ClearContext Corporate Blog

We’ve received a ton of great feedback about IMS v4 via email and on the forums since our release a few weeks ago.  So far, our response to most of it has been “That has been added to the feature request list” or “That’s something we hope to do.” That doesn’t mean we’re not paying very close attention – we just wanted to get as much feedback as possible to help us prioritize everything in a manner that best reflects what our customers need.  Additionally, we’ve had to poke around on some of these requests to gauge the development effort required to fully implement. 

Now that we’ve had some time to gather that information, here’s a general outline of what we’re planning (subject to change, but this should be pretty close). We’re breaking things into four areas – a 4.0.x maintenance release, various prototype projects we’ve been working on for a while, a 4.x upgrade (free to all registered v4 customers), and our next major product release:

4.0.x Maintenance Release

We’ve got a point release in QA that will address a couple of issues in found in the initial v4.0 release, specifically: 

• Improved handling of recurring appointments in the Dashboard and ActionView
• Enhanced installation to accommodate some quirky Vista installation problems we have been seeing
• Minor fit/finish changes

Most of these changes address minor problems reported that won’t impact existing users.

Prototype/beta projects

We’ve been working on a bunch of areas in parallel with our core IMS development.  Clues to the direction of this development are in Deva’s blog posts on the future of email, but we’re not quite ready to talk about details publicly yet.  We hope to roll out the first component along with the 4.0.x maintenance release, at which point we’ll share more information about the types of things we’re developing to leverage and extend core IMS capabilities.

4.x Upgrade

We’re planning to deliver a 4.x update in the first half of 2008.  This is going to largely address feature requests people have made around the following areas: 

• Dashboard Display and Interactivity
• Setup Improvements
• Better Handling of Un-scored Messages

While some of the major components are being worked on, we’re still prioritizing a number of the specific smaller chunks of functionality to see what makes it in to this release.  We’ve created a forum thread here to get input from everyone on what your top priorities are. 

Next major release planning

We’re also in the process of scoping out and scheduling the future release plans for the next major version of IMS and other applications in the ClearContext suite of products. Much of this involves brand new functionality (related to the prototype/beta projects above) that we’ll discuss in more detail in the coming weeks and months.  On the technical side we’re working on ways to improve multi-machine support.  We’ll also continue to enhance existing IMS features, especially around areas of new v4 functionality like the dashboard.  Existing IMS areas we’re looking to improve/expand include: 

• Improved Threading
• Message Tagging
• Dashboard Flexibility
• Enhanced Automation Capabilities

We’ll have a more detailed post on this in the future, as well as a forum thread discussing the release plan.

For right now, though, our priority is making sure we get the right set of features delivered in our 4.x upgrade to improve the usability and value of new pieces of functionality such as the IMS Dashboard.  We really appreciate everyone’s feedback and pay close attention to every suggestion and forum thread.  Please post any ideas/suggestions you have there; we’ll continue to do our best to get as many of those features as possible into the product.

I stumbled across this Ferris Research article on measuring email response time and email SLA’s at Ferris Research.  David Sengupta basically says that using email response time as a metric is a sure fire way to develop unproductive work habits in the organization:

“Being hyper-responsive to email around the clock suggests that you live an interrupt-driven work life and that you likely have a hard time concentrating for prolonged periods of time. Your overall productivity is likely to be reduced as a result, making you less valuable.

…

Many people are intensely productive but block hours or even days of email-free time, in order to focus on priority projects. When you hear managers or others in the company suggesting that there is some inherent value in someone’s ability to be instantly responsive to any message that comes their way, or in someone’s ability to process a massive amount of email, think again.”

This is, of course, exactly what we have been saying.  Focus on your projects rather than your messages and you’ll be a lot more successful in the long run.

Over the last several years we have been working with experts in the field of productivity along with a very passionate and vocal customer base to develop a world class productivity tool to help ease the burden of information overload.  Along the way, we have collected a series of best practices for managing information and squeezing more productivity out of the day.

In conjunction with the IMS v4 release, we have distilled these concepts into a process to help our customers get the most out of the product.  The result is the ClearContext IMS Daily Workflow, a three step process for managing information that will help save an hour or more per day:

First thing in the morning, identify the day’s priorities:

1. Review your calendar 
2. Review your daily task list 
3. Review your alerts

Twice daily, manage your Inbox:

Quickly review each message and determine when you need to act on it:

1. Act immediately?  Reply, Delegate, or Review and File 
2. Act later?  Defer, Create a Task or Appointments 
3. No action required?  Unsubscribe or Delete

Throughout the day, succeed by focusing on what’s important:

1. Work on your tasks by project 
2. Review high priority messages only 
3. View all related information on To Do’s

We believe in the benefits of productivity methodologies such as Total Workday Control and Getting Things Done.  The IMS Daily Workflow doesn’t replace these methodologies, but rather provides a framework to hit the ground running with IMS.  We still recommend that you take best practices from all of these methodologies to find something that works best for you.

