ClearContext Corporate Blog

Before you read the article below, answer this question:

What word is related to the following other three? Cookies, sixteen, heart.

The answer is in the text and I unfortunately read it before I thought about the question.  Is it patently obvious or not?

Fortune Magazine’s Anne Fisher asks the question – if Archimedes were taking a quick shower instead of a bath, would he have formulated his displacement principle?  The gist of the article is that it takes blocks of time to come up with the really smart, creative ideas and our interrupt driven, multi-tasking work environment is making this increasingly difficult.  Here’s a quote:

"What scientists have only recently begun to realize is that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all. If you’ve ever had a great idea pop into your head while you were washing your car, walking your dog, or even napping, you already know what a team of Dutch psychologists revealed last month in the journal Science: The unconscious mind is a terrific solver of complex problems when the conscious mind is busy elsewhere or, perhaps better yet, not overtaxed at all."

Now, as I read it, this is what David Allen has been trying to tell us all along – get your daily tasks under control so you don’t have to think about them to free your mind to be more creative.  This is certainly true for me – I do my best thinking on my walk to work when and my creative pursuits always benefit from downtime.

Jason Clarke has some great comments on why effective email management is essential to success in business and life.  I can’t say it better, so go read it now.

On thing I’d like to add – there is a huge sense of satisfaction you get when you keep your email (and consequently, your life) organized.  This is one place where David Allen and his GTD disciples are dead right.  I start to feel a lot of anxiety when the messages pile up in my Inbox.  It’s a constant reminder that I’m not on the ball and I find myself wasting time, going back through my email to make sure I haven’t missed something.  It’s a relief when I can finally sit down and action all those emails.  Don’t underestimate just how much of a difference this can make in your life!

We made a few minor changes to the application.  Details and a download are here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to pull myself away from Release Candidate testing for a few hours and go to the TechCrunch Naked Conversations Book Launch party.  It was a much needed break, plus I got to meet a lot of innovative people and pick up a copy of Robert and Shel’s new book.  Thanks, Michael for throwing a great party!

Buzz was nice enough to introduce me to John Furrier, and we talked for a little bit about ClearContext.  Check out his podcast from the party.  I come on around minute 4:50.  After the pitch, John asks "So you’re simplifying people’s lives?"  Clearly John is a very perceptive individual!  Thanks, John!

In our v2 Release Candidate announcement, we posted plans for the v2 product line, including a description of the features in IMS Pro, our full-featured Information Management System, and Inbox Manager Personal Edition, our free email prioritization and inbox management solution.  For more detail, here’s a high level features comparison:

– This feature is limited for non-licensed customers.
* Features available to licensed Inbox Manager customers only

See our previous post for more detail on these two products and some screen prints.

I couldn’t let this pass without note.  Microsoft research is working on a foot pad interface to manage email.  Using a Dance Dance Revolution video game controller users can process their email – it’s touted as a healthy way to stay productive.  I’m not making this up – check out the video!

Yesterday we hit a major miletone in our development of ClearContext Information Management System v2 – we made our first Release Candidate available for download.  We have added several new features since the Beta 2 release, including WordMail support, enhanced setup and email tutorials, streamlined error reporting, Outlook 2000 and Windows 2000 support, and an enhanced ActionView UI.  Go to our beta page now, download the release, and let us know what you think!

There are a couple of known issues in RC1 (listed on RC1 release page), so we’ll have at least one more release candidate before our production release.  This release candidate is feature complete, so don’t expect any of the features that didn’t make it in already to make it into the 2.0 production release.  We did gather a lot of very valuable feedback during the beta period and will follow our 2.0 release with a 2.1 in the near future.  We hope to address many additional beta feature suggestions/improvements in that update.  Thanks again to everyone for the incredibly helpful feedback during our beta program.

