Another Great Gadget: The Outlook Social Connector

We’ve been using various CRM packages for years, the latest being Microsoft Dynamics CRM. One of the greatest things about these tools is you can very easily get a history of all of the activities you’ve had with a client.

Microsoft just came out with the Outlo0k Social Connector. Even though it’s in Beta, I installed it anyway, and it’s a must-have.

The Social Connector displays a new pane at the bottom of every email and contact in Outlook that quickly displays all of the past emails, appointments, tasks, etc. that have occured with this person. You get a lot of CRM without having to buy CRM.

You can check out more it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/11/18/announcing-the-outlook-social-connector.aspx

and download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c87e257c-d76f-4785-a09b-af36babd6e32&displaylang=en

There is a Social Media component to this as well, and it will connect to LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. It’s a whole new reason to keep Outlook.

Once I installed this thing, I couldn’t figure out how I ever lived without it.

By the way-it doesn’t actually replace CRM! An individual’s data is still on their own little island, you can’t see all of the emails from a person across the whole company.

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