 Hi everyone, good afternoon and welcome to the third day of the Global Innovation Forum. So it's across five days, 120 plus speakers and simultaneous regional events with one goal to bring the global community to unlock digital ecosystem potentials. So the session is brought to you by Swapcard and please do we encourage you to use the chat to comment and the Q&A box and connect with each other directly. Use our hashtag, rediscover innovation to join the conversation and if you wish to listen into another UN languages just click on the link below, remember you can only ask questions on Swapcard though in English. Also remember that you can vote for your favourite idea on the 2020 ITU innovation challenges and those with the most vote will pitch live in front of a jury of high level speakers that head over to the tab in ITU innovation community to browse their pictures. So thank you for joining, creating relationships and pitching stories to media and policy makers. I'm very excited about the session. My name is Sarah and I was one of the ITU challenge winners last year. Today we have Theo and Andrew and Theo has extensive research in campaigns and comms. Campaigns as large as presidential scale. He's currently working at the Resilient Shift and is the founder of Participate Strategy. So we'll be hearing more about what relationships, what should a relationship between startups and policy makers look like and Andrew is the founding partner of Emerging Europe, the leader of the Tech Emerging Europe Advocates Initiative and has extensive experiences with journalists. So we'll be learning more about what a relationship between media and startups should look like. So take it away, Theo. Thanks Sarah. Can I just confirm you can hear me? All right, we're good to go. So thank you Sarah and I want to say thank you to the ITU for inviting me to be part of today and the whole week, which has had great programs. So I really appreciate it. As Sarah mentioned, my name is Theo Backrack and I founded the organization Participate, which is now sort of morphed into a strategic campaign consultancy where we take people who have ideas about civic participation and want to get involved in the policy and decision making progress. We help them turn those ideas into concrete actions. So today I am going to run through a presentation on how we can engage with policymakers and why we should be engaging with policymakers. And then once we've decided that we want to do that, so what are the practical steps we are going to take to go ahead and do that. So with that, let's go on to the next slide because this really sums up why we're here. OK, so on the left we have how it is. Government in this situation is a distracted boyfriend. And they're looking at the same old tired policy ideas. And your great innovation startup is frustrated because you have a much smarter idea, but government isn't seeing you. Now let's flip to how we want it. Now we want government to be looking at your innovation thinking, yes, that is what I'm interested in, you know, with our research and development financing, with our policy announcements and which companies we profile. And my hope is, you know, with everything I'm about to say, ultimately we come back down to this, which is how we can get noticed by government and engage them. So with that, let's move on to the next slide, please. So put simply, why do you want to engage with government and policymakers? As you can see there, government writes the rules of the game. With government decisions on research and development and funding, they can have significant consequences on the markets that you operate in, the consumer habits and change business models, which can significantly impact you. But also present great opportunities for you. So with that, we want to raise your profile so you can be seen by government. We want to create the right environment for government to be listening to you. But also there's a more sort of civic duty and reality, which is the process needs outside voices. So if government and the current policy process were working well, there probably wouldn't be any need for your idea, which can make such a difference. But we need more non-career politicians and government types to be involved with innovative ideas that can help tackle the public policy problems which government is dealing with. And if you're thinking, oh, perhaps I don't have time for that, that's not important, well, if we move on to the next slide, you can see just who is currently engaged with it. So it's time for a brief quiz, I know. So answers in the chat, I'm going to give you 15 seconds of these two figures. What is the current amount spent on lobbying per year versus the combined operational budget of both houses of Congress? And it might not surprise you to know that the amount spent on lobbyists in 2019 was 3.49 billion, which is far bigger than the actual operational budget of Congress itself. So it shows that people are involved in the process as well. And out of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying in developed countries, how many are business interests? The answer is actually 95. And if you're thinking it's 99, the truth is that both those answers are far too high, but it is a 95. That's how many big business interests are already lobbying government, which could have a real impact on you. And if you're thinking, what can government do for me? Well, let's look at the research and development budget of the EU. Of 2018, it was 377 billion, which is the answer to this. Whereas the research and development budget of Amazon, as we can see here, was just 23 billion. So there's significant funding, which government puts into research and development. And some of the biggest companies in the world have come from engaging