Shortcomings of LinkedIn, Salesforce.com & the Dex Solution

At a recent technology venture presentation, I introduced Dex by outlining the shortcomings of popular online networking tool LinkedIn and CRM software salesforce.com.

I really like Linkedin.  I have been a member for a couple of years and have twice as many professional contacts on Linkedin than I have “friends” on facebook.  I like that when people change jobs, I am notified, so I can keep track of their careers over time.

But the problem with Linkedin is that it just shows me a list of my professional contacts.  There’s no context to the list - it doesn’t show me how well I know them, when I spoke to them last, how their career path could intersect with mine, how they could help me - it doesn’t show me how “important” they are to me professionally.  In short, it doesn’t help me “work my network”.

I like salesforce.com and other CRM systems much less.  To me, CRM systems today are similar to excel spreadsheets with web forms attached that allow you and other people in your company to fill out information about people and interactions with those people.  Salesforce.com is simply a “central repository” that takes all the information you already know about people, and regurgitate it in nice charts and graphs.

What Dex provides - and what everyone should expect from their CRM system in a “networked world” - is a system that knows more than we know about our contacts.  Dex enhances the information we already know with the information our contacts say about themselves on the social web, like Linkedin and Facebook, with the information that trusted news sources say about them.  Dex takes all of that information, digests it, and then presents it back to us in a context that helps us make decisions to improve our business opportunities and professional careers.

Dex is going to revolutionize professional networking and contact relationship management for individuals and SMBs.

And we’re almost ready to launch…