In this day and age, we have incredible power in Social Media, and a MASSIVE footprint across several services, both in real life, and digitally. I have found that there is almost a need especially as one moves from a normal worker into an executive or entrepreneurial role, for a CRM solution or some sort of enhanced contact management system.

I have recently found, I need to find and keep Rolodexes or black books of various contacts so I can locate people. Example, I need to find all of mine finance/investment guys for a product pitch. Or I need to find coders that can work in a specific language. Frequently I also find that these contacts are scattered to the winds of several messaging platforms, so I find myself having to search through multiple platforms to find them. LinkedIn is great, however I find as many or more of my leads come from facebook, twitter, in real life or phone numbers and less formal channels it isn’t comprehensive enough.

Furthermore maintaining relationships takes work, so it should assist by messaging and responding to what anniversaries there are and assist in reminding to contact priority contacts. This will facilitate deeper relationships and require less work for the user

So I propose a software solution that handles the following:

1. Multi channel able to span multiple contact methods
2. It should have a rich tagging and search capability so you can make new connections
3. It should have reminders to facilitate relationship building.
4. Open source and self host able (I will go over why I am a big fan of Self Hosting later)
5. It should richly integrate with other software for seamless invites
   

Nothing I have found really scratches totally the itch, it doesn’t provide the CRM experience, of reminders, contact management, interaction recording, and the like. I will keep looking and post back here with what I find.