We’ve also finalized the pricing and product segmentation for our 2.0 product line.  We’ve separated the product into two versions:

ClearContext IMS Professional

This product will be priced at $69.95 per single-user license.  ClearContext IMS Pro is our professional-grade, full-featured Outlook information management solution targeted at customers who use Outlook to manage their day.

• Address high value email first with automated prioritization

• Automate viewing, categorization, and filing of email threads via conversation management

• Quickly manage your tasks and schedule with automated workflow

ClearContext Inbox Manager

This product is free for personal use.  For $29.95, registered customers receive email support and additional functionality (RelatedView, AutoAssign, Sent Message Filing).  ClearContext Inbox Manager is our free email management solution targeted at email users who want to manage their Inbox more efficiently.

• Highlight important email via automated prioritization

• Easily link, categorize, & file email conversations

• View the entire email conversation at the click of a button (Registered Users Only)

Buy It Now!

For those of you who may have been waiting on 2.0 before purchasing, here’s a special offer that should help make up your mind.  People who purchase ClearContext Inbox Manager between now and our 2.0 production release will receive a free upgrade to the full ClearContext IMS Professional product.  This offer also applies to all 1.0 users who have been involved in the beta program.  We really appreciate everyone’s support and hope that you’re as excited about the upcoming ClearContext IMS release as we are.

Coming Soon…

In the coming weeks, we’ll finalize all of those things that go along with a new release – we’ve got an updated website coming, a new user guide, a new online demo and much more.  Watch this weblog for more information as we complete it.

Final Installment of Our IMS Pro Tips Series

Good conversation management is key to efficiently organizing and processing email.  As discussed previously, Topic Assignment and Filing is the first step in taking control of the Inbox.  Beyond that, the ClearContext RelatedView and AutoAssign features are excellent tools for keeping your Inbox organized and staying on top of email correspondence.

Want to get a global picture of all items in the current email conversation?  RelatedView shows all email in the message thread, along with tasks and appointments generated from that conversation.

Automatically categorize and prioritize email conversations.  AutoAssign allows you to create rules to designate a topic, message priority, and/or automatically file messages that meet specific criteria. This is helpful for proactively categorizing incoming email and automatically filing newsletters and other bulk email.

Part 3 of Our IMS Pro Tips Series

The ClearContext Action Bar helps boost your productivity. Quickly convert email to tasks and appointments.

Automatically create tasks and appointments from email with a single click.  ClearContext will attach the original message to the item for quick reference.

Quickly delegate email to other people.  Forward the original email and create a personal task as a reminder.  Alternatively, create an Outlook managed task assignment and receive automatic updates when the task is completed.

Easily file messages after you are done with them.  Following action (Reply, Task, Schedule, or Delegate) automatically file or delete the original message.

The ActionView is the command control center for your workday.  Review and manage all of your To Do items, including tasks, appointments, deferred email, and flagged Inbox messages.  Your assignments can be easily filtered and sorted, giving a quick way to view your work by date, topic, category, etc..

Using the tools ClearContext provides, managing tasks and appointments is a snap, making you more productive and ensuring that work doesn’t “fall through the cracks.”

Next Up: Conversation Management

Part 2 of our IMS Pro Tips Series

ClearContext scores each incoming message on characteristics such as sender, your involvement in the conversation, and whether the email was cc’d or sent directly to you to help identify your most important messages. The Inbox appears as it should be, your most important email from your most important senders are highlighted in red, while junk mail is in gray and filtered out of the way.

See and read your most important email first.  Messages are colored, ordered, and grouped differently based on the Inbox view that you select.  Run the View Selection Wizard from the Inbox Views menu to see your choices, including views that present your messages in priority order.

Clicking on an Inbox header (such as Subject or Received Date) will alter the Inbox view.  At any time, if you would like to return to your selected ClearContext Inbox view, select Reset Inbox.

Want to ensure that your high priority email is highlighted?  Select Contact to open a sender’s contact record and adjust sender priority.  Inbox messages will reflect the sender’s importance to you.

Next Up: Task & Calendar Management