What do we do?

We are able to provide:

• Pre-conference publicity, including writing of stories and placement into the press as well as radio and television interviews

• Media liaison and story placement during the conference

• Conference newsletters

It goes without saying that anyone planning a conference believes that they have something vital to say, but getting the public to hear about it can be a real problem. Newspapers do not have the staff available to cover conferences, and really important and interesting stories are missed. We believe that we are able to bridge the gap between the conference and the public by providing top quality stories, written by highly experienced journalists, which newspapers, magazines and broadcasters are more than happy to use.

Our team of very experienced freelance journalists (including ex news editors, health writers and an ex political editor) all have a minimum of 15 years experience in the industry. We are also able to provide pre-conference copy, raising interest and awareness prior to the meeting. In addition, we produce a daily newspaper at the conference, including professional photographs and graphics. This is a valuable resource for conference delegates (especially when they are having to choose between parallel sessions) and is especially useful to include with narrative reports to funders as part of the conference report.

What makes us unique is that we are able to understand and 'translate' the most complex and technical of subjects, find the news angle and get the stories placed in the national and international media. As testament to this is the fact that our stories are almost always used as page leads. On two occasions during the Insite exhibition, we generated front page lead stories in the Star and The Argus.

Conferences for which we have provided services include:

• International Safety and Security Conference, Durban 2006
• Insite Exhibition,, for the Department of Science and Technology, Johannesburg, 2006
• International Conference on Stroke, Cape Town 2006
• International Diabetes Conference, Cape Town 2006
• International Urology Conference, SIU, Cape Town, 2006
• International Conference on Fertility and Sterility, Durban 2007
• Living on the Margins Conference, Stellenbosch 2007
• Fair Trade Conference, Stellenbosch 2007
• International Aids Conference, Durban, 2007
• Bio2Biz, biotechnology conference, Cape Town 2007
• UN-Wilder University conference on Urbanisation in Africa, Cape Town 2008
• Governance Summer School, Somerset West 2008
• Isandla Institute Development Dialogues, quarterly, ongoing, Cape Town
  

References

“I wanted to put in writing my own personal appreciation for the INSITE team, and to say thank you to each one of you for your fantastic performance over these last few crazy weeks. As we all know, this has been a difficult and fraught project, but the saving grace has been the calibre of every single person connected to this project. To Lynne, and your marvellous team of writers, we are indebted to you for the substantial contribution you made to increasing the visibility of INSITE - the quality of your writing, knowledge of the subject matter, the expansive focus that you provided for not only the DST but their multiple stakeholders, the access to your network, and your success in getting stories placed, would be hard to measure, although we will be conducting a cost analysis report via our clipping service. As I mentioned to you, Lynne, the newsletter went down extremely well, and Nhlanhla made a specific mention of how effective that was, so well done. We are fortunate to have come across a group of such consummate and skilled professionals, and we hope to work again with you in the future.”
Moira Campbell

Thank you very much for the copies of the press reports. I think you and your co-workers did a very good job. And thank you once again for your friendly assistance with obtaining media coverage for SIU2006, and I will certainly let you know of any future conferences that come to my attention.
Prof C F Heyns
Departement Urologie
Fakulteit Gesondheidswetenskappe
Universiteit Stellenbosch en Tygerberg-hospitaal