As a freelance writer I get pitched a lot. I don’t hit the delete
key unless it’s totally irrelevant. But I have to say there are several
people who do take the time to ask if whom they represent is relevant,
and they do their homework.

I had a pitch from a PR firm in the UK recently that really stood
out. He promised he wouldn’t flood my inbox, and offered an RSS feed as
an alternative –something I opted for.

On a macro scale, how do you get to know an organization, its
priorities, its strategic goals?

On Wednesday I was asked by a local firm
to speak to a group of incoming account managers about strategic
thinking and solutions selling. I used an example of how as
‘transparent’ as it may seem, a company’s web site is the last place
you’ll find that kind of useful information. A Google search would be a
hit or miss, unless you find a corporate blogger giving the inside
scoop. Nor would a site map reveal the inner working groups, the nodes
and the unofficial networks. Taking time to get to know this
“inner-net” means putting our digital smarts aside, and falling back on
our analog skills. I use the phrase “Think digital, act analog” (first
used by Guy Kawasaki, I believe) to illustrate the point.

A good article on this also appeared in Fortune magazine
last month (titled “The hidden workplace.”) “There’s the organization
chart,” it said. “And then there’s the way things really work.”

Bottom line: Take time to understand the analog networks. These power brokers, access points, nodes and human routers may not have a LinkedIn profile, but they sure make things happen!