Here's another one of those old technology tales. Once upon a time I had a clunky metal bin filled with index cards.You may remember them, some of you even owned one -- they were called Rolodexes. (No, not Rolex, Rolodex!)

The cards had all the pertinent business and/or personal information of everybody I had any reason to contact -- ever. The cards were attached to a spindle, arranged alphabetically and I could thumb through an entire life's history of people I knew from work, from home, the plumber, the plumber's kids' names, the DMV. If you had the private phone numbers of some of these people, they were worth their weight in gold.

At one point I had hundreds of cards, all neatly spindled. And then cheap electronic data came along, in the form of a Palm Pilot. I could take it anywhere, I could beam my info to another Palm user -- all kinds of cool things. Well, that evolved into my cell phone -- it doesn't have much in terms of people's work backgrounds, but I can always try to call folks I worked with six or seven years ago, and maybe they'll still have the same number. Maybe not.

In the past few weeks, the process of reconnecting with a lot of friends and former colleagues has made me realize -- isn't LinkedIn the new Rolodex? Not with phone numbers, but with so much else.

I can send email anytime from anywhere, and be sure they receive it. I can ask a lot of people at once for advice or other connections. I can see where the've worked or are working or went to school (much like the online Portfolio offered by our company, Experience.com). I can keep up with what people are doing, or what conferences they are attending, without having to wade through the Facebook adventures of the family dog.

So when people talk about LinkedIn becoming the online network for professionals, yes they're right. But I'm just happy to no longer carry around an 8-pound Rolodex.

What's your preference for staying organized -- Facebook or LinkedIn? Or a Rolodex?

Photo by TOKY Branding and Design