So here’s a question that comes up often in helping our customers interpret information about their messaging traffic and is something for us to think about on an individual level.

Does the frequency (how often) someone emails, calls, or otherwise "pings" you define their level of importance in your social network?

I see two sides to this:

1.  Those that have not contacted you before or have done so again after a long period of time are not part of your frequent contact universe. 

• This includes unsolicited emails, telemarketing calls (which I both create thru programs and receive as a favorite target for vendors), spam, spim, etc.
• These *should* be defined as low-value contacts

2.  Those that contact you often are part of your frequent contact universe

• This could include spouse, children, co-workers, supervisors, etc.
• This should be defined as a high-value contact

But how do you determine a high-value new contact event from a low-value new contact event?  Or even how do you differentiate between a common low-value contact (newsletter, system alert, relentless salesperson) and a common high-value contact (supervisor, co-worker).

Maybe through some sort of validation – be it a referral like LinkedIn or social intelligence tool like Visible Path

Or the addressing or structure of the message could shed some light.  Where you are a cc or one of many cc’s, this could indicate low-value correspondence.

As more and more instant communications tools are made available the number of inquiries demanding our attention will only increase  Having a way to intelligently or at least pro-actively segment this traffic regardless of source seems the next logical step.