with government at the start and getting research into their work. So we've decided we're going to do it. So let's go into the next slide, which is about how we go ahead and participate, engage, and influence government. So the goal here is to make ourselves heard within the system and then make things happen. But we can only do this when we know why we want to engage. And that's a really important question. You need to have sort of the start. So why are you looking to engage with government? Is it to raise your profile? Is it because there's an issue which is affecting your company or your community that you want to speak to government on? Or is it because you want to position yourself as a market leader with a view to applying for funding when there's a tender process with a public policy problem that government is going to an outside source on? Whatever the answer to that is, congratulations. You're now a lobbyist. And if you're thinking lobbyist, shudder, I feel disgusting, don't worry. Lobbying is the second oldest profession in the world, probably. And in truth, all it is is about persuading people who hold power to care about your issue and your company. And again, if you think that's not something I do, other people are already doing it. And you can only influence change when you're in the arena and when you participate. Fortunately at the moment, it is simultaneously easier and harder than ever before to engage with government because there isn't the separation of needing to go to a faceless government building to engage. You don't have to physically travel anywhere. But of course, there's much more with digital platforms. There is a much bigger audience out there who's also trying to engage government as well. So we need to be really strategic with how we do it. And finally, just back yourself when it comes to engaging with decision makers, even if you're thinking, you know, they're chalk, I'm cheese, which is a phrase that probably hasn't translated well. But the point is, we think we're complete opposite foes. You're not. We really need to engage. And if you've had the capacity to come up with a great ideas you have, you're gonna be very well prepared and well equipped to engage government. Of course, if you have the resources, sure you can join an association, pay a big PR firm or simply buy influence. You actually should not just buy influence because with simple engagement strategies, you can be heard by the decision makers who have most impact over you. So let's go and see how we're gonna go ahead and do that. So if we go to the next slide, so we need to start off with doing your homework. It can be really intimidating to go up against bigger interests than your own. But the methods that the big players are already using are not complicated. And as I said, if you're an entrepreneur who's taken the risk and shown the drive to set up their own venture or left the security of the big government organization because you know you have an idea of product that is better, trust me, you should feel empowered that you'll be heard at the heart of what makes you successful is your belief in your own potential, but also the homework and research you do. So for this, we really need to be equipping ourselves with the facts, figures and data around your company or your issue or why you want to be heard by government. So if your issue is that a government policy is creating too much of a burden on your ability to take your product to market, well, let's create some data around why that is. If your issue is that you would like to position yourself as a market leader on a certain public policy program, then we really need to create data around how you are uniquely equipped to solve that issue and what your solution is. And if you think, how on earth am I gonna do that with the limited time I have, I'm a small company, I don't have that many resources, well, you can reach out to pro bono organizations who are equipped to help folks, especially those of you who are looking to engage with government with a more social impact mindset. The next thing you wanna do after you've done your amazing research is we wanna create a power map. So we wanna map our stakeholders and influencers. So let's go to the next slide and we'll run on through how to do that. So this is a basic power map. And as you can see, it's quite rudimental but this is actually a really helpful exercise which is gonna visualize who holds power or who holds power over your company and who holds influence over the things you're looking to influence. So we need to decide who we're gonna target. If you make a list of your stakeholders, you can work out who has influence over your company or your issue, but then also potentially who you could potentially build a coalition with. It's really important that you map out potential partners as well, which we'll see going forward because the more people you have, the larger voice you can claim to be speaking with, the more likelihood that you'll be heard. So what we thinking here is, okay, so we know that government exists as this big modelist but where do we even start with that? So it's important to think about what tier and level of government has influence over your company and where you want to engage. It could be the elected politician, the career civil servant, in many countries it's political appointees. It really depends on who you're trying to engage and what you're trying to achieve by engaging them as to who you go. But what's really key is that you identify the right members of either the parliament, the institution, the government committee. These are the people with the power to initiate support or oppose you. And one thing you also want to do is look at who would oppose you. So if you have a company, you want to know