We've all been inundated with so many ingenious, must-have, time-saving apps and tools that we really don't have a second left to spare.

For everybody in their busy lives, you need to invest in sharpening your tools, and you need to invest in longevity.

Sales departments use social to nurture leads and close sales. HR posts job openings and vets applicants. Community and support squads mine networks, blogs and forums with deep listening tools.

A swarm of new business tools coming to phones and desktops near you promise to boost efficiency and streamline collaboration by borrowing social features from the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

The basic idea of email has remained essentially unchanged since the first networked message was sent in 1971. And while email is great for one-on-one, formal correspondence, there are far better tools for collaboration.

One of the ironies of a conference dedicated to all things digital and virtual is that the best ways to connect with people are surprisingly old-school. Social media tools can improve the odds of a serendipitous encounter at SXSW, but old-fashioned hustle, palm-pressing and - above all - creativity go a long way.