During my final semester in college, I was privileged enough to partake in a short internship with a New York PR agency. Naturally- as with any organization dedicated to the successful procurement of individuals- one of my main functions was to track down a phone number with an address to contact a given person in hopes of attaining a new account and bringing in business. However, how does a lowly intern complete such a task armed only (at best) with an endless list of names?

Luckily, today's web pages reach far beyond the white and yellow printed pages of yesteryear. A wealth of personal information is, for better or worse, merely a few types and a click away. Assuming that you are in possession of the address, a simple Google search of this information will result in the disclosure of at least a map location- which may or may not be useful. Often, an online search of the contacts name or business will yield better results. Indeed, with networking sites such as Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com) and even Facebook pages dedicated to businesses (http://www.Facebook.com), there is almost always a multitude of information available by simply searching for an individual through Google.

Now I know what you're thinking, “Yeah, yeah, we all know that Google is the best thing since Dick Tracy. What if that doesn't work?” Here we enter into the art of decoding facades, i.e. digging deeper into the recesses of that which is the forgotten web. Often, the contact for which you are so desperately seeking is mentioned on the pages of some long forgotten web site, which most likely will help you find a phone number with an address (email address are even better) of a person or organization in contact with them. Even more important are those mentions found on web page PDF attachments - especially those promoting an event or business. This is because PDF's are often meant to be printable and thus repeat important information found on a company's website, including a rooster of relevant personal and their contact information.

Following these pieces of information, the lowly intern rose to the challenge and soon filled the list of contacts! Well perhaps it wasn't quite so dramatic, but you get the idea. A thorough online search is often the answer to that which we are looking for, be it a cheap pair of shoes or the name of a person you haven't seen since that networking event.