In this video, we will show you how to use the double opt-in feature on your super office form. Double opt-in helps to ensure that people submit a valid email address. In particular, we will explain how you can add the email verification message and add the verification email. Start by logging into Super Office CRM and click on Marketing in the Navigator menu on the left-hand side. In the Marketing screen, click on the Forms tab at the top. Here you can open the form you want to use the double opt-in on. For example, if you choose to work with the form you have previously created, click on it in the Recent tab. Next, click on Edit in the top right corner to get to the Edit Form dialog. Now click on Double Opt-in in the menu on the left-hand side. Click the Activation switch to enable Double Opt-in. The tabs for Message and Email will now appear. You will use both to activate the Double Opt-in feature. The Message tab is where you add a text explaining that in order to submit the form, an email verification is required and that a separate link will be sent after form submission. You can add your message text here, for example. You can use the text editor to customize your message by changing the font's family, font size, or to add links to additional resources if necessary. Once you have added your message text, click on the Email tab to continue. Here you can create the confirmation email that will be sent to the person who submitted the form. Start by adding the subject line for your email. Next, you have to include a sender address. Finally, you can add the actual confirmation text that you want to include in your email. To do so, it is helpful to open the larger Edit dialog. This way, it will be easier to see and customize the contents of your confirmation email. You can click the Open Text Editor in dialog button at the bottom of the Email tab. Once you have added your text, you can also add the confirmation link. This is a link that Super Office Forms creates for you. Make sure the cursor is located where you want to add the confirmation link and click the Insert Confirmation Link button. To change the text of the confirmation link, click on it and choose Edit Link. We recommend you not to change the URL but only change the text of the link. Check the option Open in New tab if you want your thank you page to be visible in a new browser tab. Once you have made your changes, you can click Update to save your changes. In addition to changing the text of the confirmation link, you can also change the style of the link to make it stand out. To do this, click on the link and choose the Style button. This is where you can change the color and the thickness of the confirmation link. When your confirmation email is ready to go, click OK and Save to finalize your form. We have now shown you how you can use Double Opt-in on your web form. For more information on how to improve your productivity with Super Office CRM, please visit our community website.


Jesus speaking but before all these things they will lay their hands on you and persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons you will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake but it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers relatives and friends they will put some of you to death and you will be hated by all for my name's sake but not a hair of your head shall be lost by your patience possess your souls so we're gonna look at a cherry little passage tonight word of encouragement I especially love the scripture verse 17 you will be hated by all for my name's sake that's in my promise box at home and I take it out every once in a while actually what we're looking at here are the conditions that are going to be in existence in the time that is prior to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus has been given a preview concerning those conditions that will prevail prior to a second coming when we looked at verses 8 through 11 here in chapter 21 of the gospel of Luke Jesus began to speak concerning things that would be in existence he spoke of false teachers he spoke of wars he spoke of catastrophes as these and he also spoke of cosmic signs and and all of these he said would mark the conditions in existence prior to his return in the verses that we're looking at tonight verses 12 through 19 Jesus is speaking concerning conditions that those apostles who are alive at that time are going to experience these are things that he's preparing these people to be aware of and he begins to inform them that they're going to experience terrible persecution for their faith now that's something that as you study the Bible you discover began early in the history of the church all you need to do is look at the book of Acts and if you began to do just a just a short overview of it you would see that the history of the church in the book of Acts is an interesting history when you look at chapter 1 in Acts you see that that is a chapter that basically records the events following the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and and in chapter 1 of the book of Acts you see that Jesus gives commandments to the apostles and and then begins to instruct them concerning the promise of his father and there to wait and as they wait for this promise chapter 1 tells us that they fellowship with one another that they prayed in and they waited on that promise and as they were waiting on the promise then a new apostle was selected to take the place of Judas a man by the name of Matthias and so you see the beginning of the church in chapter 1 as they're awaiting