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Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

monicahq.com

431–440 of 586 posts

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that I hate Zuckerberg that I find it hard to use Facebook, but that I trust them less than the other super-presences outs there (justified or not), and I dislike how it changes my perceptions of some of my friends. The constant posting of inane shit starts to look less like keeping in touch and more like an addiction to my eyes. I still like those people, and enjoy their company, but being constantly expose…

I still sometimes wonder if anyone else has a good name for what Facebook lost somewhere in the switch between the much more ephemeral "Status" system of 2004's TheFacebook to today's "Posts" and their littered, ad-filled home the "News Feed". Even the "Notes" system in the middle of the transition was more "opt in" than firehose and a bit more rare and curated by the fewer users using it. There is a spirit to the ol…

I use Facebook as my primary tool to keep in touch with friends, but at some point it's become almost unusable for it.

My main issue is people tagging each other in those "Tag a mate who X" or "@g has to X" shitposts. It just clutters my newsfeed with useless shit.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#432

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

I've built a versoin of this app a few years ago before mobile was big and there are features that I've always wanted for my app that I just didn't get to before I had to move on. The big feature that I've really wanted is integration with my calendar, email, phone, IM, fb, etc... Why? So the system would be able to tell me when I need to interact with someone using something better than a timer. You will probably need a mobile app for some of this to work

There are also two people on IndieHackers who built a mobile version of this who you may want to talk to.

I also own the domain muchcloser if you're interested in it. Let me know if you want to talk.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know :-/ Sorry about this, I'm trying to find the best way to explain what it does, without using a boring video that sucks, or poetic terms that say nothing. If you have any idea, please, please let me know :-D

The product is super cool and useful, although I hope you won't limit it to being a single-user thing because it could actually evolve into an amazing social tool. But I would really lose the word 'manage', it kind of suggests that personal relations are just another kind of task which is apt to make the people being related to feel devalued because they're not important enough to be given space in someone's day-to-d…

> personal relations are just another kind of task which is apt to make the people being related to feel devalued because they're not important enough to be given space in someone's day-to-day consciousness.

You seem to indicate that this devaluation is a sort of false accusation to which we should not make ourselves vulnerable.

Yet, that subordinate clause rings true to me as an independent statement.

Why should I let just any person (particularly family; none of mine know CS) occupy any nontrivial amount of space in my day-to-day consciousness; when such space could instead be used by something useful?

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to become a generous person such as him, when do you know when you've reached a limit in compassion? Would someone like your uncle ever think, for someone who is excessively rude, uncaring, disagreeable, unfriendly: "he is not worth my time, I should move on?"

That's a great question! Actually, the last time I saw my uncle, I asked how he could be generous, and yet not be taken advantage of or stuck with horrible people. He said that what he'd learned to do was to condition whatever help he was offering on the person taking some tiny step first. Often, it was as simple as "make up a budget for you and your wife to go on a three day getaway, send it to me, and I'll write yo…

This is great stuff. My aunt would pay us to read books. We had to provide a hand-written summary/review to her to collect. I can't remember the exact amount - somewhere between $8 and $18 each.

One of the reasons why I think your uncle's gestures made such a big impact is that he made gestures that rewarded good things AND he wasn't a relative to many of the people he interacted with.

When I was about 10 yrs old one of my dad's best friends asked me about my grades and I was proud to say I got straight A's. He reached into his pocket and gave me a $5 bill which was a lot back then for a kid and I knew he didn't have a lot of money too. It was fun spending it at the arcade and also bragging a bit to other friends. :) I'll actually never forget that moment because it was the first one I can recall where a non-family member / non-teacher praised my grades.

The only other moment I can recall was from grade school when an older student used to hand out fireworks to those that showed their report card with straight As. You can imagine how all the top students rushed out of school ready to redeem their report card for some fireworks their parents would probably never buy except for maybe July 4th. Possibly dangerous but absolutely brilliant. A cheap fun reward that literally celebrates the accomplishment.

Most of us get told how special and amazing we are by our parents and family all the time growing up. Often times the praise isn't really deserved since we're special snowflakes. When a stranger, family friend or anyone not related gives praise or reward it can be extremely impactful and reinforce that we're on the right path and that it really does matter. Those moments get seared into our memories.