who your rivals are, you want to know the people who might oppose the position you're advocating for. But as you'll see here on the map, if there's someone who opposes change but has less power and influence, you don't need to worry about it. See them, but move on. We only want to focus on the people who have the largest amount of influence over your company or the issue you care about. So with that, let's go to the next slide. So with that, this is a quick case study we should put together, which was a forensic startup based in the UK, actually based in Scotland. So what did we do here? So their goal was to raise their profile and guide decision making on online security issues, which is what their company's products worked in. So they had services products on online safety and government, of course, oversees online safety legislation regulations so they want to engage with government on that issue. So step one, what do we do? Well, let's decide to map out the civil servants and policymakers on those issues. Who's on the committee speaking about this issue? Who are the civil servants and departments who are creating policy recommendations as part of the policy process? Let's understand their jobs, what they care about and what constraints they'll have on their work. After we've done that, so let's create some purposeful engagement with them so we can demonstrate our credibility as a company to them and why they should listen to us. One thing that we decided to do was create a round table where we invited the stakeholders we identified and we can do this online. We don't even have to do it. We don't even have to consider a physical meeting space anymore. So it's a real advantage. So we hold this round table where we did company are gonna position ourselves at the heart debate and demonstrate our credibility in front of the stakeholders that we're looking to engage with and influence. So that way when they leave and go ahead and think about their policy issue, they have our company in mind when they think, who can we speak to on this? And it's really key that you engage government on policy processes or initiatives they are already engaging in. Whilst you can go to government cold, so on something they're not focusing on, if you can hook what you want to talk about on an issue they're already discussing, you have a much better chance of being heard. So after that, so we've done the meeting, we've demonstrated we're credible, we've shown our expertise and what our company does. Let's create some takeaways which keeps the process going. In this case, we decided that there needed to be an organization and it turned into an association of companies led by us who could work on online safety, producing content which should inform the policy makers work. Thus we've created a direct connection with policy makers on the issue they care about and we want to field ourselves as experts on. As a result, the government can then go public and say, we're working on this issue with tackling policy problem and look who we're bringing on board. It's a domestic company to demonstrate that they're engaging in supporting local business themselves. And finally, amplify your good work. If you've done a great engagement, make sure people know about it. There can be many tiers of government who will be interested on this issue. And once you've engaged with one, it's really easy to go and say, I'm speaking to this, I'm speaking to these guys, this is how our expertise has helped them. What can we do to help you? And it's a much easier way to bridge and loop between one entity and another entity who all have influence and can be beneficial to your company. So I put media on there, but I'm not gonna touch that because Andrew is gonna lead you through a great presentation on that as well. So that's a brief case study on the steps that you can go through. But now let's decide how we're gonna engage and with what language. So let's go to the next slide, please. Okay, great. Speaking the language of your audience. Now, we're measuring the decision maker, the policy maker, we need to have detailed fact-based and more substantial information to then say if you're going to the public, where the language just needs to be really clear and understood. You also need to think about the value proposition and what you communicate being different to what you might pitch to someone in the private sector as well. So it goes by saying the government has very different KPIs to a company. They're really looking to tackle public policy problem and get value for money, but that isn't their number one issue. So how are we gonna do that? Well, this is one thing that government loves, it's one pages. So we're gonna create all the research that we've done previously, we're gonna bring that to this one page and we're gonna condense everything down to be read by some very busy eyes which can help kick off the process when we seek to engage with them in person. So what's that one page gonna have in it? Well, we're gonna discuss what our company does and what issues we look to tackle give a story or a quote to something that can give it a bit more of a human edge and then we're gonna talk about who our coalitions and partners are. So these allies and stakeholders that we've engaged with, let's include them as well so we can demonstrate that we're speaking for more than just one organization. And then we think, so what level of government can address the issue that we are bringing to them? And then after that, once you've identified what level, okay, what pros do we have to solve them and why your solution will work? If there's a precedent of the solution you are bringing to government that worked elsewhere, this is the time to highlight that because if government thinks, okay, it's worked