I’ve been preparing today for the Communication Directors Forum – my first time, although I’ve heard the tales from my peers over the years. We sail from Southampton tomorrow and I’ve got 30-odd meetings booked between then and Saturday morning.

The organisers at Richmond Events have provided profiles of all the companies and individuals onboard. I’ve been filling in the gaps with the help of a crack team of researchers from across the consultancy using a combination of Google and our digital networks. If I’m going into sales battle on the high seas, or The Solent, I want to be prepared.

Given 30 minutes and a web browser you can dig out a huge volume of insight. Here’s how we compiled our treasure map.

• Companies House filings (for UK companies)
• SEC filings (for US-listed companies)
• Twitter search
• Google and Google News
• PR Week archive
• LinkedIn
• Technorati search

There’s a stack of paid-for tools that will take you deeper but this list is a good start point. I’m hoping that I’m armed with enough contrary one-liners and Resolve to get me through the next few days. We’ll see.