keep in contact with 10k plus people in a meaningful (non "sales-y") way?
The only one I really recommend now is Highrise.">highrisehq.com/">Highrise. Compare with Act! — Derek

Anyone know of a free contact manager / a way to use google contacts / someone get together with Amin on this! I'd be useless to code :)

Thanks always for your inspiration, Derek.

I've sent/shared your website and articles with thousands of people over the years, via email, social media, my newsletter.

Which brings me to these contrasting directives:

1. Keep in touch 1-1 only with the ~50 most important/influential people who read your email, and only at most once every 3 months, as to not annoy them. That would be emailing approximately 1 person every weekday, then cycling again.

2. Create the best content (e.g. articles, videos) that you can, and invite your readers/viewers to join your monthly email newsletter for the BEST of your best content, and to subscribe to your social media for the newest content. This is the most efficient way to keep top of mind for many hundreds, or thousands, of people.

3. As you engage with your audience, you might then swap out someone who's an even better fit / kindred spirit / influential person for one of the ~50 who isn't as aligned of a relationship anymore.

Repeat the above steps continually.

(Sharing my strong opinion here, in case it's useful to others!)

I thought this is a world when people are encouraged to keep simplicity? When it comes to social activities it means elimination the efforts on socializing with hundreds of people.

Hi Derek,
I actually built something exactly like this, which will track those dates with different intervals for different people, and send you a daily reminder at a time of your choice to contact those that are now due to be contacted.
You can check it out at keepmyfriends.com.
Thanks!
Kevin

It's nice to buy yourself a cigar when you get a job.

A school teacher who was looking for work is in my Toastmasters club. He showed up one night with this story:

He went at a fellow's office, keeping in contact, and the fellow said, "Oh man, I forgot about you! I just had a guy in here this morning who was looking to hire a schoolteacher!" (The job was gone)

So close, but no cigar.

A friend of mine built an app for this purpose. You might want to check it out: www.followupzen.com/

Hi, Derek!
You're clever enough to realize - and realize it fast, that someone is trying to stick himself in your mind without even bothering to keep you in his mind so he appeals to a "simple automatic system to keep in touch without relying on [his] memory"! And you're sharp enough to detect that your rank in the list is based on your potential benefit for him; so you would barely buy the 'unselfishness', and 'sincerity' of his saying hi to you.
By the way, how have you been?

My favorite app for this type of work is Monica:

github.com/monicahq/monica

Easy to install if you like playing with the tech, easy to use hosted version if you just want to get going (for a small monthly fee). Great team at work for the open source version, as well.
See my “Why you need a database” article for Monica and other recommendations — Derek

Have been thinking about doing this exact same thing since a few months now.

Just been postponing it!

Thanks for sharing this!
Going to do this today!

/// Just catch up does not cut it


Hi Derek,


nice idea, I did that some years ago with auto reminders to keep in touch.
Problem: in my experience most people are too busy to just catch up/ have a coffee w/o target.

Best works for me:
- bdays
- new years if interacted last year
- rss feed with company news of the relevant ones
- and of course them asking or support im my core areas/ intros
And after a while even those get awkward, since if there is no value to be provided for quite some time, keeping in touch is sth. people dont have time for


Thoughts? Thanks!

Note: Comment 9

Onboarding ppl to your socials and then creating content is a great idea but requires tons of effort, no?

Or is it actually saving time since high "fix cost" of content creation but 0 time required to text individually?

Thoughts? Thanks!

love this.

This is inspiring but also scary. At least where I'm from, it's not that common to 'keep in touch'. I'll give it a try anyways.

A question: how would you define the importance of each person?
Importance to you ☺ — Derek

There is actually simple android app that using this concept. It's called Smart Contact Reminder.

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.barta.stayintouch

I have no affiliation with the company. Just a happy user.

Holy Shit ! I thought , I was your only "pen pal" . Not really , I'm just kidding . You are too bright of a person , to focus , upon only one person . But , having said that , I'm very jealous , of having to share , your bright , clever mind and HELPFUL comments , with the world !

Ahem ! Nevertheless , I welcome , your voice , with the same eagerness as I have for the last hundred years .

Hopefully......I have provoked , a bit of a chuckle from you.....as you read this missive.

(Seriously , I treasure , your thoughts , and respect , the time , you share those thoughts with me ! It really came, as NO surprise , that your popularity with the music industry was so vast ! You have much to give , both in technical and logical matters ...however beyond...that , and most appealing, is your reaching "OUT" to those , like myself , to whom find your comments rewarding , both in warm friendship and inventive suggestions .

" It’s a little insulting to contact someone you haven’t talked with in a long time, just to ask a favor. "

--> is there a problem with that? Given that it's just "a little"

For John, one spot above, I don't know about a "little" favour, but yes, for a normal size favour it is a tiny bit insulting because the person might feel like an object, an instrument, a "means to your ends." But we all want to be treated as an end in ourselves.

Like how we can insult or criticize a professional sports player, because we pay him as a means to our enjoyment, while it is wrong to criticize an Olympian who is only a volunteer, perhaps in near-poverty, an amateur, expected to be an end in himself, acting for his own love and well rounded citizenship and character.

For Bobby Lee, two spots above, just yesterday Derek and I were seriously corresponding about "fearsomely gloriously powerful" tools of self development. (After his scuba piece) I believe you and I have something powerful to offer, even if It's not big advice but simple folk sayings, or telling about our lives, or volunteering our time.

(Say, I keep applying Aesop's fables to Russia)

No matter what my station in life, no matter how glum and grey, no matter if a Star Trek fan tells me I don't have a life, I can look outward—so healthy—and see how I can help others in a tiny way. I can try to help blog readers, or even, on the far side of the world, some small self confident millionaire.

Thanks, Derek. Just took action to make this modification on my people database (just an online spreadsheet). Sharing here in case it's useful to someone else!

[ D = Daily but not needed cause mostly family :) ]
- M = Monthly (good memory & enjoying each other company + shared vision & values)
- Q = Quarterly (good memory & enjoying each other company)
- Y = Yearly (to be getting to know them better)

In my keeping in touch message/ call -> share something USEFUL to them or just ask what they're focusing on now (cross-check what I remembered about them and ask for progress) -> update to my database if needed

Novel idea to list that way. I’m gonna try it. Thx