Youth worker Josh Cook is a big fan of Highrise. He writes, "If your work requires that you maintain relationships with a large network of individuals (read: youth workers) this application is a must for you."
He's got a bunch of tips that are good idea starters for both youth workers and anyone else who uses Highrise.
Maintain relationships
In Using Highrise to Facilitate Real Ministry, he talks about how Highrise helps you maintain relationships:
Highrise and youth ministry are a beautiful marriage. I've been doing some thinking, and I think I've figured out why they work so well together. They're both good at the same thing: Maintaining meaningful relationships...By taking something blurry and esoteric (maintaining relationships) and making it something manageable and concrete (tasks, notes, etc.), Highrise facilitates real-world ministry.
The power of "About"
Then he gets down to some concrete tips, like how the "About" field can transform relationships:
Use the "About" field - Each profile has a section called "About", and it's nothing but a big, beautiful, blank box. You can put whatever you want here - family information, interests, friends, etc. I suggest taking little notes about students whenever you come across something noteworthy: favorite bands, quirks, or any little thing that you'll want to remember about your kids. If you put a little bit of energy into it, this little empty text box can be transformative in your personal relationships.
Create multiple followup tasks
He also likes to create multiple follow-up tasks at once for a person:
If I'm scheduling a meeting, I'll go ahead and schedule follow-ups at regular intervals afterwards. That might look something like "Lunch tomorrow, Call in two weeks, Call to schedule lunch in a month, call in six weeks, etc." It's a great way to ensure that you'll keep following-up on situations that are important to you.
Get creative with tags
In Using Highrise in Youth Ministry, he offers different ideas on how to use tags:
Instead of tagging students with their grade numbers, use their graduation year. Grades change every year, but graduation year (hopefully) stays the same.Tag your students male and female. (It's one of the most common ways you'll want to divide them.)
Tag them with their school names. That way the next time you visit a student at school you can quickly see other students at the school.
Tag visitors based on who brought them. If, for example, a new student was brought by Johnny, tag them with the phrase "via Johnny".
Here's how we use tags in Highrise:
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