Connect the Dots: How Do I Get Into SM (Or Any Company In General) the Fastest?

I recently had a conversation with someone who wanted to know what was the easiest way to get into the Korean music industry.  As this conversation was by e-mail, I have no idea what this person looks like or sounds like which actually helped my thought process.
So what is the easiest way to get into SM or any entertainment company?

1.)  Have a connection to an industry insider who can recommend you
Seriously, this is the fastest way in.  In Korea, getting a good job is all about having the right connections.  Even if your connection is that it's your best friend's cousin's fiancee, if you get that connection to recommend you, you're already a few steps ahead of the pack.
For example, let's say A has an industry connection and average talent and B is pretty good, had professional lessons, was a back-up dancer for a semi-well-known singer, and doesn't have a connection.  They both decide to audition for Company C.  B is definitely more experienced and more talented than A, but more likely than not A will be chosen over B.

However, this does have a flip-side.  You need to be good for the insider to seriously consider recommending you.  Too many recommendation duds and their credibility to recommend potential trainees is shot.  Also, the pressure on YOU would skyrocket.  If someone recommended you, suddenly you're obligated to uphold their reputation.  Even if you are talented, if you do something stupid and earn a bad reputation, it's going to reflect poorly on the person who recommended you.

Example:  Girls' Generation's Sunny
[I'm not saying she isn't talented, but there are definitely others who are more talented than she is.  It didn't hurt that Lee Sooman was her uncle!]

3.)  Win a contest sponsored by SM

For all of us who aren't fluent in Korean, this might be an extremely difficult way.  I honestly wouldn't know where you would get the information with enough advance warning to book a reasonably priced plane ticket.
Also, I wouldn't know where to look in general.  I guess they're aimed more at high students than the general public.  While there aren't as many of these contests are there used to be, they're still around.
This is probably the best because they know the participant has the talent and charisma to stand easily on a stage and this is a rare time when you'll actually know what the company is looking for.  If you enter a beauty contest, they're looking for a pretty face, it you enter a dance contest, they're looking for a dancer, and if you enter a singing contest they're looking for a singer.
You might ask, what's the difference between this and an audition like Global/Youth Star Auditions?  The reason I put this before live auditions is because in contests there is always a winner.  With auditions, they don't have to pick someone, but in a contest they have to.  Now I've never seen the rules for contests sponsored by SM, but I'm assuming that the winner is offered a trainee contract, with SM being allowed to award a contract to anyone else they choose (much like what happens on Survival Audition K-Pop Star, only not on such a guaranteed level).

Examples:  Super Junior's Ryeowook, Kyuhyun, and Shindong.  Girls' Generation's Yuri and Taeyeon, EXO's D.O., Kai, and Xiu Min,

2.)  Audition live, but not at a mass or limited-time audition
(Mass auditions are SM's Global Auditions and Youth Star Auditions and limited-time auditions are those like the Pledis Asian-American USA Audition or the TS Entertainment November Auditions.)
SM's Weekly Auditions in Seoul and LA and Monthly Auditions in Japan are a good example.  JYP also has bi-monthly auditions.
These auditions aren't as well-publicized so they have fewer participants and happier judges.  Why are happy judges better?  Two reasons.

One, they are likely to give you more time (and maybe more chances).  At a mass or limited-time audition they feel the pressure to get through thousands of applicants.  At a smaller audition they have more time to look over only a handful of people.
Two, they haven't had to listen to as many duds (or superstars).  When it's only 10 people, they don't have much to compare you to.  However, if they've just listened 200 people who can't carry a tune to save their life or 200 people who are the musical lovechild of BoA and Ryeowook, you sound worse than you actually are.
If they've heard a lot of the latter group, you'll have to really knock some socks off to escape the blackhole label of "mediocre."  If they've heard a lot of the former group, you might have been good but suddenly compared to them you're not.

Example:  SHINee's Taemin, Girls' Generation's Hyohyeon, YoonA, and Seohyun

3.)  Audition live
A live audition is always going to be better than an online audition no matter what.  However, sometimes these huge auditions, which attract tens of thousands of hopefuls, leave with only 1 to 3 trainees.  You really have to stand out amongst the sea of faces.  Also, the judges are going to be crabbier after listening to about a thousand Williams Hungs.

Examples:  f(x)'s Amber, EXO's Kris, Lay, Tao, and Suho, Super Junior-M's Henry

4.)  YouTube
While this sounds weird, YouTube is actually the best thing to try if you can't make it to a live audition.   You'd be surprised how many people with recommendation power (apparently) have no lives and just troll YouTube.
While this may sound as unlikely as Scouting, even this insignificant writer managed to get this e-mail via YouTube:

This is ****. and I'm working at
'MBC Star Audition Season3 ' which is Korean
TV program, like American Idol, kind an
audition program.
I saw your YouTube clip. and I think you're
awesome! You very talented!

So I suggest that you join our TV show.

All I did was post a video on YouTube.  (It probably helped that it was a capella and I tagged it using Hangul and English tags.)  YouTube is great way to noticed.

Example:  Ailee

5.)  E-mail auditions
The default and by far the easiest way to access an audition.  However, it's still slower than a live audition since you most likely be asked to a live audition.

6.)  Online auditions (everysing.com)
While this is pretty much like e-mail auditions, it's a public venue and as of 11/10/12, still impossible to register for (they have bugs in their systems that won't let you fill out certain parts of the sign-up form). With SM's love of secrecy, the fact that your audition is immediately plastered onto everysing.com and YouTube, it's extremely doubtful you will be asked to sign right away.  True, they look for future talent, but they're also probably looking for your improvement.
Most likely they'll watch you for a long time and then say, "this person's good, let's invite them to a live audition."
Also, it's the newest medium of auditioning.  Since there haven't been any artists who've been discovered and debuted by it, we don't have any way of gauging how well they watch the talent.

7.)  Scouting
So technically if you were scouted it would be the absolute fastest way to get into SM.  The executives that scouted you would have the power to say "we want them."  Sure you would still have to go through a traditional audition, but you really have even better prospects than a recommendation because you obviously ooze enough charisma (or something else...) to be randomly spotted on the street.  But the since scouting is so random, it's why it's at the bottom of the list.  You could dance around in front of the SM building but you might be thought of as "just another fan."  I wouldn't know which random person on the street you'd try to direct your awesomeness to and I wouldn't know how...
I mean, how randomly weird are SM's scoutings?  BoA was noticed at her brother's audition and Krystal was noticed on a family vacation.  Both were extremely young.  The older ones who were scouted, Sehun and Luhan, were scouted doing really ordinary things without purposefully trying to attract attention.  Sehun was eating food from a street vendor and Luhan was shopping.  I normally don't think stuffing your face screams "future star."  Heck, miss A's Suzy was scouted while heading to the bathroom!

Examples:  BoA, f(x)'s Krystal, EXO's Sehun, Baekhyun, and Luhan, Super Junior's Kibum, f(x)'s Victoria