2015 is upon us and it’s time to start acting on those resolutions we have set for ourselves in the new year. One goal we should all have on our list is to make sure our websites and networks are as secure as possible. With sources reporting as much as a 75% increase in cyber attacks this past year alone, this is the time to ensure that your company’s website and data is safe and secure. Below is a list of tasks that will help you get a jump start on hackers and ensure that your website starts the year off right.
Update Your CMS
Whether your website is running an open source content management system (e.g. WordPress, Drupal) or a proprietary one (e.g. Adobe CQ5, ExpressionEngine), it’s important that you update your install with the latest releases and patches promptly. Software providers are constantly pushing out updated features and functionality, but you will likely find new and updated security patches and safeguards sprinkled in as well. You should get in the habit of reviewing your software providers change log as new versions are released so you know what security updates are being included.
It’s important to note that updating your CMS can sometimes cause unforeseen issues and should be done on separate copies of your site first, to ensure that they don’t adversely effect your set-up, and then deployed to your live environment.
Maintain Your Server
Your CMS isn’t the only way attackers can gain access to your website. The environment your website is hosted on must also be secured to prevent attackers from gaining access to your websites raw data and files. If you are using a fully managed hosting solution like WordPress VIP or a shared hosting environment like GoDaddy then you are covered as your provider will take care of your servers updates and security for you. However, if you are hosting your site on a cloud environment or dedicated/virtual private server (VPS) then the responsibility is yours.
As with your CMS, your server should also be updated regularly. Operating system patches are constantly being released and should be made to your server on a regular basis. Firewalls (software or hardware) are another good way to protect your servers by giving you fine grained control over who can access your website or server and what they can do. And finally, you should scan your server for vulnerabilities on a regular basis. Attackers commonly scan servers looking for weak spots, like open ports, they can exploit so it’s important for you to have the intel first so you can beat them to the punch.
Restrict Access
Hackers can only attack what they can gain access too. One of the more restrictive, but effective, steps to take is to limit access to your websites server or CMS to select IP addresses. This means that only requests coming from a certain IP (like your offices) will be able to access your websites or servers controls. While this is an effective defense it’s important to mention that most internet access comes from shared IP addresses which means your trusted users won’t be able to access your systems from home or other locations without a dedicated IP.
Create Strong Password Policies
Every user account you create in your CMS or server adds one more potential vulnerability to your infrastructure. Once a hacker has determined a username they can easily run a dictionary attack and determine simple password without much trouble. Make sure that your users are doing their part to keep things secure by creating secure passwords. Policies can be created in most content management systems and servers requiring users create passwords of a certain length, containing symbols and special characters and that don’t contain common terms found in the dictionary.
Review User Permissions
One preventative measure to take, in the event that an attacker gains access to your website posing as one of your users, is to ensure that all users have only the permissions that they need. Too often users are given more permissions than they require to complete their jobs, being assigned admin or greater permissions. While you may trust the user you have given these permissions too, an attacker who gains access to this account now has more than enough permissions to take down your site. When adding users to your system you should always follow the principle of least privilege.
Enable Dual Factor Authentication
As an added layer of protection on the user side you should also enable dual factor or two-step authentication. Enabling this requires that users not only enter a password but also provide an additional credential (typically a numerical code) which is sent to them via SMS or email before gaining access. This requires that attackers posing as recognized users must also have access to that users phone or email account in addition to their password. Many content management systems have modules or plug-ins available for this or you can use a full service provider like Duo.
The DC tech startup community has a chip on its shoulder. That’s not a bad thing; it motivates entrepreneurs and area leaders committed to advancing the interests of the DC tech community to fight for respect. This respect can assume many forms, including funding, an available pool of highly educated, skilled workers, or just positive publicity and attention relative to Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and other tech hubs that seem to glisten more in the eyes of venture capitalists and industry pontificators.
As I networked and dined at MAVA’s annual holiday luncheon last week and reflected on the week that was in the local tech space, a scene from Jerry Maguire popped into my head. It was when Tom Cruise and Kelly Preston feed each other breakfast in the buff. Ok, that’s not the scene, but figured I’d throw it in there to make sure everyone is paying attention. It was Jerry Maguire racing home after the football game, bearing his soul to his wife, and exclaiming, “Tonight…our little company had a very big night. A very, very big night.” The flurry of venture capital raise announcements by local companies last week in fact represents a very, very big week for the DC tech community.
