Like many successful executives, managers and business owners, we at Danburg Properties of Boca Raton strive to maintain up-to-the-minute contact lists of all our connections. Whether business partners, associates, tenants at our Palm Beach County office, warehouse or industrial space – or prospects who may become tenants one day – we gather and maintain everything from their names and contact information, to notes about their businesses, needs and even preferences.

But in the hyper-connected online world, some successful execs don’t even need the traditional contact list. For those who use robust email services or database management tools, the Search bar will suffice.

Now, we’re not saying to ditch the database and replace it with a query every time you need someone’s information. That would be ludicrous. Nothing beats a well-maintained contact list.

But some of us use GMail, the email service created by the world’s most-used search engine. And because of the connection between the two, search is an inherently powerful function within GMail.

For example, this week, we needed the name of a connection at a local hotelier. We’d not done business with the property in the past, but when we found the individual’s name on the hotel’s website, we plugged that name into a GMail search. It seems we had corresponded with that individual some years ago. The executive was with a completely different organization and the hotel wasn’t even part of the original correspondence.

But we made a connection, and used it as a tickler to remind the exec of our previous contact.

Used as a habit, such searches can shorten the distance between connections and help build relationships that either had gone cold or – admittedly – were lukewarm from the start. But in the world of online marketing and connections, any connection is better than none at all.

Again, this is no argument to ditch Goldmine or Outlook or Salesforce in exchange for a free, web-based email service. Robust as GMail may be, the usability and functionality of fee versus free often cannot be compared. But there may be no reason to add some folk to your contact list on the fleeting, off-chance that you may, one day, need his or her contact info or relationship tickler in the future.

Just remember to use your email’s search function. That could be all the tickler you need.