wdm0006 News & Social Signal Monitor
Works with Evergreen, a local-first personal CRM for macOS. Get it on the Mac App Store.
When to Use
- Weekly review: "Any news about my key contacts or their companies?"
- Before reaching out to someone: "What's been happening at their company?"
- When looking for natural conversation hooks for re-engagement
- Monitoring a specific company or industry segment
How It Works
- Pull target contacts with
search_contacts(filter by tags like "investor", "founder", or specific orgs) - Get full details with
get_contactfor name, organization, and context - Web search for recent news about the contact and their company
- For notable findings, append to the contact's
noteswithupdate_contact - Create outreach actions for the contact with
create_action(contactIdandtitleare required; add adueDatesince news hooks go stale) - Log any outreach as interactions with
log_interaction
What to Monitor
| Signal | Search Strategy | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Funding rounds | "[Company] funding" or "[Company] raises" | High — great congratulations hook |
| Product launches | "[Company] launches" or "[Company] announces" | Medium — shows you follow their work |
| Press coverage | "[Person name] [Company]" | Medium — reference in conversation |
| Job changes | "[Person name] joins" or LinkedIn activity | High — update record + congratulate |
| Speaking / Writing | "[Person name] talk" or "[Person name] blog" | Medium — shows genuine interest |
| Awards / Recognition | "[Person name] award" or "[Company] recognized" | High — easy congratulations |
| Company milestones | "[Company] customers" or "[Company] growth" | Medium — conversation starter |
Example
Monitoring your top 10 contacts:
## News Digest — Week of April 7, 2026
### Notable Finds
1. **DataFlow** (Marcus Webb's company)
"DataFlow raises $12M Series A led by Sequoia"
→ update_contact({ contactId: marcus_id, notes: "Apr 2026: DataFlow raised $12M Series A (Sequoia)" })
→ create_action({ contactId: marcus_id, title: "Congratulate Marcus on Series A", dueDate: "2026-04-09", priority: "high" })
2. **Sarah Chen** (Meridian Health)
Published a blog post: "How We Rebuilt Our Data Pipeline in 6 Months"
→ update_contact({ contactId: sarah_id, notes: "Apr 2026: Published blog on data pipeline rebuild" })
→ Good reference for your next conversation
3. **Jamie Rodriguez** (Acme Labs)
LinkedIn shows new title: "VP of Engineering" (was Senior Engineer)
→ update_contact({ contactId: jamie_id, title: "VP of Engineering" })
→ create_action({ contactId: jamie_id, title: "Congratulate Jamie on VP promotion", dueDate: "2026-04-10", priority: "medium" })
### No News Found
- Tom Bradley, Lisa Park, David Kim, Priya Sharma (4 contacts)
Last checked: Apr 7, 2026
### Suggested Outreach This Week
1. Marcus Webb — Congratulate on funding (time-sensitive)
2. Jamie Rodriguez — Congratulate on promotion
3. Sarah Chen — Reference her blog post in your next email
Monitoring Frequency
| Contact Tier | Frequency | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Close collaborators (top 10) | Weekly | Stay current on people who matter most |
| Active network (top 50) | Bi-weekly | Catch major news |
| Extended network | Monthly | Spot big events only |
| Pre-meeting | On demand | Always check before a meeting |
Checklist
News Monitoring:
- [ ] Target contacts selected (by tag, tier, or specific list)
- [ ] Web search performed for each contact/company
- [ ] Notable findings recorded in contact notes with date
- [ ] Contact records updated if profile changed (new title, company)
- [ ] Outreach actions created for timely hooks
- [ ] "Last checked" date noted to avoid duplicate searches