Agents should often explore outside the industry to uncover technology solutions competitors aren’t using. ContextSmith prioritizes your email inbox and flags urgent items, Cloze keeps your mind fresh on individual client needs and Asana puts a little bit of the fun back into your work.

  • Agents should often explore outside the industry to uncover technology solutions competitors aren't using.
  • ContextSmith prioritizes your email inbox and flags urgent items, Cloze keeps your mind fresh on individual client needs and Asana puts a little bit of the fun back into work.

Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.

This column wouldn’t be much fun if I only talked about BoomTown and Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies all the time.

It’s valuable to peer outside the gates of the industry to investigate options not already being sold to you.

[Tweet “Peer outside the gates of the industry to investigate options not already being sold to you.”]

This is what led me to ContextSmith after being alerted to it via email. Asana and Cloze intrigued me in the same manner.

ContextSmith

ContextSmith uses the existing Gmail domain of a company to automate the organization of projects and people.

[Tweet “.@ContextSmith tracks dates and scans your email inbox for critical items”]

It tracks dates and feels around for critical terms like “delay” or “frustrated” to highlight messages needing immediate attention.

ContextSmith_Conversations

Subject lines and recurring terms are turned into project titles, and every email with them is quickly sorted appropriately. This happens within minutes of setting up an account.

Messages are turned into Alerts, Opportunities or Action Items, and since ContextSmith is designed for teams, every stakeholder’s input is nested into a conversation.

Users can add notes and quickly measure which clients are seeing the most activity or which ones have fallen through the cracks.

ContextSmith_dashboard

Some customization would be needed for ContextSmith to fit snugly into a real estate office, but company head Will Cheung assured me it’s more than doable.

The company has left beta recently and is backed by a fund that has partners in Box, Cisco and Apple.

ContextSmith_smart_tasks_email

Any boutique agency wanting to better manage their information flow should give this software a look.

Cloze

Good for the individual, Cloze pulls in a multitude of online contact points and information channels to better organize the who and what that drives your business relationships.

[Tweet “.@cloze sends you a notice about the person you’re about to meet with and what you last discussed.”]

For example, Cloze combines its knowledge of your calendar and inbox to send you a notice about what you and the person you’re about to meet with last discussed. It connects documents and social media context, too.

Cloze_Screenshot3

From my initial review:

It wasn’t built specifically for real estate, but the Deals feature is a natural fit to common transaction workflow. It can also be used to manage special events, like open houses or buyer seminars.

Cloze enables the creation and rollout of common task lists that can be used to “systemize” a typical home sale process.

Emails, documents and dates related to each Deal are consolidated within it and presented to users already prioritized.

Asana

Asana is another team-focused smart organization tool like ContextSmith.

It has users across multiple industries and makes a fun exercise out of bringing together people and work tasks.

Have conversations, share documents and intelligently keep order to the chaos that can accompany handling an office full of real estate transaction paperwork.

[Tweet “Have conversations, share documents and intelligently keep order to the chaos with @asana.”]

From my initial review

When a preclosing meeting needs to be scheduled, create the task, add the seller’s best times in the comment box, assign it to the “Stark Family Sale” project and move on to the next. It takes only moments.

Asana_Sidebar

Asana is contemporary software rooted in the need to share with a number of people a lot of different things. Its very reason for being demands an open, engaging workspace. That is without question achieved here.

Task lists are broken down logically, and it’s easy to drill down into what’s most recent and pertinent.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.

Show Comments Hide Comments
Sign up for Inman’s Morning Headlines
What you need to know to start your day with all the latest industry developments
By submitting your email address, you agree to receive marketing emails from Inman.
Success!
Thank you for subscribing to Morning Headlines.
Back to top
×
Log in
If you created your account with Google or Facebook
Don't have an account?
Forgot your password?
No Problem

Simply enter the email address you used to create your account and click "Reset Password". You will receive additional instructions via email.

Forgot your username? If so please contact customer support at (510) 658-9252

Password Reset Confirmation

Password Reset Instructions have been sent to

Subscribe to The Weekender
Get the week's leading headlines delivered straight to your inbox.
Top headlines from around the real estate industry. Breaking news as it happens.
15 stories covering tech, special reports, video and opinion.
Unique features from hacker profiles to portal watch and video interviews.
Unique features from hacker profiles to portal watch and video interviews.
It looks like you’re already a Select Member!
To subscribe to exclusive newsletters, visit your email preferences in the account settings.
Up-to-the-minute news and interviews in your inbox, ticket discounts for Inman events and more
1-Step CheckoutPay with a credit card
By continuing, you agree to Inman’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

You will be charged . Your subscription will automatically renew for on . For more details on our payment terms and how to cancel, click here.

Interested in a group subscription?
Finish setting up your subscription
×