elsewhere, it's much easier to take that conversation into how it can work for them as well. And no matter how brilliant your company ideas or innovations, you need to demonstrate why the decision maker and the policy makers should support and that comes down to the evidence that you bring. If you're thinking hard facts, figure, data, that doesn't exactly sound like what I've heard from government in 2020, I agree. But let's try and work towards the world as it should be and not just stick with how it is now. So with that, we are going to go onto the next slide about when we get involved in the process. So again, this is a very crude process about the public policy process and when you should engage. It goes without saying that earlier you engage, the better chance you have of being heard. In particular, what you can do is monitor public announcements as they come out. And if you hear an announcement on something your company works on, engage there and then and identify who is handling that. So if you have a department of research and innovation and business and they announce that they are doing a study on X issue, which your company works on and that's the time that we engage because the further it goes down this process, the less likely you are to be heard and have influence on the issue. So with that, we decided we're going to engage, we're going to decide, we decided when we're going to engage, let's think about how we can actually go ahead and make that engagement and what that engagement will look like. So if we go to the next slide, please. So communicating in person. So we've decided we want to engage. We've got all of our research and now we're actually going to go ahead and make the leap and get into the arena and engage with decision makers. Firstly, you've got to make the first move. Public officials will be keen to meet as you can give them useful information or ideas. Good officials know that they can benefit from outside counsel. And you should also feel confident because at this point you've got your research, you have your allies, you've got your fact sheet, you know the language they want to use and you have that coalition behind you. So just approach it like it would be an actual meeting and think about what information you want to provide before the meeting and what you want to bring when you get there. And remember this, government wants to be seen to be supportive. Most governments, most governments want to see, want to demonstrate that they're trying to be innovative and support startups and burgeoning industries. So tell them what they'll get. Tell them what they'll get when they engage with you and why what you do matters to them. Ultimately government is kind of another form of customer that you are marketing to. But it's important to remember all these things here. Demonstrate you're familiar with them. This is a really big secret in government engagement but politicians have egos. I'm going to let that sink in for a second because I know it can be very shocking. But if you can demonstrate, you know them, you demonstrate, you know their constituency, their background, what they've been working on and present your solution as a win for them. It will really help the chances of them saying, we like that idea, we like what your company does, let's run with it. On the flip side though, don't be dismayed if the person you want to speak to has a blank expression and looks like you're speaking another language. The people around them are often the ones that matter most. Their advisors, the civil servants, they're the people who actually do the mechanical work of keeping the process going and they're the ones you're most likely to be keeping in touch with. And so finally, I think we're going to the last slide. After you've done it, monitor your progress. You've done all this work but you're actually just at the start, the end of phase one, this is just a start. You need to keep engaging. Think about that case study. You carve out a special role for yourself as an expert or an issue or as someone who has a particular innovative idea which government can use. Keep on monitoring their policy enlargements and track the process as it goes. And if there's anything which is steering away from what you think is best practice, jump back in and re-engage. Offer opportunities for them to profile your work and engage with your sector. Invite them online probably but invite them to see your work and offer up a case study that they can use when communicating to the public. And finally, if there's a government process taking place around an issue your company cares about, or offered to testify in front of a government committee, really put yourself out there. You would be surprised as how few people think that that is a valuable part of the process. And with that, that's basically a crash course on how you engage with government and I'm gonna hand it back over to Sarah. Hi, thank you so much, Mia. That was incredibly insightful and very useful practical tips there. I'm looking at the chat and I see that we have a few questions. So first of all, startups do not have time. Do you have an example of small startup lobbying government successfully? Yes, that is a great question and here's what I would do to that. Here's what I would say to that. If you are crunched for resources, I totally get it. You could join an association of startups or put yourself as part of a bigger organization but the person I would recommend going to on day one is your local representative. They will be really keen to hear about business in their constituency that they can profile and they can give you a quick platform and they can amplify your business quickly to a government network. So if you're crunched for time, yes, this whole process would require