I can only imagine what it’s like to be a youth pastor these days. It’s difficult enough to keep up with kids here in the real world, but add the online space and the task seems impossible.
Thankfully, for every challenge the Internet brings, someone is trying to find a solution. I discovered a browser plugin a few months ago that, although designed for business-folk, has the dual benefit of meeting a critical need for Youth Pastors.
Check this out.
It’s called Rapportive and it requires Gmail and the Rapportive plugin which is available for both Chrome and FireFox. Once installed it will perform the equivalent of a “social network background check” on anyone who sends you an email. It actually replaces the Google advertisements to the right of each email message in Gmail and spits out a the rap sheet next to the email body.
Here is a conversation I’m having with John. Actually, I’m spamming his inbox and he’s ignoring me. But it serves the same purpose. Rapportive did a lookup on the other person included in the thread and this is what it found.
I didn’t have to do anything! All the usual suspects are there. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Job titles too? Impressive!
Like I said, it was designed to meet the needs of a social business, but when I look at it I see Church application through and through especially in the realm of youth ministry. Your inbox is instantly transformed into an auto-updating social media dashboard which helps you stay connected in the lives of your students.
It’s worth a gander.
Using it for ministry is a great use of the service. It’s an add on for gmail that is a must have as far as Im concerned.
Very cool. I set it up for my email. By the way, if you use Google Apps, you need the adminsitor of Google Apps to allow the service. If you go to the Google Apps Marketplace, it is one of the services available. It is free at the marketplace, but you have to allow it to access data to be used.
I am the google apps admin on my domain, so once I got past the false start (it initially asked me about enabling Single Sign On) and just went to the Google App Marketplace, I had it enabled in 3 minutes.
Great info, thanks Adam!
peace | dewde
Another great alternative that I use all the time is Gist. Gist integrates to Google Apps Gmail, Outlook, Lotus Notes, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, your calendars, and any type of data you can import via CSV. What’s great about it is that it has all the features you listed above as well as helping stack-rank the relative importance of each person and company represented in your inbox based on how much you interact with them. It allows you to keep notes too and you can then view or print a dossier on anyone to prepare for meeting with them. Viewing your calendar in Gist helps you quickly look up the what’s going on with the people you’re meeting with. I like that it also tracks all the companies you do business with and that each person in your Inbox works at. All the data is available to you in the mail clients you listed above as well as on the Gist website and on an iPhone app so it’s available anytime, anywhere. http://gist.com
GREAT find! Thanks for sharing!
peace | dewde
I like gist, but rapportive is a lot cleaner. Gist – after importing all my contacts – ended up being crazy cluttered and whatnot.
Hey there, this is Rahul from Rapportive. We’re amazed every day by the uses that folks find for Rapportive. Stumbling across this post has made me very happy indeed!
Best of luck
Best,
Rahul
CEO of Rapportive
Thanks for making an awesome product. Keep up the work!
Oh Yea!
This is an awesome app!
I like that I can see the image of the person I’m emailing so i’ll always be reminded that I’m emailing an actual PERSON and not just another email