“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” as the saying goes. In the information age, personal social networks help us get things done, get jobs, find talent and get answers.

Your contact management system is the way you keep track of this personal network. At the least, you need a way to store personal information—names, addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, titles, and company names. But if you’re keeping contact information on handwritten lists, Post-its, hidden deep in e-mails in your in-box, or if you lose contact with colleagues as you switch jobs or move, you’re letting some of your most valuable assets slip through your fingers.

It doesn’t take much time or money to create a system that will allow you to stay in touch with all of the interesting, influential and entertaining people you’ve met and will meet over the course of your career.

Electronic contact software (like Outlook or Thunderbird)
The most common system among professional office workers is an electronic contact management software that comes as part of a task/contact/e-mail management suite. Some advantages include being able to synch your contact list to your cell phone or PDA so that you have a portable list; being able to create mailing labels and mail merges; having your entire organization’s directory pre-loaded; and being able to segment your list.

I’m often surprised how little users know about their electronic contact management software. For example, you can easily create a new contact when you receive an email from someone by dragging and dropping the email from your in-box to your Contacts folder. If you’re using this type of system, make an effort to learn about some of the features that could save you time in the long run. And of course, make sure your data is backed up frequently.

If you’re just starting to use this kind of system, you don’t need to set aside hours to create or update your electronic address book. Simply add people as you retrieve their contact info—when you pull out a business card from your Rolodex or pull up an old e-mail to contact them, take 30 seconds to enter them as a contact. Over time, you’ll have a great list.

Contact and customer management software (like ACT! or Raiser’s Edge)
Customer management software is used by people who want to do more than simply store contact info—they want to manage the relationships with their contacts as well. These types of programs are popular with salespeople, fundraisers and entrepreneurs.

A good contact management software allows you to easily keep track of all communication relating to each contact, often called a ‘history.’ Within this history, you can automatically see all sent and received e-mails, and you can manually enter records of phone conversations or meetings. You can also add attachments or shortcuts to documents relating to that person, and schedule follow-up phone calls or actions on a to-do list. You can also easily segment your list into groups.

The most powerful aspect of on-line social networking services is that they allow you to quickly and easily stay connected with people you don’t see often—former colleagues, college friends, and people you met at networking events or conferences. Social networking services allow you to create a profile of yourself and invite people you know to become your connections. As your connections move, change jobs or contact information, they update their own profile—and since you’re able to connect with them through the network service, you’ll still be able to find them.

On-line social networking services are most often used in addition to any of the systems mentioned above. To avoid having to manually enter every person and email address in your address book, look for features that allow you to synch to your electronic address book.

If you are looking for a job or if you change jobs frequently, be sure to invest some time in building a thoughtful business profile and inviting new connections into your social network. Your career will thank you for it.

A word of warning: managing your on-line reputation can be a challenge when you’re trying to provide an entertaining profile for friends while maintaining a certain level of professionalism for business. Many folks, including me, are trying to solve this by keeping personal and professional personas separate by using Facebook to stay in touch friends and family (making sure to keep all the privacy settings set at the highest levels so that no one can randomly view my profile), and the more professional Linked In for business connections, past and present clients and colleagues. It’s not an ideal solution, so if you have a better one, please share it.

In closing, as the trend toward more frequent job changes continues, maintaining our personal social network will play an even greater role in our lifelong career success. And at the very least, we’ll make and keep some great friends.

If you have any tips about how you creatively keep in touch with your network and manage your contact information, please share it by posting a comment.

Want to use this article in your e-newsletter or website? You can use this material in whole or in part, as long as you include this complete attribution and live link: Productivity consultant and trainer Cristin Lind of Clearwater Productivity helps busy professionals enhance their work and enrich their lives. If you’re ready to get more done with less effort, visit www.clearwaterproductivity.com.