ClearContext Corporate Blog

After reading Michael Gartenberg’s blog at Jupiter Research, we’d like to revisit the ClearContext vs. Outlook rules discussion.  At
first blush it could appear that ClearContext simply repackages some
basic Outlook rules.  This understates ClearContext’s
prioritization algorithm and email management
functionality.   Outlook rules are effective at doing fixed,
pre-defined actions on individual message criteria, such as flagging
email from your boss.  In contrast, ClearContext scores all
incoming messages on multiple priority levels; based on criteria
developed from your email history and contacts, accounting for
individual preferences and exceptions.  In addition,
ClearContext’s conversation management functionality
makes it easy to organize, categorize, and archive email threads once you receive
them, greatly reducing the time required to process email.

For a more detailed analysis, please see our weblog post ClearContext vs. Outlook Rules.

The irony is that I have been trying to get through this article for a couple of days, but I keep getting interrupted…

The New York Times published Meet the Life Hackers this weekend; detailing the plethora of distractions in the modern workplace and people’s tricks for avoiding them.  Using multiple monitors, turning off email notifications, and putting prioritization technology in place were included as tips.  It’s worth a read if you can get yourself a few minutes, distraction free.

Hat tip to Robert Scoble for the link to this article.  BTW – Robert took his email from 500 to 5 using our product and Omar is on the verge of achieving email Zen with ClearContext’s help.   With all the ClearContext love going around, we’re gushing like proud parents today!

Update: There’s a good NPR interview of the author, Clive Thompson, posted at NPR.org.

We had the pleasure of dining with productivity guru David Allen last night.  I have not been to a Getting Things Done seminar (yet), so it was fascinating to see exactly how passionate David is in his mission to help people get a handle on their information overloaded lives.  I now understand exactly why legions of people rave about the GTD experience.

I was curious to hear how David felt about our inbox prioritization engine.  In GTD, one of the key concepts is to get your inbox to empty.  IMO, that doesn’t negate the need for our product, as many of us experience times when there is more email to review than time to process it, making prioritization a useful concept.  Apparently, David sees the value.

As we continue to develop ClearContext, I think you will find that our product becomes increasingly applicable to the GTD way of doing things.  In the meantime, here’s a link to a post I wrote several months ago on implementing a GTD-like structure in Outlook using ClearContext.  Enjoy!

Buzz’s interview with John Furrier inspired the creation of the ActiveWords ClearContext flash demonstration.  The demo shows how to use the ActiveWords/ClearContext combo to manage Microsoft Outlook.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Phil Sassen posted a review of ClearContext on his blog Tales from the Geekside:

"Der ClearContext Inbox Manager schafft Abhilfe im Kampf gegen die Mailflut."

Now, I don’t speak German, but according to Google, this translates to:

"The ClearContext Inbox manager creates remedy in the fight against the Mailflut."

I think that remedying the fight against the Mailflut is exactly what we expect Inbox Manager to do!

We were happy to send Phil a ClearContext registration key as part of our free license program.  Dankeschön, Phil!

Thanks to everyone who has asked about the status of product plans.  FYI – We continue to rapidly move towards our next major release (ClearContext v2.0).  Our initial announcement provides a good overview of the feature set; we will talk more about the final feature list shortly. 

Beta testing will start in Q4.  If you are interested in participating in the Beta, please send an email to beta@clearcontext.com.

A number of people have begun to ask about v2 upgrade pricing.  We have not finalized 2.0 pricing yet, but we will provide discounts to registered 1.x users that make it cheaper to upgrade then to buy the new product outright.

Thanks again and we look forward to hearing your feedback on the product when we get it out there!

BusinessWeek has an interesting article in this week’s edition titled The Real Reasons You’re Working So Hard.
The basic premise is that, while the information revolution has boosted
productivity by 70% in the last 25 years, companies that are holding on
to now archaic corporate organizational structures are overloading
their employees with internal inefficiency.  Read this:

Globalization and the
Internet create great new opportunities, but they also ratchet up the
intensity of competition and generate more work — especially with the
existing corporate structure still hanging on tightly. "Nobody wants to
give up their territory or their control," says Shoshana Zuboff, a
former professor at Harvard Business School. Adds Lowell Bryan, a
McKinsey & Co. director: "Professionals are still being managed as
if they were in factories, in organizations designed to keep everybody
siloed. At less well-run companies, you’re struck by how frustrated
people are. They work like dogs and are wasting time."

Make that lots of time. Fully 25% of executives at large companies say
their communications — voice mail, e-mail, and meetings — are nearly
or completely unmanageable. That’s according to a new McKinsey survey
of more than 7,800 managers around the world. Nearly 40% spend a half
to a full day per week on communications that are not valuable. Other
surveys echo similar results. "We’re making our people compete with
sandbags strapped to their legs," says Zuboff.

One only has to look at the popularity of David Allen’s Getting Things Done Methodology
to verify that this is exactly right – millions of workers are
struggling to cope with overly efficient distribution of information
within an inherently broken internal system.  And while there are
lots of companies who provide tools and methodologies to cope with this
problem (ourselves included), there is a real need for big corporations to rethink the way that they manage their people and their business.

When I was in the consulting world, it was these types of
inefficiencies that opened the window for some of our largest and most
successful projects.  One of my clients had all the skills in
house to implement the enterprise systems we were building, but their
employees weren’t empowered to cross departmental lines to get it
done.  They ultimately spent millions in services fees to 3rd
parties who could work outside the corporate bureaucracy.  And
while the project was a huge success (we were inducted into the
company’s "Project Hall of Fame"!) they were paying us as much (or
more) for our skills at crossing organizational boundaries as they were
for our development and implementation work.

For more detail, read the BusinessWeek article The Real Reasons You’re Working So Hard.

I’m late to the dance on this one, but Omar has pointed out that a video for the new Hotmail beta (code named "Kahuna") is available on Channel 9.  Interesting stuff going on in the webmail world…

Mark Hurst touts the advantages of emptying the inbox regularly in a Forbes article published yesterday:

"Here’s how to manage incoming e-mail: Keep the
inbox empty–clear out incoming e-mails before they pile up or you lose
your ability to manage them effectively."

He makes it sound so simple.  The article goes on to explain some ways to acomplish this task, including the use of the oft repeated "two-minute rule:" if you
can address the message in less than two minutes, do it and file or
delete it.

For more detail, read The Secrets to E-Mail Nirvana.

The Podcast Network interviewed me on their Productivity Show yesterday and posted it here.  It’s about 45 minutes long, and we spend most of the time talking through the features and functionality of ClearContext.  If you want to hear a more in depth analysis of what Inbox Manager can do, check it out.

I want to say thanks again to Cameron and Des.  It was a pleasure chatting.  Hopefully my enthusiasm for our product comes through in the show!