How do you organize business cards at work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thorw them out if they are from guys, for the ones I have from women-I keep a bunch in my purse to hand out to guys who try to pick me up.

You I <3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I put them in 3 ring binder sheets made for them. I order them chronologically and label them with the date and location I met the person.

Really? Can I ask what you do? That seems like a lot of work for business cards.

[Anonymous]

I have this: www.cardscan.com.

It's not perfect; you need to check each card after scanning it to make sure that everything came out right. But it's a lot faster than entering by hand. It's connected to your Outlook, so each scanned card, when approved, it automatically added to your Outlook contacts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put them in 3 ring binder sheets made for them. I order them chronologically and label them with the date and location I met the person.

Really? Can I ask what you do? That seems like a lot of work for business cards.

I do research for a non-profit. It doesn't take any extra time...come back from meeting, scribble the date (month and year) in the corner and the conference initials if applicable, stick it in the last page of the folder on my desk.

I do a lot of work with groups around the world and I often meet with people with difficult names to remember. Putting all the business cards together from the same meeting allows me to remember the name and place the person the next time I see them...'oh, Person A, it's great to see you again. We met last January in Prague at the XYZ conference. How did your research on ABC turn out? I'd love to follow up with you and Person B next time you're in DC'

I used to not label with the date/place but if you meet with multiple groups from a certain company throughout the year and they all have difficult-to-remember names, then I would get confused by a stack of business cards not remembering which of the 10 cards from company X involved the conversation about a specific topic.

If someone gives me a card and asks me to follow up with them on something, I also write that info right on the card.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the scanners put the information into Outlook?

Unfortunately, I don't have a secretary to enter information into Outlook for me, but I do have billable hours, so I never seem to have the time to do anything but put them in a Rolodex. But I know I have to stop that madness - I'm not old enough to be that old school.

Do it while you're on a conference call. You must be a man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have this: www.cardscan.com.

It's not perfect; you need to check each card after scanning it to make sure that everything came out right. But it's a lot faster than entering by hand. It's connected to your Outlook, so each scanned card, when approved, it automatically added to your Outlook contacts.

I have this too, I love it! I get a ton of business cards and I just feed them into the scanner and it organizes everything for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have this: www.cardscan.com.

It's not perfect; you need to check each card after scanning it to make sure that everything came out right. But it's a lot faster than entering by hand. It's connected to your Outlook, so each scanned card, when approved, it automatically added to your Outlook contacts.

I have this too, I love it! I get a ton of business cards and I just feed them into the scanner and it organizes everything for me.

Does it make you hate people (often consultants) who have to come up with "creative" business cards?

(The scanner has a hard time with non-conventionally arranged cards, or weird typefaces.)

[Anonymous]

Why you do not use http://cardfila.com/. It so excellence!
After an event, I normal have so lot of business cards. So I use CardFila.com to keep them. Only 1 minutes for store 20 business cards.
You can access the contacts everywhere without Internet connection by using CardFila for Mobile (iPhone or Android phones)
I keep more thousands of business cards on Iphone now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do a lot of work with groups around the world and I often meet with people with difficult names to remember. Putting all the business cards together from the same meeting allows me to remember the name and place the person the next time I see them...'oh, Person A, it's great to see you again. We met last January in Prague at the XYZ conference. How did your research on ABC turn out? I'd love to follow up with you and Person B next time you're in DC'
I used to not label with the date/place but if you meet with multiple groups from a certain company throughout the year and they all have difficult-to-remember names, then I would get confused by a stack of business cards not remembering which of the 10 cards from company X involved the conversation about a specific topic.

If someone gives me a card and asks me to follow up with them on something, I also write that info right on the card.

While I don't put them in 3-ring binders (I use a index card box), I do the same thing. When I get a card, I jot down what I need to remember about that person - where I met them, what they asked for, sometimes even what they can do for me in the future. Often times this is done on the flight home from the meeting/conference.

Back in my office I stack up the cards in my box – writing down my action items on my ongoing to do list. I throw out the ones with nothing written on the back, if I didn’t have anything worth writing on the back of their card, I'm not going to need it. I periodically go through the box, again throwing out cards I don’t forsee using in the future. I’ll also follow up with folks I need to/would benefit from at that point.

I can’t say that it’s been too often that I get a cold-call type contact and have to go through the box to remind myself of who they are though. I’m not entirely sure of the utility of the card box – it’s a habit that I suspect will go by the wayside. That said – I’m glad I don’t have all those contacts in my outlook, so many cards I get I never hear from the person again!