The three venture capital raises undermined a prevailing but increasingly antiquated notion that technology innovation emerging from the nation’s capital is government-skewed, exclusively b2b or, for lack of a better word, boring. Optoro, a startup that caught my eye approximately five years ago as a presenting company at a MAVA event, announced a $50 million funding raise on December 10th. The company stood out to me that day because the business model was simple (heck, even I could understand it which is no easy task) and it was clear to everyone in the room what the industry pain point was (retailers were not efficiently and cost-effectively able to sell excess and returned inventory), and that Optoro has developed a very clever way to address it (a cloud-based, multi-channel selling technology enabling retailers to optimally manage their reverse logistics).
The day before Optoro announced its massive funding raise, marketing software firm TrackMaven snagged a $14M Series B round from NEA, Bowery Capital, Silicon Valley Bank and others. TrackMaven is striking a chord with overwhelmed digital marketers seeking products to help better track and act on relevant data related to earned media, SEO, ads, content marketing and social media efforts.
The final venture capital raise last week is a company I’ve been privileged enough to call a client for the past several years – Canvas. The Reston-based company, which raised $9 million, has quickly emerged as the global leader in mobile apps for collecting and sharing business information. Canvas is truly disrupting how work gets done by enabling businesses to replace expensive and inefficient paper forms and processes with customizable mobile apps for smartphones and tablets, with no programming or IT required. There are also now more than 15,000 apps in the Canvas mobile business application store – apps that can easily be downloaded, customized and shared by Canvas’ growing community of partners and subscribers.
Not only do these funding raises reflect the diversity of startups and challenger brands that now call the DC area home, but also strengthens the region’s global position. Canvas’ Jason Ganz reaffirmed as much in his recent blog post that analyzed every startup funding round the last ten years. Among several compelling pieces of data, Ganz calculated that the DC region has 138 funding rounds listed so far in 2014 – making it the 7th highest region for startup funding globally. For the sake of comparison, there were 52 area funding rounds in 2009 and 157 funding rounds last year.
It was a very, very big week for the Greater Washington technology community, one that holds the promise for even greater activity and growth next year.
We love to tout the great work we are doing for the major, market-leading brands like Adobe, CA, CSC, Cisco, Google, Intel and McAfee. All one-time challenger brands in their own right, each came to us because they recognize that our more progressive, digital-first approach to brand engagement allows them to deliver the kind of real-time customer experience that so perfectly meets their goals. These companies need to continue to feel very now…hot, innovative and culturally relevant…and stay one step ahead of the new generation of brands challenging their dominance.
This becomes increasingly more difficult – and as a marketer…equally more exciting – as these original mavericks of technology begin to slow with age and become mired in bureaucracy. It’s the challenge to make a difference within such a tight box that fuels our creative firepower to think outside of it and deliver game-changing results for even the most established brands.
It is, however, for quite the same reason that we love to keep our thinking fresh with a healthy client mix – and working with less established, but well managed startups and challenger brands is a key part of that. Their nimble and enterprising character allow our teams the freedom to create and rally around new ideas and deliver the forward thinking digital and creative strategies to help our clients in this category disrupt and realign market perceptions and redefine the boundaries of the category to challenge, deposition and ultimately displace the number one brand in the market. Here are some recent examples of that work:
Canvas
Canvas has rapidly established itself as one of the fastest growing mobile business application services in the world, with thousands of organizations leveraging Canvas’ cloud-based, “as-a-Service” mobile app platform to replace cumbersome paper forms with highly customizable mobile business apps that work on nearly every smartphone and tablet on the market.
When Canvas first turned to the Bluetext team as its global PR agency of record, Bluetext put in place a public relations program designed to support high growth and market leadership, penetrate target verticals and also support expansion into global markets. Bluetext has supported Canvas the past two years through triple digit revenue growth and the opening of international offices in Sydney and London.
The media relations and thought leadership program developed and executed on behalf of Canvas represents how Bluetext successfully elevated Canvas’ brand and services to business and national press. It accomplished this by honing in on this through multiple strategies, including a unique use case for Canvas technology that would hold appeal to a new set of media. In this case, it was the use of Canvas by an African reserve to combat Rhino poaching. Bluetext focused on messages that would still communicate the technology’s value proposition, and placed Canvas-centric articles with Associated Press, Bloomberg Business Week and The Washington Post. This coverage snowballed into dozens of additional global articles and led directly to new customer acquisition.
