what's an effective way to use nicknames in outlook?

Outlook supports multiple address books, and can look at them in a specific order, but the UI is well hidden. In Outlook 2007, choose Tools=> Address Book=> Tools=> Options...

If you just want your personal contacts list to overrule the global address list, move "Contacts" to the top of the list. If you aren't using a global address list, you'll need to create an additional contacts folder, put your high priority contacts in it, and move it to the top of the list.

I have a solution for using nicknames on an email but it only applies to a single user of Outlook and not for the entire company.

1. I added the contact to my personal contacts
2. Open the contact details and added a second email address
3. I entered the same email address from the primary email for the secondary email.
4. I entered the nickname in the "Display As" field.

I can now create a new email just by typing the nickname.