Data repository strategies for managing your contacts

Got a new cell phone or a new computer?

Gone are the days were you spend lots of hours/days typing in all your contacts into the phone or trying to rescue .pst files before IT deletes your hard disk.

Here is my strategy for making it all work together:

1) I use Microsoft Outlook as the heart of my contact list (full disclaimer: I do own a MAC at home). We use Microsoft Exchange at work, so whereever I am in the world I synchronize my laptop with whatever is on the Server

2) I then use Plaxo for managing the accuracy of the contact details as well as having a data repository through Plaxo on the Web. Plaxo synchronizes with my Outlook contact list and any changes which are made by Plaxo members, manually or through Plaxo's update requests are automatically changing my Outlook .pst file

3) I then use our company's Good subscription to synchronize my .pst content with my Treo phone.

4) To get the contacts into Outlook in the first place I use

a) a Powerpen scanner for business cards. The OCR software is definitely not something to write home about; I just make sure that the email address is correctly identified and send an update request to the contact.

b) the 'grab' function in LinkedIn's Outlook toolbar for new contacts with details in the email message body

5) To eliminate duplicates Plaxo has the 'find duplicate' option which is really useful when you have more than 1000 contacts to manage

So I can still go onto Plaxo Online from my MAC at home or from any other PC connected to the Internet to find tel#, addresses and keep the contact list nice clean and tidy.

Now I share some of the concerns about folks which don't want their contact details stored on the web but if you want to save time going manually through your contact list Outlook/Plaxo/Goodlink/Treo/LinkedIn is the way to go.

See also Web Worker Daily,

thx J