Gamescape, the brainchild of two die-hard fantasy sports enthusiasts and marketing entrepreneurs, came to Bluetext with a clear mission: create a gamification experience leveraging daily fantasy sports that drives customer loyalty as a brandable solution for bars, restaurants and other venues nationwide.
Bluetext took this concept and, with the Gamescape team, and did every aspect of their branding, marketing, and platform design and development. Gamescape wanted to create a sophisticated application that included a robust sports fantasy system, a messaging system for patrons to interact together, and profile creation with location-based geo-fencing. On top of all of that the new platform had to be visually striking, extremely intuitive and easy-to-use.
From loyalty-building rewards points to new ways to communicate with your customers, the mobile-first digital platform Bluetext developed for Gamescape offers an impressive suite of features focused on increasing the opportunities to interact and connect with your guests while offering them new entertainment options. Gamescape’s geofencing technology requires players to be in your establishment in order to join a game.
HelloWallet
HelloWallet, a financial services provider for large enterprises backed by AOL founder Steve Case, wanted to make a big splash in the national media with the value it brings to the market. Bluetext helped package original research on 401k challenges, and crafted a media rollout strategy that leveraged the research and pitted competing publications for the best coverage. The result– a front-page article in The Washington Post followed by major network coverage and more than 50 separate articles in national and business publications including Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Bluetext is an equal opportunity branding, digital marketing and strategic communications agency – from leaders of global industry to the upstarts that may one day threaten them.
My exposure to Israeli technology companies over the past several years has admittedly gravitated towards cyber security, video surveillance and biometric startups like BriefCam, FST21 and others often born out of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or Israeli Military Intelligence. Whether it has been at ASIS or other security industry conferences, I come away impressed with the sophistication of the technology and potential applications for both commercial and government purposes.
One of the reasons the Showcase of Maryland/Israel Business – which took place on November 18th in Silver Spring, MD – caught my attention is that it extended beyond some of the aforementioned security categories to robotics, e-discovery software, medical equipment, and mobile emergency response solutions. The event was hosted by the Maryland/Israel Development Center, a non-profit organization promoting trade and investment between Maryland and Israeli businesses and research institutions.
In some cases, the companies were Israeli-based and looking to push into the U.S. market more aggressively, while others had Israeli origins but had been operating in Maryland for several years. As someone who has tracked and worked with scores of Maryland technology companies and startups – first as founder of a Maryland Tech PR firm and currently in my role as Partner at Bluetext – it is exciting to see collaboration and efforts by the Maryland Tech community to foster closer ties with Israeli tech firms.
Some of the more provocative demonstrations and companies I spoke with included:
Roboteam – This company designs, develops and manufactures cutting edge, user-oriented, multi-purpose, unmanned platforms and controllers for Defense, Law Enforcement and Public Safety missions. One of its unmanned ground vehicles was on display and operational at the event, where it demonstrated its ability to not only move on flat service but also ascend a podium staircase.
iControl Universal Collaboration Solutions – Collaborative Business Intelligence firm based in Burtonsville, Maryland helping retailers gain unified data insights across its supplier network.
NextNine – Cyber Security firm focused on oil, gas, mining, defense and other critical infrastructure verticals.
RADiFlow – This company provides secure industrial Ethernet solutions for critical infrastructure applications.
Video has become an essential element in nearly every integrated marketing campaign. Whether it’s to highlight a key executive or subject expert, capture a discussion that demonstrates leadership on a topic or issue, or provide a better explanation of a complicated subject, video delivers a strong platform from which to tell a story.
The challenge with video is that it can be of poor quality and doesn’t hold the audience’s attention when not done well. While it may seem simple to set an executive behind a desk and start running the video camera while he or she starts talking, there are a lot of stumbling blocks when taking this easy path. Offices and even conference rooms can be cramped, making it difficult to get the best angles. The lighting is always uneven. Shadows in the wrong places are a constant issue. And if you’re doing a series of video interviews, each office will look and feel different on camera. In addition, sound quality is particularly hard, especially in today’s modern offices where air is constantly moving through the ventilation systems. While often barely audible in person, lavaliere microphones are extremely sensitive and amplify that hidden sound.
