Yesterday was a roundabout way of describing something very old, we all have, and is incredibly difficult to integrate whether it is from another person, company, or device.

What is it without going into the archives?

Okay got it?

This is the address book. Or my little black book from high school.

If you think about the simplicity of it and the amount of technical innovation that has happened over the years, it will make for a perfect case study as we explore the world of tech diligence.

We have:

  • Data storage: paper vs. physical devices vs. cloud
  • Data format: address only, one or multiple phone numbers, note sizes
  • Data synchronization: one time from old into new, data formatting
  • Deprecated tech: Blackberries and Palm Pilots, land-line phones, Lotus Notes
  • Expensive tech: Any email marketing platform that charges per-contact
  • Intertwined tech: CRMs such as Hubspot (a very large address book of customer data)
  • Esoteric tech: Uncle Bob’s Filemaker Pro database

Looking at how you manage your own contacts, how many places do they exist? If you were to inherit a family member or coworker’s address book, how would you bring that into the system you’ve developed over the years?

Depending on that last answer will start to dictate the approach, the costs to migrate (or not to migrate), and timelines you have access to the data (coworker or you gave notice).

The part that I normally do as a part of my evaluations, that is missing from this thought exercise, is look at the culture of the acquiring and soon to be acquired company. For the others, we can come up with something fun.

Is this too off-base? I’d love to hear your take.

cab