The IMS Daily Workflow is the culmination of years of development with our customers via product and process feedback, forum participation and weblog conversations.  We will be expanding each of these steps in great detail via the weblog in the coming months.  In the meantime, check out our Solutions Pages for more detail.

Up Next: Identify the day’s priorities…

After Thanksgiving, GTD coach Kelly Forrister had 1,155 new emails in her Inbox.  She brought those down to zero in three hours following the 4D’s – Delete, Do, Delegate and Defer.  Read the rest of the article for the detail.

I like Kelly’s style – she recommends really taking the time off when you go on vacation and scheduling extra time when you get back to tackle the inevitable information build-up. 

"First, I knew the morning I got back to work I’d have about 6x more input than normal, so I blocked that extra time on my calendar to give myself the time I would need to get it processed. I think this is essential. There is no way a week of email can be processed in the same time I normally allow. I need a cushion of extra time that first morning back."

I advised something similar in my Vacation Email Triage post:

"I have two more "peace of mind" tips for you.  I have read several recent articles that quote people who feel the need to check email while on vacation to try and avoid the inevitable email crunch.  This is a mistake and should be avoided at all costs.  Email begets email – the more you send the more you get in return.  If you answer the important messages while "relaxing," the result is likely to be the same amount of email when you return.  My advice is twofold:

1. Block the last day out before you leave to tie up all your loose ends, clear your Inbox, and hit the road with a sense of accomplishment and relief knowing that you got things done before your break. 
2. Keep your schedule on your first day back clear.  You’ll have a full free day when you return to devote to catching up before everyone realizes that you’re back in business."

Keep that in mind when you take vacation over the holidays this year.

On a related note, if you haven’t seen it already, we have recently updated our GTD setup guide for v4.  Check it out here.

There have been some new articles and reviews written about IMS v4 over the last couple of weeks:

Email’s Friendly Fire – November 27, 2007
Rebecca Buckman – Wall Street Journal
"ClearContext… uses algorithms to quickly analyze a user’s email to determine which contacts and messages are the most important." 

Email Overload – November 27, 2007
Gui Cremerius
"Who doesn’t suffer from email overload these days? Even my 75 year old mother sometimes claims she’s getting too much email!" 

ClearContext : pour mieux organiser ses e-mails dans Outlook. – November 26, 2007
Stéphanie Renault – 01net.
"IMSv4, édité par ClearContext, permet de s’y retrouver facilement face aux avalanches quotidiennes de messages, grâce à des règles simples de tri, de priorité, de suivi des alertes…" 

ClearContext IMS Review: How to Manage Email – November 25, 2007
Bill Masella – Projects Possible
"With each release of this product I find that I am becoming more and more of a fan and my Outlook life is now so entrenched in it’s use that I couldn’t even imagine what Outlook would be like without it." 

Annoyed By Your Boss’s Email? No Problem. – November 17, 2007
Neil Smithline – My Geekdom
"All-in-all, CCIMS is a wonderful tool." 

ClearContext Information Management System Pro 4.0 – November 11, 2007
Heinz Tschabitscher – email.about.com
"Version 4 adds a helpful Dashboard that collects emails, tasks and appointments on a project basis. Also new are ClearContext alerts for messages from certain people or in a particular thread — as well as a handy Do Not Disturb button that turns off Outlook’s email notifications for a while."

Email continues to be a hot topic in the news! A great Wall Street Journal article on email technologies being developed to help people deal with email overload mentions ClearContext along with a couple of other companies also developing Outlook-based products, Seriosity and Xobni.  The article focuses on the message management capabilities of IMS and includes a couple of good examples from ClearContext customers.  Deva was interviewed for the article and has written some follow-up thoughts at his blog, Email Dashboard.

A quick note on IMS licensing:

• Full Licenses – We are offering IMS v4 at an introductory price of $79.95 USD for a single license through the end of the month.  The regular price of $89.95 applies starting December 1.
• Upgrades – Purchase an upgrade before the end of the year to take advantage of the introductory upgrade price of $29.95 USD.  The regular upgrade price of $44.95 applies starting January 1.

By now all registered users should have received an email from us regarding v4 upgrade options.  If you have not received one, drop us a line at support at clearcontext dot com and we’ll send additional detail.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

We’ve updated our GTD setup guide for IMS v4.  A PDF is available here.  This is an evolving work; so please post any comments/feedback on the guide in our forums.

We’ve updated our User Guide to include new features for v4, including the IMS Dashboard, Alerts, Do Not Disturb and Toolbar Management.  The downloadable PDF of the User Guide includes additional information about the IMS Daily Workflow.

Yesterday we pushed out IMS v4.0.2 to address the following:

• The IMS Dashboard and ActionView were experiencing stability issues when encountering malformed appointments.
• There was a compatibility issue with Business Contact Manager.

If you are experiencing either of these issues, shut down Outlook and download and install the update.