A better solution is getting the individuals out of their office and putting them in a controlled setting before a curtain or green screen. This approach offers a number of important advantages for a compelling and quality video experience:
1) The lighting will be consistent across every video. Shadows can be controlled, and office clutter is removed from the scene.
2) Audio can be controlled, with ambient sound kept to a minimum.
3) Backdrops, colors and tones can be chosen to meet the mood of the topic or the intended feel of the interview.
4) Multiple cameras can be more easily used, offering more interesting ways to edit the final piece.
5) Multiple videos in a series can have a similar look and feel, making them look like part of the package rather than random takes shot in different locations.
Bluetext often uses black curtains as well as green screens to achieve the right look for our clients’ videos. Here are a few examples that should get every marketer thinking about a better way to capture executives, thought leaders, experts and customers as part of successful marketing campaigns.
Use the Background to Set the Tone. For the launch of a new program called Smart Degree that enlists adult learners in college courses to complete their degrees, the education services company Nelnet enlisted Bluetext to capture a single mother explaining her challenges in obtaining those college credits. Because this was about those struggling to improve their career and economic status, we chose a heavy black curtain for a serious tone. We shot the video with two cameras, one from the front and a second with a side perspective, to give us room for close-ups and for editing. While we didn’t use an interviewer in the shoot, we had the mother look slightly off-camera to suggest that she was engaged in a conversation explaining her personal challenges. We shot four different takes, and the two-camera shoot made the video more interesting to watch and easier to edit. We added a hint of soft focus to soften the features and tone down the intensity of the lighting.
For a second video in the series, we took a different approach. This time, we were capturing a university executive explaining the value and benefits of the Smart Degree program. We used a green screen and chose an off-white background in post-production. This color selection gave a totally different tone to the video, offering an upbeat perspective on the value of Smart Degree. It also allowed us to decrease the contrast and add warmth to the final product.
Combine a Green Screen and a Backdrop for a Series of Interviews. For a campaign aimed at the Federal market, NetApp and Thundercat asked for a series of five experts to discuss ways for agencies to consolidate their data centers for more efficiency and to meet government mandates. We created a network interview environment, emulating Charlie Rose and the way he uses a dark studio to impart a sense of gravity and weight to his interviews.
Using a long black curtain to absorb light and give a sense of “infinity” to the scene, for each interview we placed the expert at the far corner of a conference table and focused one camera slightly off-center at their face. I played the role of the interviewer, lofting broad questions that allowed them to talk about the subject. The second camera was slightly over my shoulder, setting up the interview scene. We also captured long-shots of the two of us talking before the interview began. To introduce each segment, we enlisted the services of a well-known journalist and influencer in the government technology space. We placed him before a green screen to make the short introductions, and then overlaid those shots onto the interview long-shots. The effect is as if the he were in the studio with us.
This approach serves several purposes. First, it allows each of the interviews to have the same look and feel so they don’t seem random or disjointed. Second, the black curtains bring a professional tone to the videos. And third, the interview style and introduction make the segments more interesting and engaging to the audience.
Try Something Different to Keep the Audience Engaged. Technology giants McAfee and Intel were looking for a more interesting way to provide video lectures when highlighting their new solutions. As an alternative to capturing their experts behind a podium, we created an entirely different look and feel. We captured each expert in front of a green screen as if they were speaking before a large audience. A still of the first frame of each video was captured and placed inside a digitally-created, 3-D modeled “Agency of the Future.”
As the visitor to the site moves around the virtual building, they can select from each of the discussions by clicking on the still image. That image immediately comes to life as the video begins to play, and simulates a live presentation. As an added feature, we also placed the video inside a larger monitor screen in each video scene next to the speaker, similar to how jumbo screens are used in large auditoriums. That added feature gives visual interest and a touch of reality to a virtual environment. The Agency of the Future has been a huge success for Intel and McAfee, with visitors staying on site far longer than other campaigns they had run.
Video should be interesting, engaging and compelling to be effective. Understanding the options and the value of backdrops, curtains and green screens can make the difference between having your customers take notice and losing their interest.