resources behind it but think about when you map who you can go to first without the need of a bigger introduction and that will often be your local representative. Now, if you don't feel that you can communicate with your local representative then I would recommend the first step be map out who has influence and pick the person that you think you can best communicate with and go to them first. Thank you, Theo. We have another question. So what currency could you use besides money to lobby in government? Great question and ideas is a great currency and if you're rolling your eyes, I totally get it but governments are looking to engage with people who can help them tackle the problems they have. So when I mentioned that forensics company it was about tackling online harm. Now, if your company already does something that government is looking to do that can be your currency. So your ideas and the fact that you're already doing something they want to be doing you can take that to them without needing to spend crazy money on dinners and then joining a party or anything like that. Your great currency will be the ideas because that's the currency which in an ideal world should be what government are looking to do. And also by demonstrating the fact you have the expertise which can assist that process it makes it much easier to be heard. Thank you, I love that idea as a currency. We have a question from Linda. So it's really difficult to get the chance to meet policy makers in person. Is there any other alternatives to get to know their way of thinking or to get to communicate with them? Yes, there is. Now this can range literally from everything from working out what the generic government email address is to looking at announcements and who's on them. So from my experience and this is predominantly in the US, UK and EU so granted, but I think this should be sort of a generic process enough to be applicable elsewhere. Often think about if you have a principal so you have a head of department who are the people who are responsible for the operational process of the teams and departments they run trying to engage with them. And when you do seek to engage them just have a really clear reason as to why you're engaging them. In the most recent coronavirus task force here in the UK the inbox of government was flight of the companies looking to offer a solution to them. But you need to just think about a great example that you can have up top as to what you do and why they will be interested in it for the work that they do. I hope that helped answer the question. Thank you, we have a few more coming in. So how do you get the civil servants engaged that those that do mechanical work and keep the system going? So how do you engage civil servants? Firstly, don't quote me on mechanical work. They do very important work and we're all deeply grateful for it. But in my experience the best way to engage civil servants is they are very busy overstretched and the best way to do it is present your engagement as a way of helping the process that they work on. So if they're overseeing if they're overseeing a public consultation on research and development funding for a certain industry where you can go to them with your facts, your figures and your practical experience of the issue they're working on. Because the one thing that infamously civil servants and decision makers don't have a lot of is the practical experience which you as a company will have. That's incredibly valuable. Thank you, Theo. Last question that we'll take and then we'll move on to Andrew. So thank you for your framework. Do you have any other frameworks you can recommend when engaging with government? Yeah, I really do. There is, so I'm a part of an organization that's called the Good Lobby and they have a really useful framework which is kind of like a 10 step process about engaging with government and that is very helpful. So I think if you just go into Good Lobby you can find the links from there and there are also pro bono lobby organizations that exist in multiple countries around the world. I wish I could do now but I'd be happy to put them in a chat or people can follow up with me on LinkedIn afterwards and I can send you that. But there are some really easy step-by-step frameworks which people can use to engage with government and I can post them in the chat after this. Thank you, Saracy. One more question that just came in. We always try to digitally execute what you say but it's always difficult to keep continuity and participation of industries. Do you have any ideas that can help continue interact naturally and sustainably ecosystem that can help continue interacting in a naturally and sustainably ecosystem? That is a great question for which my mind is currently ill-prepared to answer but yeah, so if you're thinking about digital engagement which is for many of us the only tool we have at the moment. So let's try and maximize the engagement we have and one of the ways that I think you can do that is creating your own policy dialogue. So bring as many people together at one time so that way you don't have to go around multiple stakeholders. If you create a policy dialogue invite everyone to be together at the same time it's both literally less energy intensive and both mentally less energy intensive as well. So that way you can sort of do the most with the least. Well, thank you so much, Dya. Thank you for your time and for answering all the questions and for everyone else for answering and asking the questions in the chat. So we're going to move on to Andrew and if you missed the introduction Andrew is the founding partner of Emerging Europe a London-based hybrid platform so intelligence, news and community and has extensive experiences with journalists. So Andrew will be