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I am starting a network and would like to be as organized and maintenance free as possible with networking.

I am looking for a template (excel or otherwise) to allow me to categorize my contacts.

I do not want to use the company outlook program since I want to be sure I can take my contacts with me if the time comes to move on.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Anandha's picture
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hi

I use my iPhone, the mac address book and OmniFocus.

All contacts and notes for the person goes in my personal iPhone/Address book (they are in synch courtesy of Apple iCloud).

Then I use OminFocus to schedule recurring "keep in touch" tasks for the folks that form my network.

Keep it simple. And good luck.

Anandha 

wroschek's picture
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 IT's been recommended in an older MT/CT podcast to print your contacts regularly. I print from outlook at work and save as a .PST and a .CSV file for electronic transfers monthly.

The printout is really my favorite and I encourage you to do the same. It may not be as flexible in terms of transfer from system to system, but it is very reliable in a file at home.

Best,

Bill

dmb41carter36's picture

Thank you both for your advice. I have been utilizing my smart phone for my personal calander vs outlook for professional. I think I may try both.

Smacquarrie's picture

I use outlook to forward my calendar events to my phone. You can do the same thing as mentioned above by exporting your personal contact list to your email account at home. To forward an event, just open it and in the top left hand corner there is forward icon. Click the drop down and then forward as an iCalendar. To forward your contacts, go into your contacts folder, and click share. This will send an Outlook friendly format to the address you enter and you can then add it to your Outlook at home. Once there I share it through Plaxo or any other variety of apps to my phone(s). Just a thought, but I would definitely keep a printed copy for quick reference if you lose something.

buhlerar's picture

I'm not sure I'd recommend a system that specifically kept separate calendars or contact lists for work vs. personal, but you might be able to combine them into one calendar or list using technology.  Of course my only caveat would be that some work-related contact information may be company property, so I wouldn't recommend taking what isn't yours, but I don't find it very efficient to refer to two separate documents.  You have to leave work early to catch your daughter's dance recital, and you need to jump on a conference call from home at 11pm to discuss an issue with a team in Hong Kong.  You might call a friend from church to ask about job openings in his or her company, and conversely you might call a coworker about a recommendation for a car mechanic.  Bottom line, you never know when you might need to interact with someone you meet in one realm in a completely different context.

To answer your question more directly, I put my personal calendar items into google and then send the appointment to my work email so that my work calendar is complete (work appointments come through outlook so ultimately I can't avoid using that).  But google calendar also lets me send the appointments to my wife, etc. so we're all on the same page about who has baseball practice which nights, etc.

For contacts, I have an Android phone so again google contacts is most convenient.  Also I can somewhat avoid worrying about losing my job and not having access to my contacts, etc.  Again, I wouldn't recommend downloading the company directory to google since that is most likely unauthorized, but you could add them piecemeal if you consider them personal contacts that you might contact outside of work (or after you or they leave the company).

TNoxtort's picture

I have three ideas for contact management:

I have Outlook at home, so I used to scan business cards with Card Scan and then put them in my Outlook at home.

The problem is that now, I get so many business cards, many of whom I may not even deal with and I don't like putting their business card in there if I may not use them.

So my next idea is I use my Smartphone and add them into Evernote. This way I can find them if I need to. When I talk to them, I make a note in Evernote. But this works better for non-work cards, like doctors, dentists, etc.

And the third is I use Linkedin. Linkedin allows you to make personal notes about someone, and put the phone number and E-mail address. I use this method exclusively for managing recruiters. Everytime I talk to one, I enter it in the personal notes section for their Linkedin profile. I use tags in Linkedin to keep people separate too.