On its 10th anniversary of connecting communicators, Capitol Communicator determined that to continue to grow and be a vibrant part of the Washington, D.C., marketing and communications community, its next 10 years would be built on a new digital strategy and complementing user experience strategy. As a central hub for news, events and information for communicators in the mid-Atlantic, Capitol Communicator wanted a more modern platform.
Capitol Communicator selected Bluetext to partner with for this complete digital overhaul. Bluetext has delivered an enterprise-level WordPress implementation with comprehensive CMS publishing technologies that are integrated to allow Capitol Communicator to get best-in-class SEO, content management and smart, modern design.
Said Paul Duning, publisher of Capitol Communicator, “After a very exhaustive review, Bluetext had the energy, creativity, digital savviness, and firepower to be our new digital partner, and they really delivered. Our community has spoken, and they all love the new site which is helping us further validate that we are taking the brand in the right direction with a new digital platform as the centerpiece.”
Capitol Communicator is dedicated to bringing together the vast spectrum of communications professionals who influence and educate the Mid-Atlantic region and the world by providing news; trends; education; and opportunities for networking, career enhancement, business exchange and showcasing great work, Capitol Communicator serves as a resource to the region’s communications community. Capitol Communicator focuses on building a community that encompasses professions that include public relations, advertising, marketing, media, creative, video, photography, printing, digital and the multitude of other professions that support this region’s multi-billion-dollar communications industry. And, Capitol Communicator is a proud supporter of many organizations that share in their mission of providing professional development to the communications community.
2014 has been a year of amazing changes in the world of marketing, where micro-targeting via social platforms is now mainstream, banner ads are becoming passe, personalized content is in, native and sponsored ads are growing in popularity, video is getting shorter, and a wide range of other evolutionary marketing trends are exploding on the scene–all designed to help companies and organizations identify and reach their customers. And guess what? The sky hasn’t fallen, at least not yet. But looking at 2014 is almost, well, old news. As fast as digital transformation has hit us this year, it will move that much faster next year. So we at Bluetext thought this would be a good time to start looking ahead to 2015. We asked a wide range of senior marketing executives–including technology leaders, information services providers, financial industry start-ups, and even top trade associations–to gaze into their crystal balls and share with us their Big Bet for 2015. We’ve compiled those below, and think you’ll find their insight provocative and challenging.
BET #1. PREDICTIVE MODELING
by NICK PANAYI of CSC Director, Global Brand & Digital Marketing
As we look forward to next year and beyond, I can tell you honestly that the “next big thing” in marketing has never been clearer to me. What I believe will separate good marketers from exceptional ones is the exploding field of predictive intelligence.
We all have abundant data now. And we all have real-time marketing dashboards that act as a high-definition rear-view mirror of our customers’ digital footprints. That’s table stakes. What gets real interesting moving forward is the ability to leverage increasingly powerful predictive modeling tools to peer into the future and optimize your marketing efforts before they even start! Predictive modeling allows you to extract maximum value from the investments you already made in your digital ecosystem and the knowledge you’ve gathered about your customers’ digital body language…..
Read more about Predictive Modeling, and what top executives from organizations such as Georgetown University, NetApp, and others think is in store for 2015 by registering below.
I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a collection of some of the the most incredible, technology driven warfighting machines at the 2014 AUSA event at the Washington Convention Center.
The Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual meeting and exposition once again brought high-tech wares and weapons to the nation’s capital. And In what was a sure sign of the strength of the defense community and its determination to support the warfighter – the turnout for this year’s event was the strongest I have seen in years. And with the sudden and marked increase in global threats to our national security – the air was thick with patriotism.
The three-day event brought more than 500 industry and military exhibits and more than 30,000 attendees to AUSA. The expo also included workshops and talks by top Army and Defense Department officials on the state of the U.S. military.
Bluetext is proud to honor our defense community and the role we can play to help support its vision and mission of technology, innovation and continued dominance in global warfare.
Standing out in a sea of 400 of the world’s leading cyber security vendors and startups is no easy feat. Each year, more than 28,000 cyber professionals swarm to the RSA Conference North America to experience the latest and greatest of what the industry has to offer.
For emerging and even established cyber security vendors, few opportunities like RSA exist where so many existing and potential customers are accessible. PR and marketing planning for RSA begins months before the event itself, and can be expansive in nature – ranging from message development and creating innovative, dedicated landing pages to booking and providing on-site support for press and analyst briefings.