talking about what a real relationship between media and startups should look like how to prepare a press pit and a press release. So Andrew, if you want to take it away. Thank you very much, Sarah. Yes, it's been almost two decades that I've worked as a journalist. So it's been quite a while. It's a huge pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting and having me over. Can we start the presentation, please? Perfect. All right, so can we instantly move to slide two? I want to walk you through four sort of points that I want to focus on. So the first one will be related to the strategy relationship building. Then we're going to talk briefly about how to prepare for any types of media engagement and finally how to create ready to go content. So whenever we can move to the next slide, please. And whenever I coach startups there's always a set of questions that I ask them and it's related to why they want to engage with media outlets, which media in particular how they want to approach them. And how they understand media relations. So when it comes to the first two questions they are quite straightforward. So obviously they want to promote their product services. They want to get investors fundraising. It might be both on a national or regional or global level. They also know exactly which media outlets they want to engage with. So Forbes, TechCrunch or Entrepreneur are always on the list. But when it comes to the question about how to approach them and what kind of strategy they have in order to achieve that this is becoming slightly more difficult and more complicated. It seems that hardly ever there is actually a strategy. And when it comes to media relations and the term itself, how they understand that it is more related to or it means more like taking something as opposed to actually giving and taking as a proper relationship should look like. So my idea is always to explain to them that I'm quite a systematic person which means that I like systems to, I want to know what I want to do, how I want to get there, when. So I would strongly advise that all startups try to answer a couple of questions like why they really want to get involved with media outlets, what they want to achieve, which ones, maybe they should start with national media outlets or maybe their industry focused media outlets and then try to treat them as sort of, try to piggyback on these to reach international audiences. Just to give you an idea here, a lot of journalists go through whatever is out there in other media outlets, they read it as well and they oftentimes get inspired by what they see. So once you have been featured in national newspaper, for example, or even a blog, there is a high chance of actually being spotted and contacted. So the next point is, which media and why? What I mean by this is that you definitely need to understand the media landscape. So you unfortunately have to do some research and understand whether this particular media outlet would work for you or not necessarily. Do they cover specific topics that you are interested in or again, unnecessarily? We often, as a publication, as Sarah said, we are a hybrid organization, but as a publication, we get a lot of press releases. The most hilarious example is that we are based in the UK and a lot of PR agencies and companies think that we also cover the UK. So I would say a third of all the press releases are related to the UK while we cover 23 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. So in principle, none of these press releases are relevant for us. And finally, the third point here, what you want to offer? Because you need to understand and you need to know what kind of content you want to prepare for them. Whether it's an event, for example, and you want them to become a media partner, for instance, or is it your new product that has been recently launched, new service? That you need to prepare the right way to approach them. And I think I'm going to echo some of the points that Theo made earlier in his presentation. There is a number of ideas that you can use to actually draw the media outlets' attention. And one of them is media partnerships. You can organize an event and invite media outlets to become a media partner, offering them some sort of moderation, for example. With bigger media outlets, this is going to be, unfortunately, probably a commercial project. But with smaller media outlets, it might actually work on a counter marketing basis. Theo was also talking about gathering statistics, data. I would strongly recommend, if you are researching a specific area anyway, why not collect that and release as a report, for example? It might be a joint project, it might be something that you do on your own and just invite media outlets to cover. If it is something interesting, and I'm quite sure it is, I'm more than certain that they will pick up on that. Can we move to the second slide, please? I've been talking about, briefly, about building relationships and also doing research. I think if you want to get involved or engage with media outlets, I would strongly recommend that you do not do mass emailing. Instead, I would recommend actually targeting more specific journalists. So doing research, checking what kind of topics they cover, how often, whether this particular angle would work for them, perhaps reach out to them, even if you don't have a story or a press release yet and ask them if a particular topic would be something that would be of interest to them. This kind of brings me to the second point, which is be out there for journalists. And what I mean by this is, journalists very often need commentators, need people who will discuss a specific idea or just offer a comment. Whenever there is something happening, for example, now with COVID, be out