ClearContext Corporate Blog

Perry Reed at The Podcast Network spent some time comparing ClearContext to SNARF on episode #25 of the Tablet PC Show.   He concludes that ClearContext is a "better way to go" and that, for him, it is "a very nice way to organize my email, to keep track of it, to know what I need to respond to right away, and then to manage it after I’ve read it."  To listen to Perry’s analysis, check out his podcast at around the 21 minute mark.

Thanks for the review, Perry!  We agree, there is more to email management than simple prioritization.

A note for Tablet PC users.  If you’d like to ink basic ClearContext functions, use our stuff in conjunction with ActiveWords InkPad.  Using our ActiveWords agent, create AW’s that assign ClearContext topics to email conversations, automatically file messages, etc..  I think you will find that our application, in conjunction with ActiveWords InkPad, will greatly enhance your productivity within Outlook.

Microsoft Research today released a new utility called SNARF that “filters and sorts e-mail based on the type of message and the user’s history with an e-mail correspondent.”
It’s interesting and good to see Microsoft acknowledging the
significance of some of the problems we’ve been tackling at ClearContext for the past couple of years, but there’s a lot more to solving these problems than prioritization and triage.

In March 2004 we described a number of email-related problems and discussed our approach to solving them in our white paper, Designing a More Effective Inbox.
In that paper we describe the design philosophy behind the
patent-pending contact analysis and email prioritization algorithms at
the core of the ClearContext Inbox Manager product we released last
year.  A key consideration in our design was to seamlessly
integrate this functionality into the existing Outlook Inbox that
people use every day, We chose not to add more overhead to their busy
worklife by creating a second interface for them to use (as products
like the SNARF utility or NEO require).

Based on our survey of high-volume business email users, we found
that email prioritization and triage was definitely an important factor
in effectively dealing with email, as described by a number of our
users, including Omar Shahine.  That was just one of three key areas where our users wanted help with email, though.

The second area we received the most feedback about had to do with
filing and organization of email.  ClearContext Inbox Manager
allows topics to be assigned to email conversations, automatically
organizing related emails in easy to manage topic folders as described
in William Bartholomew’s review.

The third key area has to do with action items and workflow
generated from email.  Email is no longer just about
information.  The tasks, appointments, and other action items that
make up an individual’s workday are largely driven from email.
Our focus in our 2.0 release has been on extending ClearContext
functionality beyond just the Inbox and emails to integrate across and
link all of these items.  We describe a number of the features in our product plan.

We have recently started beta-testing ClearContext v2.0
with a small group of users.  We will very shortly be announcing
an openly available beta 2.  In advance of that, we’d like to give
you a sneak-peek our ClearContext 2.0 product line (that will be
officially announced in more detail upon GA release).

ClearContext Inbox Manager Personal Edition 2.0 – this free product will be focused on inbox prioritization and color-coding functionality

ClearContext Inbox Manager 2.0 – this upgrade to our existing
product will expand functionality beyond the inbox and add a number of
brand new features, such as unified views of all Outlook items related
to the same topic/project

ClearContext Professional Information Management System 2.0 –
this product goes beyond email management to add email-driven task
assignment, scheduling, deferral, delegation, follow-up management, and
other workflow functionality

As a special bonus for our existing 1.0 users, all registered users who participate in a follow-up survey to our email usage survey will be given a free upgrade to our IMS 2.0 product.

It’s good to see a lot of awareness and momentum building around
something we’re very passionate about here, making email a better and
more efficient tool for communication and workflow.  We’re excited
about our upcoming releases and look forward to hearing your feedback
as more of you try out our new products in the coming weeks.

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!  In particular, we would like to give special thanks for everyone who has helped ClearContext grow throughout the past year.

We would also like to thank in advance all of those who are helping or will be helping us test our next major release, ClearContext v2.  Yesterday we released ClearContext v2 Beta 1 to a limited group of testers.  We will be gathering feedback, integrating changes, and release a public beta as quickly as it makes sense.  If you aren’t on the current beta test list, feel free to send us a note to beta@clearcontext.com and we will notify you when we have something ready to look at.

So, enjoy your holiday and watch our blog for future announcements regarding v2.

I’ve been busy testing ClearContext v2 (more on that in a day or
two) and let a couple of stories pass by without comment.

First,  Udo Shroeder has posted Email, Not Worth It? – another rebuttal to all these recent articles published predicting email’s death:

"[Email is] easy to archive, searchable, can be filtered, topics can easily be
scaled to additional people, it doesn’t take a lot of time to bring
some points across. Everything is documented, for eternity. And the
most important aspect: email doesn’t interrupt me."

