Ah, the good old days. I remember a time not too long ago when I could give a handful of collected business cards to my assistant and, within a few hours, find them all neatly entered as contacts in Outlook. Now, as the human capital available to carry out mundane tasks becomes increasingly scarce around the office, I find that technology has taken on the role of my virtual assistant. Here are a few of my favoroite productivity-enhancement tools that help me out around the office.

• Neat Business Card Scanner – After spending the better part of a day entering business card data into my Outlook address book (and losing hundreds of dollars in lost revenue potential and business development), I spent $59 at Amazon for a Neat Business Card Scanner. This compact device communicates directly with Outlook, automatically pulling information off the scanned cards and populating the appropriate contact data fields. It also attaches a scanned color image of the card (front and back) to the contact record. Business cards no longer stack up on my desk; I ususally run them through the scanner as soon as I return from a meeting. It takes about 30 seconds per card and I can follow-up via email within hours of a making a connection, instead of days or weeks. How would I ever survive without this?
• LinkedIn Toolbar for Outlook – Almost immediately after I put someone’s contact information in my system for the first time, I check to see if they have a profile on LinkedIn. This used to be a multi-step process requiring me to login to the web site, conduct a name search, and finally send an invitation to connect. The LinkedIn Toolbar for Outlook dramatically simplifies this process. Now, each of my contacts in Outlook has a LinkedIn logo next to their name. When I hover my cursor over the logo, the application does a quick search and shows me whether or not the individual is registered with LinkedIn. If so, another couple of clicks sends them a pre-worded invitation to connect. If not, I can just as easily send them an invitation to join. A word of caution: the LinkedIn Toolbar almost makes it too easy. Avoid the temptation to use it as a substitute for a phone call or a face-to-face meeting.
• Acrobat.com – I’m a big fan of Adobe’s software products and use Acrobat, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver on a regular basis. A few months ago, Adobe launched Acrobat.com, a site designed to foster remote team collaboration. Highlights of the site include ConnectNow, an on-line meeting room, similar to GotoMeeting, that allows users to share their screens in real time during a conference call. ConnectNow includes webcam support, a whiteboard feature, and (best of all) it’s free for up to three participants. Another cool feature of Acrobat.com is that it gives you five gigabytes of free online storage space to upload any of your files and then selectively share those files with anyone you like. I have started keeping all of my local documents on the site as a backup and now I have access to them from anywhere. Also included is Buzzword, an on-line word processor that accomodates revisions and edits from multiple authors – no more emailing files back and forth. There  are numerous sites offering similar products and features; but, none that I have found so far that do it as well as Acrobat.com and at no cost.

So what are your favorite tech tools that help you be more effective? I’m always looking for new ones. Leave a response to this post or shoot me an email.