My wife has told me very clearly that if I will just keep my trap shut and stop asking her, I can have an iPhone. I’m being quiet.

However, thinking about having that awesome little machine (which, by the way, I’m giving up the 80gb or 160gb iPod Classic for) has got me thinking about how disorganized my personal and professional information is. I have, at this moment, 386 contacts in Gmail. I have made it through the J’s in tagging the various contacts in Gmail’s New Contact Manager which is a start.

I’ve also started using Highrise. Highrise is part of a dream I have. I love the products that 37Signals put out (although I’d like to see more integration, but i get the biz model) and I don’t think Highrise could be any more efficient.

As for that dream: I work in an industry where computers and software specific for our use are few and far between and usually programmed by Billy, the illegitimate son of some jerk who doesn’t understand usability anymore than he understands why he has to go to work and stop playing WoW 5 days a week.

My dream is this: we receive cases with prescriptions from doctors every day. We also receive phone calls. We also have product in our lab that is barcoded that goes out with each case. The magic happens when we integrate a Customer Relation Management interface with a Case Management system with an inventory management system that allows us to specify inventory to a case, enter notes first, then assign them to a case, have case notes and general client notes appear together, record doctor preferences, and provide graphical representations of business trends – like when a doctor is slowly trailing off on sending us Crown and Bridge work. I should also be able to identify the “Worst Offenders” in various areas.  I should also be able to add pictures, scans, and other artifacts on the fly.

It’s all very doable. It would also be very easy to make a massacre of… I’d love if it could all be done in a server-side web- or intranet-based system and then access could be sold to other labs and even to Doctors.

For now, it’s a dream: unless some software company wants me to consult for them.