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A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

jakobgreenfeld.com

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Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#401

Post by Vivtek »

cehrlich wrote: post #179
mettamage wrote: post #119

Some comments here claim that he is treating people not as friends. IMO these comments are not charitable a interpretation. While it is a plausible interpretation, I have strongly learned from HN to be charitable and optimistic when reading someone else's point of view. I know with topics like this that perspectives vary more wildly among people, so let me show you why I can be more optimistic in my interpretation. I…

I have a similarly non-cynical view of this and am considering to implement something similar for myself. The reasons are simple: 1. I don't want to wake up one day 20 or so years from now and realize that I'm old and lonely. 2. It's possible to lose friends/acquaintances if you don't talk to them for some amount of time 3. I am generally happy when people I've had positive interactions with in the past contact me ou…

Absolutely. When Facebook got to the point that my old friends and family were ubiquitously present, it was a godsend. I reestablished contact with people I hadn't heard from for years, kept up-to-date on family that I would otherwise not have heard from - it was great.

Lately, Facebook doesn't do a very good job of this, so I've been thinking of better ways of doing it. Something like an email reminder might work.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#402

Post by Vivtek »

gjulianm wrote: post #160
mettamage wrote: post #119

Some comments here claim that he is treating people not as friends. IMO these comments are not charitable a interpretation. While it is a plausible interpretation, I have strongly learned from HN to be charitable and optimistic when reading someone else's point of view. I know with topics like this that perspectives vary more wildly among people, so let me show you why I can be more optimistic in my interpretation. I…

I get thinking about a system like this. I have given some thought about building something similar, but always ended up abandoning it for the exact same reasons this post strikes me as extremely weird: - It feels weird classifying people in boxes of desired contact frequency. How do you decide that? Does the author think "I honestly don't care enough about this person to contact them more than once a year" ? Then wh…

Look, I'm 55 years old. There are people I haven't heard from in maybe thirty years, easy. I wouldn't mind catching up on those people yearly - and it would be at least a thirty-fold improvement over my current management technique, right?

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#403

Post by Jeff_Brown »

58x14 wrote: post #399
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this. I'd like it a ton if I had a single feed that would aggregate my texts, whatsapp, my various email addresses, telegram, signal, skype, zoom, facebook messenger ...

Hey, me too! I've been building something like this for awhile, but it's a side project, and thus regularly de-prioritized beneath work projects. Also, really a lot of effort to maintain, as each platform tends to frequently push breaking changes :(

Good on you!

I can imagine -- a solid feed with reply capabilities sounds like a maintenance nightmare. But a smaller feature set could cover the queuing need described here -- something that just extracts a simple .csv file listing contacts and when they were last contacted.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#404

Post by BeFlatXIII »

alisonatwork wrote: post #197
pjerem wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if people aren't contacting me, why should I care about contacting them? That’s my current main interrogation in life and honestly, I have not found the answer. I feel alone, but I have a fair number of "old friends" I barely contact anymore. I want to keep in touch but don’t know what to say. And they don’t spontaneously contact me, neither do I. It’s a chicken and egg problem. Maybe people don’t care about me. Bu…

This. I tend to move countries every few years, which means I leave many of my friends behind. For a while, social media was a good way to keep in touch, but nowadays nobody I know regularly logs in to social media any more (me included), so that route is gone. About a year ago I decided to start doing a 3-6 month email blast, like those family holiday letters people used to send in the snail mail days. About half my…

That's kind of how I am with my college friends. At least we (pandemic-willing) have a reason to all be in the same city for the same weekend once a year. Some go for the trade show itself, everyone else goes because they know that's when everyone will be in town.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#405

Post by freeopinion »

notreallyserio wrote: post #211

The biggest reason I don't maintain contact with people from my past is I was a much worse person in my past and I'm either embarrassed about my behavior or concerned that my shittiness is what led to our relationship in the first place. In any case, I find it's easier (and emotionally satisfying) to stay in touch with a couple people that I can have natural, unforced conversations with. Scheduling interactions on a…

I moved back to my hometown 20 years after leaving. At one point I thought I should pull out my old yearbooks to try to remember who everyone was. I decided that was a bad idea. It would be better to learn who everyone is.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#406

Post by gjulianm »

snowwrestler wrote: post #271
gjulianm wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you have baseline level of commitment to every relationship. Well, the issue is that baseline level of commitment is extremely low, to the point where I don't think it's an actual relationship if you only talk once a year. Once a year and zero are practically the same. > You, obviously, SHOULD try to read blog/twitter/whatever BEFORE contacting that person, try to find something interesting there and talk about…

There’s a huge difference between once a year and zero. Think of the strong traditions behind birthday or annual holiday greetings, for instance. Look at it this way. Let’s say you reach out to 100 people once a year. Well there are 7.7 billion people on Earth. You’re putting those 100 people into your 99.999999 percentile for that year!

> Think of the strong traditions behind birthday or annual holiday greetings, for instance.

And I don’t know of any meaningful relationship that is maintained just by that bare minimum.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#407

Post by codesforhugs »

globular-toast wrote: post #162

The bad reactions here make me wonder what is an acceptable way to stay in contact with your friends. Consider the enormous popularity of social networking. What is that for if not to help you to stay in contact with people? Why is that OK but this isn't? People used to (some still do) write Christmas cards to everybody in their address book. Many of these would be people they had made zero contact with over the year…

For me personally the difference is that with social networking I'm reacting to something someone else posted or vice versa, which makes it organic. Being cold contacted on the other hand generally results in exchanges that feel stilted and weird to me.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#409

Post by pishpash »

streamofdigits wrote: post #350

The dawn of "digitally augmented relationship management"? - Dave, I noticed you haven't spoken to X in a while. Do you want me to sent them a short generic message to keep the relationship warm? - Aaw, thanks HAL. I love how you are taking good care of me. On the other hand, we have finite and overburdened memories. Surely there is a way to get them triggered that doesn't feel mechanical and "fake".

Pretty soon all you'll be building is relationship between two bots. Then we can cut to the chase and be totally transactional. So serendipitous!

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#410

Post by lkrubner »

I've mentioned this a few times on Hacker News, and I've gotten some great turnout, so I'll mention this again: I host a once-a-month party in New York City, mostly tech people, especially during the warmer months. See photos here:

http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-...

If you live in New York City and you want to expand your circle of tech people (and also some theater people and artists), feel free to reach out to me. Phone number in bio.

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