there for them. Try to offer a comment related to your industry and share it with them. They might not pick it up immediately, but maybe once they have noticed that, they will reach out to you later. And also be available, prepared and responsive. So whenever you are actually contacted by a journalist, don't wait, don't make them wait days. Journalists always work on tight deadlines. And if you make them wait, for example, for three, four days, they're not gonna wait. They'll go somewhere else. So be available and be responsive. They will definitely appreciate that and they will come back to you whenever they need a similar comment in the future. Be prepared, obviously. That is something that goes without saying. And finally, be friendly and respectful and grateful. What I mean by that is that, and this always comes out during coaching sessions, when I ask startups what they do after they have just had a story published. And they say, oh, we publish it on our social media channels. And I ask, and what do you do with the journalists? Do you contact them? And maybe 5% of all startups say, oh, yes, we reach out to them and thank them for this article. We are all humans and we also want to be appreciated. We also want to make sure that we've done something positive that we've helped. So don't be afraid to get in touch with them. That will definitely strengthen your relationship with the journalists. And again, I will echo something that Theo said earlier about speaking to journalists. Not all of them, this is about this respectful bit, not all of them know all the topics, perfectly well or as well as you do. So sometimes if they ask silly questions, try to be respectful, just answer the question clearly as possible with as many details as possible. We can move to the next slide, please. All right, this is a very interesting one because a lot of startups actually miss a lot of opportunities here. So again, during a lot of different coaching sessions, I ask startups if they know or if they have something that is called a press kit or a media kit. And again, unfortunately, a vast majority does not have that or just does not know what it actually is. So when it comes to a press kit, it is a ready-made set of, you know, content images that you can send out to anyone who is interested or any journalist who is interested in covering your topic or your organization, it might or it should clearly include very high quality images, you know, a company blur and the longer description so they can actually use it any time they need. It might also include video content which is obviously, you know, increasingly more popular. Definitely logos. It might include case studies and definitely, you know, reports, statistics, be it statistics related to your company but also related to the industry that you are, that you represent. A lot of, I will talk about a press releases in a second but I think I cannot stress enough the importance of photographs and those photographs and I would like to emphasize it a couple of times, you definitely need to have very high quality photographs and it is related to your team. I mean, those photographs should present your entire team or at least the people who speak to journalists. It should also include, if it's an app, for example, why not show how the app works? You can embed the app into, you know, a desktop computer or a smartphone as well and present these pictures there as well. Recently I had a situation that I recorded a podcast with the CEO of a startup which is active in the real estate industry and unfortunately, when I asked them for a picture they didn't have one. So we have to use a generic picture which is definitely a missed opportunity for you and as you probably are aware, you know, Google search results relies on images. So if someone wants to look you up on the internet you also give them a higher chance of being found. The next point focuses on the audience. So we're kind of moving slightly to any type of media engagement and you definitely have to know the audience. Whenever you speak to a journalist ask them what they want. I mean, you are able to ask as many questions as possible to make sure that you are delivering high quality content. So if you're speaking to a journalist ask them, you know, who the audience is, how, what the angle is, you know, if you're speaking to a specialized publication, for example, the American Journal of Medicine, obviously, you know, the language that you're gonna be using will be different from the language that you're gonna be using when speaking to a, you know, someone who runs a blog or a general media outlet. And if we look at point three here this might sound quite funny, but unfortunately it is not. When I do audio visual media trainings which where we always have a camera, we always initiate a sort of crisis. So I always ask, you know, the participants to react to a crisis immediately, you know, literally five minutes after they have found out what the crisis was. And surprisingly, I've had a number of cases of people who said, you know what? I should actually be fired for what I said because I didn't mean to say that. So there is, there's three very important ideas that I want to share with you here. Talking points, talking points, and again, talking points. Know exactly what you want to say, otherwise you're gonna be swayed away, you're gonna be distracted, you're gonna, you know, the question might not be asked the same way that it was asked initially before you start the recording, for instance. So definitely be prepared with your talking points. And finally, you know, if you do interviews, TV interviews, or podcasts, or radio interviews, you know, be prepared to know the conscious and uncontrolled behavior, your uncontrolled behavior. What I mean here is, and