Gist.

We started Gist in 2008 to make connecting with your key contacts faster and easier to help you create stronger business relationships.  In February of 2011, we agreed to become part of Research In Motion® (RIM®) and bring the Gist vision to millions of BlackBerry® customers and help create the world’s largest connected social graph. A few months ago, we shared exciting news about the new BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 Contacts app that we’ve been working on since joining RIM.  More recently, our team has been tasked with creating the native address book/contact manager for the next generation platform, BlackBerry® 10. In addition to our core focus on the Contacts app, we have been given expanded responsibility for everything social at RIM including BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™), Facebook® and Twitter® apps and instant messaging as well as much of the identity platform (BlackBerry® ID), location services and user analytics features.  With all this responsibility, we feel even more empowered to deliver a truly unique and amazing experience for aggregating, enhancing and connecting you deeply with your key contacts. All of this feels pretty exciting, but you may have noticed limited innovation on the core Gist product offering over the last year. In an effort to make the most of our new focus, we have, with heavy hearts, decided to shutdown the stand-alone Gist service. Sigh.

As of today, we are no longer accepting new users and Gist.com will officially be closing on September 15, 2012.

We know you put a lot into Gist and we want to help make sure you can get that value out, so we are helping to make it easy to get a solid copy of your contacts and transition to other services.  Please take a look at the process below.

1. Please log into Gist.com and make sure we have your correct email address. You can review and update this information by going to Account > Account Settings.
2. Next, from the Accounts Setting page click “Export Data” to view your export options. From here, you will have the option to export your data in vCard and/or CSV format, set an importance cutoff and choose to export just people, companies or both.
3. We’ve set up a support page to help you import your information into other services (Google Mail™, Outlook®, Mac® Mail, Yahoo!®) as well as lots of other awesome services in our space that you might like to try.
4. If you have questions about this process please email us at support_gist@rim.com so that we can work directly with you to help make sure your information is exported correctly.

The past few years have been exciting, and we thank all of our fans and users for sticking with us and helping us build an amazing company. We appreciate your support and invite you to continue to follow the best of what’s to come via @BlackBerry and the Inside BlackBerry Blog. We hope you’ll join us on our journey at RIM with the new BlackBerry 10 platform.

Remember, connected people change history… so check out the list of awesome services below to help you manage your contacts and build relationships in the future!

Brewster

Brewster is your personalized address book that replaces the age-old A-to-Z contact list with one that understands your relationships.

Brewster re-imagines what an address book should do for you. It shows you who’s trending in your life and who you are losing touch with. It also allows you to search people by anything (name, city, even favorite band!) with quick access to the people you contact the most.

Like magic, Brewster connects the dots as your relationships evolve.

Contactually

Contactually automatically reminds you to stay connected with your top leads. Perfect for realtors and small business owners – sign up for a free trial!

Mingly

Mingly makes it easy to sort through the noise of social networks and connect with the people you care about. Living right in your Gmail, Mingly:

• Aggregates your contacts from Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter into a searchable merged address book
• Pulls key updates from your networks, like birthdays and job changes, into a single feed
• Makes it easy to send social-network messages without leaving your inbox
• Helps you keep track of conversations with contacts across your different networks.

Mingly’s browser extension is currently available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

Newsle

Newsle is a new service that tracks people in the news. Newsle finds articles about you, your friends and colleagues, and alerts you minutes or hours after they’re published. With Newsle, you’ll be the first to know when a Facebook, LinkedIn, or email contact makes the news or gets mentioned in a blog post.

Nimble

Nimble is a social contact manager that helps your business turn its social community into customers for life.  Nimble combines the power of CRM and social media into a simple and affordable web-based solution.

Rapportive

Get rich contact profiles right inside Gmail. Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.

Salesforce

Salesforce.com offers everything you need to transform your business into a Social Enterprise, so you can connect to customers and employees like never before. With no software or hardware to install, you’re up and running—-quickly.

SalesLoft

SalesLoft improves business sales by providing enterprise reps with a stream of intelligence on the companies and people they sell to. We connect with popular web-based CRM’s and deliver the following information through a customizable web stream: Contact Job Changes, Categorized news, internal blog & news RSS, technologies used, job postings, social profiles and feeds.

WriteThat.Name 

Cloud app making sure your address book is ALWAYS up to date. Gmail, Google apps, Outlook, Salesforce and more!

Xobni

Xobni, Smartr Inbox, and Smartr Contacts automatically find all the people with whom you’ve ever exchanged emails, calls, or SMS messages. They instantly provide a full view of each contact, complete with their photo, job title, company details, and email history — as well as updates from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Xobni is available for Outlook and BlackBerry. Smartr Inbox is available for Gmail. Smartr Contacts is available for Android and iPhone.