I'm working on figuring out how to do some sort of unannounced cash or gift reward to those with straight As with one of the local public schools.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what Facebook should be. An augmented agent to help us be more helpful and empathetic to friends and family. I'm sorry for your loss. Your uncle sounds like a great human being.

This is what a lot of us who don't hate Zuck's guts actually do use FB for.

Having everyone watch all your interactions with your nearest and dearest creeps me the fuck out. I'm more private than that

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#436

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

Two feature requests that would make this a killer app for me (yes, I would pay):

1. Import names from Facebook (is this included if I had used Fb to register?)

2. Generate random individual to reach out to, weighted or sorted by when I last contacted them.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#437

CRM? No... PRM... Personal Relationship Management. :)

That's what I thought. Not a new concept. Google it.

Yup - looking through the brochure website just made me think "Private-instance of Facebook" - and the reminders and notifications seem like something Apple's Siri will eventually do when they progress further on their "Proactive" functionality.

What's frustrating is that Outlook (you know... the big, old Enterprise-y PIM system) already supports a lot of the functionality present in Monica, such as keeping track of birthdays, anniversaries, personal notes, related calendar events, and so on - you can also arbitrary link different contacts together to define relationships (not the same thing as "linking contact cards" to aggregate a single contact's data).

Many things about Outlook frustrate me - in this case it's how Contacts management is now frozen in time - but it's also heartbreaking that Outlook was a genuinely innovative (and performant!) PIM system in its early days, but there hasn't been any innovation in Outlook's PIM functionality in the past 10 years (seriously - the feature-set for Contacts, Tasks and Notes is literally unchanged since Outlook 2007 - and even then the only significant change was adding contact photos). It wouldn't take much, besides some courage, to update Outlook's Contacts experience to be more up-to-date with the functionality provided by modern social-media platforms - it's just so close. But because it's now so entrenched it's very unlikely we'll see any significant change until someone pulls a Slack on Outlook (a-la Slack vs Lync) to prompt Microsoft into trying to compete - assuming we're not doomed to yet another Electron app. shudder

If anyone in the Desktop Outlook team is reading this - especially if you work on Contacts, please fix my biggest gripes with Contacts:

1. Make Outlook fast again. It shouldn't take 2-4 seconds to switch between Mail, Contacts and Calendars.

2. Don't make new recurring Calendar Events for Contact Birthdays and Anniversarys - why can't you have 'virtual' events in their own special calendar layer like all other systems do (even Windows 10 Calendar does) - so I don't get multiple event reminders for someone's birthday (from the 'real' calendar events that Desktop Outlook creates combined with the 'virtual' events from Windows 10 Calendar).

3. Give me more control over Contact Photos - show me the file-size, let me crop them. I don't like having to switch to my phone to edit contact photos.

4. I have contacts with more than 3 email addresses, more than 2 mailing addresses, and more than 1 mobile phone number - why is this limitation still a thing?

5. Retain a history of all Contact fields over time instead of requiring me to maintain "backup" contacts that contain older details.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#438
post #407

> Dear app developers: stop naming your personal assistants after women. Stop thinking women’s jobs is to help you out. It’s not. > Stop writing copy like “Here is everything you can do with Monica” and “I’ve created Monica to help these people”. From a Monica I follow on twitter.

Interesting to note that a scheduling assistant I've been testing (X.ai) offers both an Amy and an Andrew assistant. I've definitely made a conscious decision to use Andrew because of potential negative reactions to using Amy.

It does make me wonder about the choice of Apple and Amazon to use female names.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#439
An app might be asking a lot, but a responsive design to allow mobile usage would be a big help. Or at least something that could hook into IFTTT or something so I can easily add info on the go via email, twitter, or something.

For example, let's say I'm at a party and meet some people I want to log. Mobile input is really key there because I may have been drinking and won't remember that info in the next 15 minutes.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#440

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

Two feature requests that would make this a killer app for me (yes, I would pay): 1. Import names from Facebook (is this included if I had used Fb to register?) 2. Generate random individual to reach out to, weighted or sorted by when I last contacted them.

Thanks a lot.

1. This is not possible. Facebook does not give me those information through an importer. So it won't happen unless they change their mind.

2. Interesting. I had something similar in mind, I think you'll be pleased when it'll be out.

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