Well said!

Also, the Radicati Group has posted the results to an email usage survey
(have I mentioned before that I love a good email survey?) that finds
that nearly 25% of email at work is considered personal in
nature.  Coupled with spam, the study indicates that more than 50% of "business" email is not related to business at all.
Interesting.

OK, I’m biased.  We write email tools.  I have a vested interest in people continuing to use email.  All that said, I really don’t get it when writers use the imminent demise of email to discuss the proliferation of spam and IM and collaboration tools.  There’s always going to be a need for the type of communication email provides – personal correspondence between a few that can be consumed on the recipient’s time schedule and used as documentation of decisions, information, etc..

Though the title of BusinessWeek’s article, E-Mail is So Five Minutes Ago indicates otherwise, they appear to agree with me. While business folk are starting to find new ways to collaborate using web based tools like wikis, email’s not really going to go away:

‘Though the likeliest
scenario is that e-mail will remain the prime tool for notification and
one-to-one communication, "a huge percentage of collaboration will
occur outside of e-mail, with a continued rise in these other tools,"
says Clay Shirky, associate teacher in the interactive
telecommunications program at New York University. "There’s an enormous
untapped value to be gotten by getting collaboration right."’

This is spot on.  There are some tasks that people try to perform within email that are best implemented using other tools.  One of my first jobs was working for an IT Consulting firm that heavily invested in Lotus Notes.  We had 100’s of Lotus databases for all our collaborative work.  Our employees were more productive, clients could see the value, and we built internal communities that formed the backbone of a very successful corporate culture.  Email was not the right place to do this.

But it’s not going away.  Just look at the results of this informal IM vs. email test.  Or the analysis here that talks about the productivity gains to be had from being connected via email.

Email’s not going away.  But Bob Geldof is right – we could all stand to figure out how to make better use of it.

Ezra Roizen features ClearContext in the Roizen report as a companion article to yesterday’s AlwayOn piece on Microsoft Innovation.  I quote:

‘As I listened to Deva I began asking myself, "Who needs lots of little innovations to improve its products? Who has the luxury of taking a long-term, contemplative, and iterative view of innovation? Who can offer entrepreneurs attractive mid-tier economic outcomes?" Answer: Microsoft.’

For more detail, read Should Microsoft Invest in Features?

Anne Bonaparte, CEO of MailFrontier, has published their findings on the impact that phishing and other email scams is having on user’s trust in legitimate email:

"But e-mail’s functionality has been devalued by unrelenting abuse in
the form of spam, viruses and phishing. We’ve even reached the point
where one must ask whether fed-up users are ready to declare "lights
out" on e-mail."

The "lights out" scenario she speaks of is clearly not likely to
happen, but it is interesting to note that as users become more
suspicious of email content, they are reporting more and more
legitimate email as spam.  For more detail read her news.com
article, Is it ‘lights out’ for email?

I had the opportunity to sit down with Buzz and talk to Cameron over at the Podcast Network yesterday.  The result has been posted as Productivity Show #15.  Take a listen for more on ActiveWords, our ActiveWords/ ClearContext agent, and a discussion on gmail vs. Outlook.  Thanks, Cameron and Buzz – it was a pleasure as always!

Robert Scoble is interviewed by Marc Orchant and James Kendrick over at the jkOnTheRun podcast weblog.  They talk about  Slingbox, Virtual Earth, Tablet Enhancements for Outlook, and a myriad of other items.  But of course, I’m noting it because anytime someone professes love for ClearContext (as Robert does at approximately minute 40:55) that’s going to merit a mention in the weblog.  I am pleased to hear that Inbox Manager continues to shine and can’t wait for Robert to try v2.0!

The New York Times ran a story this morning on exploding email usage.  More email usage data:

"Dealing with e-mail – filing it, cataloging it, prioritizing it – has
added hours of extra work a week, much of it done by people in the late
evening and early morning. In a recent survey by America Online and
Opinion Research Corporation, 41 percent of the respondents said they
checked their e-mail in the morning before going to work. More than 25
percent said they had never gone more than a few days without checking
e-mail, with 60 percent saying they check it on vacation. Four percent
looked at e-mail in the bathroom."

The article goes on to talk about the inherent stress of email because
of its immediacy and the feelings of guilt involved in having an
overfull inbox.  For more, read Got Two Extra Hours for Email?