Gist: A Pristine Social CRM

Contact information is extremely vital in keeping up with personal and professional relationships, but, thanks to the social network explosion and the broadband and smartphone revolution, we don’t remember them right off the bat. All of it is stored digitally in so many places, it’s quite a chore to put them all together.

Gist can help you out by getting the names, pictures, social networks and work information of your contacts from multiple online destinations. After the break let us take a closer at Gist, the Social CRM.

Overview

Gist provides the full view of the contacts in your professional network by creating a rich business profile for each one that includes the most news, status updates, and work details. All of this is achieved by pulling together all your contacts from your various inboxes, address books, social networks and other sources then adding news, status updates and blog posts to them creating a rich business profile for everyone in your network.

By spanning a large number online contact and content sources, Gist users are better informed with insights and actionable information about clients, contacts and most importantly prospects. Gist is currently in public beta and is free for everyone until further notice.

Using Gist

Apps & Plugins

You can access Gist and gain access to the social connections by taking advantage of any of their number of app and plugins. Name a platform and you can bet that they have an app for accessing Gist from there. There are browser plugins, Gmail extensions, Outlook plugins, smartphone apps, on Enterprise software like Salesforce and then there is the web app too.

The Firefox and Chrome browser plugins help you leverage your existing Gmail account and letting you switch between sending email, connecting on a social network or even make a Skype call.

Using a Microsoft Outlook clients behind a corporate firewall? There is a plugin for that too! Gist adds dynamic profiles for everyone in your inbox and calendar. A plugin for Mozilla Thunderbird would make Gist more ubiqutous.

Privacy & Security Notifications

After a tidy looking sign up page that requires only the vital details from you and email activation of the account, you will be taken to a welcome page that briefs about the process of importing contacts. We should really appreciate Gist for being upfront with us for clearly mentioning what happens next.

Since they handle sensitive personal and professional contact information, Gist has a dedicated section section that literally promises the safe keep of all your data. Nicely done Gist, consider myself assured of the safety of my data!

Importing Contacts

Gist can import contacts from a lot of services and apps that are neatly arranged in their respective categories. For example, in the Email & Calenders section, we have all the available services that fall into that category. I chose importing from Gmail from the first category.

In certain cases, Gist offers more options for in depth search and import of data. You can add Google Apps account in place of Gmail address too. Multiple imports can be done simultaneously and everything happens in the background. All authorizations happen via OAuth and you don’t have to enter your credentials at Gist.

It’s great to see import options for CSV and vCard files.

Dashboard

Before going to the dashboard, Gist updates you about the status of the import and the rich profiles that are being put together for them. The sneak preview will make everyone so excited.

Upon first launch, recent news stream will be displayed and you can change that from the drop down menu at the top.

Viewing Contacts

Gist brings all your contacts into one place to give you a full view of your network making it easy to find anyone, anytime. Automatically get the latest news, blog posts and tweets for anyone in your professional network delivered where you want it, when you want it. This way you can always keep up to date with all of your contacts.

A consolidated contact information can be accessed from the Contact View section. Use the slider to change the default importance value of a contact if there is any discrepancy.

News & Updates

Gist pulls information from over 60,000 news sources, 20 million blogs and content feeds from popular social networks like Twitter and Facebook to bring you the latest about your contacts in one place.

Email addresses, phone numbers, work details and more all assembled and updated automatically. At any time if you feel that the information has to be verified again, there is an option to directly ask your contacts to provide their latest information by requesting a profile update.

Meeting & Sharing

It’s so easy to share news and information directly from the Dashboard. With the click of a button you can post updates to social networks like Twitter and Facebook or share with others via email.

All the information you need for your next meeting or appointment is automatically assembled and updated giving you the latest company news and updates from contacts.

Final Thoughts

Gist removes the noise from individual email alerts, eliminates the hassle of going to multiple services to get news and updates about contacts and automates the delivery and presentation of the most important information about the contacts in your professional network. At first glnce, the app might be a bit intimidating and complex looking, but is very easy to adapt. At the end of the evaluation, I was so impressed with Gist, I have now installed the browser plugins and the iOS app. Am sure you will like it too!

Share Your Thoughts!

Do you like the concept of Social CRM over the conventional one? How much would you be willing to pay for Gist once it comes out of beta?