Software Review - Highrise

As I've mentioned before, software should be about enabling your business and your teams. Software is not just a tool for management to track activities - although that should be a part of any good package. The real key is finding software tools that are intuitive and have "adoptability". You know you have a good tool when it takes minutes or hours - not days or weeks - to figure out how to use it. If you take that philosophy one step further (which I think you should), software should even be “Fun”!

My favorite software (so far) following this philosophy is Highrise. Highrise is built on the popular Ruby on Rails programming language. This application is so easy to use that your grandma would love it! There are so few features that you can’t get confused or frustrated with learning how to use it. There are no complex processes to follow. The software JUST WORKS. The software focuses on improving communications among your team and your clients instead of just having a place to put information.

My favorite feature is the email dropbox. This feature gives you an email address that you can “CC” on any email communication you have with any of your contacts. When you “CC” this dropbox address, the software knows which contact you are emailing and automatically attaches that email communication to their record in Highrise. Similarly, I can send an email from my blackberry with a task and it will automatically add that task for me in Highrise.

Some people complain initially that the software is too simple. That it doesn’t meet the needs of their business. While this may be somewhat true, I think using the software will help you and/or your organization redefine what good software really should be about. If you do need more features that what is currently offered, Highrise publishes an API (application program interface) that can interact with other software programs out there. This means you can tie multiple types of software to work together in one seamless fashion.

Do yourself a favor and check it out! You can use it for Free for a while. I guarantee you’ll love it! And if you don’t, what is the risk? What do you want for free, your money back?

Here is a handy video overview: