Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

jakobgreenfeld.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 510 posts

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

#471

Post by post-it »

acwan93 wrote: post #336
post-it wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate when a service normally sends emails from Service Name, but then once in a while they send an email from Firstname Lastname to make it look personal. It's not going to work, but it sure is annoying.

There’s a CRM of some sort that sends emails I’ve received that even mentions a nearby restaurant or point of interest in its emails. It’s trying so hard to be personal it’s laughable.

It's such a sinking feeling getting a paragraph in and realizing I've been duped by a bot. The worst is when I look up something, like whether I can feed my dog , and I find a fairly long article about it. And as I read I notice that it's pretty light on specific information besides "always check with a vet!," and I click on the author and all of their other articles are top ten lists of crypto and erection pills, and I realize I've been had by a bot (or, worse and sadder, someone who day-in-day-out pumps out zero-information content).

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

#472

Post by kiutroap »

_km76 wrote: post #413
kiutroap wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same, but it often makes me worried about what kind of person I am. I don't really have too much to apologize about - at least that I know of. But for some reason, I tend to grow apart from people who know my past or who simply know too much about me. Not every single one of them, but apart from very few people, this is the case. I think it's safe to say I have trust issues, but I never understood why, as I…

If you don't like people knowing too much about you, consider reading up on schizoid personality disorder. I'm not saying that you have it, but that particular foible is certainly reminiscent of it.

Thank you, it was an interesting read. Despite my enjoyment for introspection, I'm hesitant to do self-diagnosis based on a Wikipedia and a few articles around the Internet. But, as far as I can tell, this is just me being an introvert guy who spent most of his life in front of a computer instead of socializing. I'm, however, aware of my issues and slowly becoming a better person, or rather a person I'd like to be. In this particular case, I don't think that knowing the name of my supposed diagnosis would help me in any way.

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

#473

Post by a-dub »

kevmo314 wrote: post #464
a-dub wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's funny you say that. i've had thoughts about getting more organized like this, but then have come to realize "wait a minute, this means i'm industrializing my personal life with actual crm techniques. how do i feel about this? ick!" but... maybe that's what you have to do when you get older, busier and more forgetful and maybe it's not icky at all, as you still maintain who goes on the lists.

The other way to look at it is you value your relationships enough that you want to invest more into growing them.

perhaps, i generally invest a great deal of time there anyhow; but maybe at high cost to my own endeavors.

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

#474

Post by tau5210 »

It depends on the type of relationship to some extent e.g. friends, acquaintances, business relations, etc.

But in general, I feel like we are too self-conscious about staying in touch. And often because we have experiences where something happens in our lives and we find ourselves regretting "I wish I had stayed in touch with ----".

But when that happens, maybe we can ask ourselves: even if I had stayed in touch, would it really have turned out as I am fantasizing now in my regret? If we think about it carefully, I think the answer is probably no. A meaningful relationship is not that simple nor easy.

As others have mentioned, a relationship is two-ways so it takes both sides. And it only takes one to remember occasionally to stay in touch, so if we both were interested in each other, most likely we would have remained in touch already. And even if we had not, it's never too late. With such relations, I find that I can just reach out now and resume the same relationship no matter how much time passes in between. Even in the worst case where I don't have the contact anymore, if I were truly determined, I will do everything I can to find a way to reach that person.

On the other hand, a shallow relation is bound to not get too far: it will fail (or break, or be lost, etc) at some point in one way or another anyway. So it most likely wouldn't have turned out as my regret is fantasizing anyway.

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

#475

Post by lmm »

p_l wrote: post #246
lmm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sells have been keeping cards on their customers for centuries And they've been seen as greasy, superficial, fakers for just as long.

Because unlike someone trying to keep in touch, you always knew they were just angling to sell something to you. Not because they kept a rolodex or used manual or computerised CRMs.

The point is that maybe it's more than coincidence that rolodexes or CRMs are used primarily by people who are pretending to be friendly in the hopes of getting something out of it.

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

#477

Post by yardshop »

throw10920 wrote: post #411
christiangenco wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Derek! My implementation of your system is just a bunch of markdown files. The title of the file is a friend's name, the frontmatter at the top keeps info about them that doesn't change too often (ex: birthday, address, kids names), and each time I chat with them I add a section with an H1 title that's the date we chatted (ex: "# 2022-02-14\n"). My notes about the chat go under that heading. Based off of that stru…

Sorry to butt in, but this is a fallacy that I see expressed a lot (and shares a lot of similarities to the "computers can execute improperly-typed programs" fallacy), and that has caused a non-trivial amount of harm. >> If digital, use only plain text. It’s a standard format not owned by any company. This is fine for anything where you don't care about the computer processing your data (e.g. a journal where you don'…

I think "plain text" in most cases really just means that it can be read and written by a human in a basic text editor. It is not mutually exclusive because parsers can be written to handle more freeform text than just csv and markdown.

"Plain text" is like a carrier wave that can hold a format like CSV or markdown, or loosely conventioned prose that the right kind of parser can make reasonable guesses about.

Your semi structured blob format and mine are still plain text. They are comprised of the basic set of characters from 32 to 126 maybe and 13 and 10, and maybe multi byte things these days. Plain text just ain't what it used to be anymore!

They may not be standard formats, but they can be read and learned about in standard tools.

But your cautions still ring true, as I have created several such formats and have yet to hit on something that is easy to write, and somewhat easy to process, and ticks all the other boxes.

Good luck with your upgrade!

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

#479

Post by therealdrag0 »

nlh wrote: post #389
scotty79 wrote: post #123

> Of course, not everyone publishes content or updates regularly. In that case, I usually just ask what they’ve been up to lately. > You’d be surprised how many people are really happy to get these kinds of messages and they often spark all kinds of deeper conversations. I had an acquaintance I barely had any common interests with that every few weeks out of the blue would ask me "what's up?". Not once did it lead to…

You know it's funny - I read your comment earlier today and it stuck out because I have one old acquaintance who does the same thing -- we really weren't that close when we lived in the same city but he still pings me every once in a while just to say "what's up?". For some reason I find it exceedingly annoying, although I generally really like staying in touch with people. Anyway, as if his ears were burning, he act…

Part of the problem is friend are like dating, for it to not be annoying you gotta both actually like each other. The acquaintances who do this to me I usually don’t really like. But there are other people I would be happy to hear from in this way.

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

#480

Post by arisAlexis »

bgroat wrote: post #216
kator wrote: post #205

Interesting way to approach it, my approach might be less technical, when someone comes to mind randomly, I just txt them with: Hey, you just popped into my mind, I hope all is well with you and yours! It's simple, lightweight, and you'd be shocked how often the other person pings back. My completely un-scientific view is that most people think of others once in a while. Perhaps we're too busy to reach out, or the gu…

Every couple of days I scroll through my text history to the bottom and see if there's anyone there I'd like to talk to. I call it "The Poor Man's CRM"

Sometimes I browse my fb friend list and start sending out messages
Post reply on HN