This post is for anyone who ever wished that they had the luxury of a personal assistant, but doesn’t have the financial resources or title to merit one. It’s for those engaged in networking who receive dozens of business cards per month; professionals in sales, marketing or management are logical candidates, but this tool will work for anyone who wants to keep in touch with new contacts while using the least amount to time.
What is a Cardscan? The concept behind using a Cardscan is simple: instead of relying on data entry to update new contact information from business cards, cards get scanned into a mini scanner and an electronic database is instantly created. Anyone who purchases a Cardscan receives the mini scanner & a cord that plugs into the USB port of their computer. Not only is an electronic copy of a business card created, but OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software is used to take all of the text off of the card and convert it to an actual database. Since the software is not perfect, users have the opportunity to review the record before it is finalized to make sure that all information was captured correctly and attributed to the appropriate fields in the database. At this point, the physical business card can be recycled, or filed away if a physical copy may be needed in the future.
All of the information is captured off of any business card that is scanned into Cardscan. This includes not only the e-mail address, but also the physical address, phone, fax, business name, the person’s name and their title.
Where can I get a Cardscan and how much does one cost? Cardscan can be purchased directly from the Cardscan website, but I purchased mine from Amazon because they had a better price; on Amazon the CardScan Personal v8 Card Scanner
What are other benefits of a Cardscan? The online component of Cardscan provides a secure back up for all of the owner’s contacts that can be accessed from any device with internet access. Let’s face it, nobody likes to think about their computer breaking, getting attacked by a virus, or getting lost or stolen, but Cardscan is a fantastic way to back of critical databases.
Another important feature is that Cardscan can be set up to integrate with most major contact management systems including Outlook, Outlook Express, Palm Pilots, ACT, Goldmine, etc. In my case, I use the Cardscan info to update both my ACT database and e-mail addresses in my Outlook address book.
Finally, Cardscan can be used to periodically send out automated e-mails to contacts to see if their contact information is still current. This option can also be turned off, but when activated, it takes care of this task automatically. The benefit of this is that the Cardscan owner is notified when any contacts get promoted, move, or in some cases get a new job. A database’s value can be maximized only when all of the information is accurate and up-to-date.
Almost all books dealing with time management emphasize spending time on the things that people enjoy doing and on tasks that maximize their skills & abilities. In an ideal scenario, someone can rely on an administrative assistant or coworker to help with unproductive, time-consuming tasks like data entry, but in reality, this is not an option for many busy professionals because they don’t have staff, or they don’t have staff with the right skills available to help; for people in this category, Cardscan may be a great solution.
Do you have any time-saving recommendations for busy professionals? Please use the comments section below to share.
