Software for researching a purchase

[Toe]

Suppose you're doing research for a complicated purchase like a house, a car, or a vertical market solution. You gather a lot of information, take notes, bookmark websites, make phone calls, read reviews, analyze comparisons, etc.

What do you do to manage this process? Use a spreadsheet, a notepad? Isn't there software designed to facilitate this kind of research?

Any suggestions welcome.

 

[cmcbridejr]

Any office suite should do the trick.

What more do you need than a spreadsheet or word processor?

 

[Toe]

Any office suite should do the trick.

What more do you need than a spreadsheet or word processor?

Well, it's kinda clumsy in a spreadsheet. Tracking URLs is ungainly, especially with access dates. Managing links to URLs that then contain info on several different products gets clumsy. Managing more info than fits on one screen worth of columns gets difficult to follow. And so on. It seems like something that dedicated software could improve on.

Get to a complex set of parameters like buying a house, and there are just so many variables and resources that a simple spreadsheet isn't up to the task at all.

I could write a DB, but was hoping to not have to re-invent the wheel.

 

[reclusivemonkey]

Interesting idea. If there isn't a solution, someone should come up with one!

 

[cmcbridejr]

Maybe use some of your gut feeling and don't overanalyze things.

 

[BobZune]

It depends on how you think. Perhaps one of the mind map programs might do work for you. You can attach URLs and files to them and can always have a big picture ("1 page") view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mind_mapping_software

 

[nadyne]

One of my colleagues wrote a blog post about using data tables in Excel. His example is for the purchase of a home, and I can attest that the spreadsheet he shows in his examples is what he used when he was buying his home. He shared it with me when I told him that I was considering buying a place. The example spreadsheet is attached to his post, so maybe it'll give you a starting point to update it for exactly what you want to do.

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[sehnsucht77]

Suppose you're doing research for a complicated purchase like a house, a car, or a vertical market solution. You gather a lot of information, take notes, bookmark websites, make phone calls, read reviews, analyze comparisons, etc.

What do you do to manage this process? Use a spreadsheet, a notepad? Isn't there software designed to facilitate this kind of research?

Any suggestions welcome.

excel for graphs and spreadsheet work and notes through circus ponies notebook. you can link to relevant documents from there.