This Quick Tip is the third in a series on "Working the Network" offering tips on how to benefit from networking opportunities and to see how Rod Stoll himself makes use of professional networks

People who are serious about networking and its potential value make a point of recording what they've learned for future reference. Rod Stoll, a serial entrepreneur and determined networker in Pittsburgh, has developed his own approach to collecting data.

•  Always carry a business card with you – in your wallet, your pocket, your card case, wherever. Even if you're standing in line at the supermarket on a weekend, you never know when you'll bump into someone you may want to follow up with later. Swapping cards is the foundation for exchanging key information.

•  Scan or key information from cards you collect into an electronic database. For Stoll, that database is housed in a Palm PDA. In some cases, depending on the device, contact information can even be exchanged by infrared beaming from one unit to the other.

•  Enter any essential personal information you learn into the PDA as well. Palm software, for example, includes multiple ‘custom' entry lines associated with every individual in its address book. So if, for example, you learn that the spouse of a recent contact works for an organization of interest, enter that data along with the primary person's contact information.

•  If you have photos that are useful in identifying a person or a site, enter them as well, along with any notes and calendar items that seem relevant to that contact. Flash memory cards can expand the unit's capacity almost indefinitely.

•  Back up your PDA daily. The more you have inside it, the greater the loss when the inevitable happens and the device fails. Stoll found daily backing up particularly important when his previous PDA recently fell into the toilet.

This Quick Tip is one of a series on "Working the Network" offering tips on how to benefit from networking opportunities and to see how Rod Stoll himself makes use of professional networks.

Working the network series

Feature article: Getting the most from networking sometimes means giving the most

Quick tip: Networking at events

Quick tip: Following up on referrals

Quick tip: Capturing network intelligence

Quick tip: Classifying network contacts