Swimming in Contacts

A self-observation: I have several hundred contacts in my addressbook. Synced automatically with the cloud, my laptop, and OTA with my iPhone, I just haven’t thought about them. I can search for who I want. Or, even better, when I’m typing an email, boom, it pops up. Done!

However, I’m certain I have duplicate info, and, worse for a data-driven geek like myself, bad data . I know I have expired email accounts, old phone numbers, and worthless addresses. A quick skim shows people I haven’t talked to in years, as well as people I don’t know. (I’ve long had the habit of making sure key project contacts were in there “just in case”. Some never needed calling, and, thus, their relevance to me has faded form memory.)

Cheap storage and good search tools have made this something of a non-issue. But I like my data clean and accurate. Plus, this does provide opportunities for confusion. I have a few folks I infrequently email, and have with multiple email addresses. I’m sure only one is accurate or active. So when I email I send it to all, then clean out based and bounce-backs. Not efficient, but effective.

I’ve thought about tools like Plaxo, but have found many folks won’t respond. Facebook solves many of these problems. Most of my friendly contacts are on FB, so I don’t need a contact at all.

So, I’ve identified a problem, but not a solution. Or even if its worth the time to repair. But it nags at me.