Yesware

Yesware is an email productivity service that helps salespeople close more business. Integrated into Gmail, Outlook and Android devices, Yesware provides email tracking & analytics, customizable sales templates, CRM integration and more to help salespeople communicate with customers more effectively.

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We’re all allotted the same 24 hours in a day, so why is it that some people manage to accomplish amazing feats with their time while others struggle to maintain even a basic level of productivity?

The answer isn’t gallons of coffee or cases of Red Bull.  In fact, the secret is simple!  The people who are able to accomplish more in the amount of time we all have are those who are skilled – whether naturally or through concerted practice – at making their work as effective as possible.

If you want to be more successful, one of the easiest ways to bring about this change is to become more effective in your daily work.  Here’s how to do it… Read More ››

In this digital age, it’s true that it’s not always what you know – but who you know – that matters when it comes to business growth or success.

Unfortunately, though, while this truism focuses primarily on the benefits of forming your own business relationships, the value of establishing yourself as the “master connector” who introduces key contacts to one another can’t be overstated.

So if you want to be recognized as one of the “Who’s who” within your field in order to increase your industry clout, build business or satisfy some other need, take a look at the following five tips on how to become a “master connector”: Read More ››

Every so often, I’ll come across a person who boldly claims, “I’m a self-made man.  I got where I am today through hard work and discipline – no one ever gave me a leg up!”

And to that, I have to say, “Really?!”

No one ever offered you a job or taught you a skill that’s helped get you where you are today?  No teacher ever helped you develop the discipline needed to run a successful business or taught you how to find the information you need on your own?  No one in your life ever fed you, clothed you or provided the encouragement needed to motivate you through difficult times?

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No matter what type of business you operate, consumer research is critical.  Whether you’re bringing a new product to market or you’re an established company looking to branch out and offer new services, assessing consumer demand for your proposed solution before committing to a launch will ultimately result in significant time and money savings for your growing business.

But where can you get this necessary insight into your target customer’s mindset and behavior?  In fact, you may already be sitting on a goldmine of information!  Check out the following web data solutions you can use to drive this critical market research:

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Sure, putting in your hours at the gym will help to keep your waistline in check and reduce your risk of developing many chronic illnesses.  But is it possible that regular workouts could improve your business productivity as well?

In fact, the answer may just be a resounding “Yes!”  According to Jim McKenna, a research professor at Leeds Metropolitan University, six out of ten workers involved in a recent study reported exercise-driven improvements in time management, mental performance and their ability to meet deadlines.

For more fun facts on the potential influence of exercise on productivity, check out our latest infographic:

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It’s an unfortunate reality when it comes to doing business – no matter who you are and no matter what industry you’re in, you’re going to receive negative feedback online at some point.

Maybe the negative feedback you receive will come as the result of a legitimate product or service complaint – or maybe you’ll find yourself on the whipping end of an impossible-to-please customer having a bad day.  But whether or not you feel this criticism is warranted, it must be dealt with appropriately in order to preserve your brand and protect your business’s future.

Here’s how to do it:

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It’s no secret that we at Gist are big fans of the Agile development process.  In several posts on this site, I’ve discussed how we use this process as part of our New Workstyle in order to drive development and generate working product releases faster than is possible with traditional coding practices.

However, just as most “out-of-the-box” solutions have limitations when applied to specific settings, we’ve found it necessary to tweak a few variables within the traditional Agile model.  Today, I want to share a few of these changes with you so that you can see how Agile development can be modified to suit your own business’s unique needs, while still providing the efficiency the model is known for.

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Just a few years ago, it was possible for businesses to get away without offering a mobile-friendly website version to viewers on-the-go.  While it was considered a nice perk, few businesses were willing to invest in mobile communications, and most consumers were understanding of the challenges businesses faced supporting multiple site formats across different platforms.

But my, my – how the times have changed!

Today, mobile-friendly website versions aren’t just a nice feature – they’re a by-default necessity for doing business in an increasingly mobile world.  According to research conducted by Limelight Networks in 2011, as many as 80% of customers will abandon a mobile site in response to a bad user experience.  And given that more sales than ever are occurring from mobile devices, these lost visitors could translate to real dollars lost – all because you don’t have a mobile-friendly website version in place!

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Think that our current obsession with productivity tools is a modern phenomenon? Think again!

The desire to make work more efficient through the use of specialized tools goes back nearly 3 million years to the start of the Stone Age, during which prehistoric humans shaped stones into helpful utensils that could be used for hammering, cutting and other tasks.

Today, this same enterprising spirit lives on in the laptops, tablets, smartphones and cloud computing technologies that we use in our work lives. But are we really more productive as a result of all the advancements these ancient tools have brought about? Or is it possible that our dogged focus on all things “efficiency” has actually limited the amount of truly productive work we’re able to achieve?

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