Capturing the attention of decision makers, press and analysts at RSA 2015 will be no easy feat. Reporters and analysts are bombarded with hundreds of briefing requests, often reserving 1×1 slots for familiar names with significant announcements to make. That said, success is possible and there are strategies that do work. Here are 5 tips for generating buzz and briefings at RSA 2015.
Don’t wait until RSA pitch to connect with reporters
Your firm may have relationships with some reporters and analysts, and lack them with others. Fair or not, reporters are going to pay more attention to emails from PR practitioners they know – particularly when it comes to sifting through 200-300 conference meeting requests. In one of his parting columns for Forbes, A Day In The Life Of A Tech Reporter’s Email Inbox, contributor J.J. Calao broke down one day’s worth of emails. Of the 34 PR story pitch emails that day, he responded to six of them – and he personally knew five of the six he responded to and did not respond to 29 pitches from publicists he didn’t know.
The point is this: many PR professionals worry about reaching out to reporters they don’t have strong relationships with before the RSA pitch – thinking it is better to wait until they have “big news” to get their attention. The problem is that your news probably isn’t as big as you think, and if you wait until the moment when a reporter is receiving the highest volume of pitches they get all year to try and break through, you will be out of luck.
Instead, find a way to get on the radar of influencers before the RSA pitch to make a connection. This could be as simple as tweeting the reporter in response to a recent article they have written, or alerting the reporter to new cyber security research. It is hard enough to try, in a single brief email or phone pitch, to explain what your company does and then explain any news announcement. Use a pre-RSA pitch strategy to expose the reporter or analyst to your brand and where you fit into the cyber security ecosystem. Then, the RSA pitch can cut right to the chase on news being announced.
Understand what to announce
There are reporters at RSA who will conceivably be interested in new products and writing product round-ups. But to pitch reporters who have, understandably, grown cynical about new product proclamations, it is very risky to have this be the anchor of your outreach strategy. At the same time, reporters are not interested in hearing your CEO’s “perspectives on top cyber threats” or “insights into the next vulnerability that will be exploited by cyber criminals.”
What reporters may be interested in is provocative new research your firm has conducted that supports any trend position you are staking out or that is being overlooked in the current cyber conversation; or customer case studies/customer-based research that attaches real-world examples to evolving trends. You can announce products at RSA, but the product story must fit into a broader narrative that is supported by data and/or customers.
Don’t go it alone
The limited amount of time reporters and analysts now have for 1×1 meetings at RSA borders on the comical, as the time windows have shrunk to as little as 15-20 minutes. I can’t even run through what I had for breakfast in 15 minutes let alone have a meaningful conversation that a reporter will remember at the end of a day full of 32 quarter-hour briefings.
Make the reporter’s life easier by killing two or three birds with one stone. Is your cyber security product part of a broader suite with partner solutions that a customer is using? If so, coordinate a single plan of attack with these partners that will add greater weight and simplify the story. Instead of a reporter getting a similar, overlapping pitch from three vendors, they get one tight, singular pitch that ties everything together. This approach is particularly valuable for emerging cyber brands that partner with a more established brand with established inroads to key reporters.
Working with partners, you can also set up landing pages in advance of RSA and direct influencers to key information on that site. This can whet the appetite of influencers and drive momentum into the conference.
Research Conference Product/Company Awards
RSA has meaningful award and innovation programs, such as the RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox Program, that offer a credibility check when communicating with customer decision makers, partners, press and analyst. These award deadlines are several weeks in advance of the conference and require the client to have sufficient advanced knowledge it will be announcing a new product at the show.
Engage on social if not in-person
For cyber security reporters and analysts you are not able to connect with in person at conferences, engage on Twitter to in advance of and during RSA to identify what is capturing their interest. Finding a key reporter at a large conference is akin to the proverbial needle in the haystack. You can increase your chances by following these influencers on Twitter, and perhaps one might post that they are headed into a particular panel session – thus shrinking that haystack considerably.
For everyone at RSA, there are also hundreds of others who want to attend but cannot for budget, schedule and myriad other reasons. Use your presence at RSA to deliver on-the-ground intel from sessions, themes, and demos, and promote that you will be doing this in advance of the Conference.