photo credit: Josean Prado
I’ll describe what needs to happen if you want to connect disparate pieces of information about the same person, organization, or entity. I hope you’ll be further persuaded of both the difficulty and the value of such an effort. The need is widely felt, whether you’re trying to connect the dots on customers in business, terrorists in intelligence, patients in health care, molecules in drug development, etc. As stated on Harvard Business Review.
For each person, event or task that you are entering into the database make sure that everyone working for you is on the same page as to how information is to be entered. This way, no matter who looks up any given entry, they will know exactly what key search words to use in order to pull up that entry.
Make sure you set up a cross reference check within your database. This needs to be running at all times so whenever new information is input into the database, your system will be able to link it to already existing information.
Always ensure that there is one place where all this information is stored. Having more than one database system can be overwhelming and confusing for those who are trying to input or search for information. Keeping all of your records in one spot is the best way to go when categorizing and organizing all of your information.