Meeting planners must be highly organized. There are scads of details to arrange, people to call, schedules to meet. And there are many computer tools to keep you organized, including calendars, address books, personal information managers, and contact managers.
One of the most powerful is ACT!, a contact/customer manager that's been around in various iterations (and owned by various companies) for more than 15 years. ACT! has long been used by salespeople (including many who don't love computers) to automate the contact-tracking process, so it still contains many sales-type references to "opportunities" and sales-driven comments like "Last Results," "Last Reach," and "Last Attempt." Vendors to the meetings industry can certainly benefit from this sales focus—but so can planners.
ACT! is a contact-based program; everything starts with the person you want to get in touch with. Contacts are listed by company, name, phone, e-mail, mobile and fax numbers, and by other key information as well. The ID/status box lets you list people as friends, co-workers, suppliers, vendors, competitors, or in the inevitable sales lingo, as decision-makers or cold, warm, or qualified leads. You can also put in more personal information, such as name of spouse or birthday.
Below the contact-information card is a series of tabs, like Notes, History, Activities, Opportunities (sales-speak again), Groups/Companies, Secondary Contacts (valuable when your primary contact is on vacation), Home Address, and Documents. That last one lets you add Word files, PowerPoint presentations, Excel budget breakdowns, or photographs to contact-list entries. You can then break down contacts into groups, so if you're looking for AV, beverage, hotel chains, and so forth, the information is at your fingertips.
More good news: From a contact page, your scheduling calendar is one click away. The calendar lets you set your schedule and that of your team, create appointments (with on-screen flashing warnings) by start date, time, duration, and priority, and set up meetings with your company's fellow ACT! users. Appointments and activities on the calendar also show up on the Task List, your list of to-do items.
ACT! is essentially a powerful database, so there are many ways to manage, retrieve, and use data. Lookup, for example, lets you find contacts by company, first or last name, phone, city, e-mail, or many other fields. This kind of database power also lends itself to simplified reporting, so you can create a contact report, track activities or time spent, or create reports ranging from group membership to a birthday list.
Pretty basic stuff? Yes—but the organizational structure helps you make the most of your day. It even has its own word processor. But like any contact manager, it's only as strong as the data you feed it. ACT! lets you import Outlook, Exchange, Goldmine, and other files directly, but you'll need to clean them up and make sure the data hasn't manifested itself in the wrong column. Data from other programs, like AOL's address book, needs to be saved as TXT or CSV (comma-separated), then imported.
Like any software, ACT! has a learning curve, but instructors and consultants are widely available. It's available as a stand-alone ($229.99 at www.act.com), for work groups ($399), or as ACT! Premium for the Web, which allows users to access contact information from anywhere via a Web browser. ACT! is also available for Palm-based handhelds, such as the popular Treo 650 smart phone.