the promise but when you get to chapter 2 when you get to chapter 2 in Acts it speaks of the day of Pentecost and how that promise of the father was fulfilled and how the church came into existence it was birthed there were 120 disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem and they were baptized by the Spirit of God and they received the gift of tongues and they began to proclaim the mighty works of God and we know that when we look at Acts chapter 2 that these 120 spilled out of the room that they were in and people began to hear the praise that they were giving and and they started hearing the word of God as it was being preached and and as this is all taking place the apostle Peter begins to preach a message and 3,000 people were added to the church that day later on we see in chapter 3 that Peter and John were in the city of Jerusalem they went to the temple at the hour of prayer which was 3 o'clock and while they were there there was a crippled man at the gate called beautiful and as Peter and John began to walk into that gate Peter looking down at this man said to the man look at us and Luke who wrote the book of Acts says that the man looked up expecting to receive something and as he looked at the apostle Peter the apostle said something like silver and gold have I none but such as I have give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth I say unto you rise to your feet and walk and the Bible tells us that the apostle Peter reaching down takes the man by the hand and begins to lift him up and the man received strength in his ankle bones his legs he begins to walk he begins to leap he begins to praise God and an incredible miracle has taken place and that opens up a door for once again a message of the gospel to be preached and as a result of that over 5,000 men not including women and children over 5,000 men are now in the body of Christ and so you see God in a very short time has been growing a church from 120 who are waiting on the promise to well over 5,000 and God began to move in a mighty way the church was exploding now that you find in the first three chapters of the book of Acts but when you get into chapter 4 from that point on you begin to see persecution in chapter 4 you see the the apostles taken before the Sanhedrin and they're very upset over the things that have been taking place especially the preaching of the gospel and all and they begin to want to command the disciples to stop speaking in the name of Jesus Christ when you get to chapter 5 verse 17 following you see once again they are taken in they are put in jail when you look at chapters 6 and 7 you see a man by the name of Stephen who gives a tremendous message and the result of his message is that he is killed he is put to death he is stoned when you get into chapter 8 the very first verse of chapter 8 tells us persecution erupts and that's what takes place so the first three chapters of the book of Acts is filled with the wonder of God the miracles of God and how God is moving in the first portion but by the time you get to chapter 4 Jesus's words are already being fulfilled persecution does erupt and that you see throughout the rest of the book of Acts believers began to experience persecution very early in the history of the church and that's what Jesus is preparing his disciples to expect and this is something that they will encounter that's why in verse 12 here in chapter 21 he says before all these things speaking of the things that he had looked at and was sharing in verses 8 through 11 before all these things they will lay their hands on you and persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons you will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake and so he's saying during your lifetime you will endure severe persecution and I want you to see something we're going to look at this tonight because persecution is basically going to come from four sources and he's going to outline those four sources for us even as we go through this passage the first source that we find is religious authorities he speaks concerning the fact that they're going to be delivered up to synagogues and so that tells us that it's going to come through a religious source it's been said a man with a message from God has to undergo the hatred and enmity of a fossilized orthodoxy and that's what is taking place the message of the gospel is going to cut against the grain of current religious sentiment and it's going to be something that causes those who are fossilized in their orthodoxy to resist to the point of persecution now this is something that Jesus in his personal ministry them had emphasized as a matter of fact on his last night with them he had made it clear that they would experience persecution in John chapter 16 in verse 2 Jesus said to them they shall put you out of the synagogues yes the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he does God's service now that was applicable at that time we'll see this in a moment that is also applicable in our day because there are people today who will put you to death if you were in their country as a Christian evangelizing there's no doubt about that we know that exists even now and they think they're doing their God's service by killing you Jesus said that was going to take place and he said that in John chapter 6 verse 2 during the time of the apostles there was a man by the name of Saul of Tarsus and Saul of Tarsus was a man who vehemently was opposed to Christianity he persecuted that way he hated the Christians Saul of Tarsus and he speaks concerning that because he ultimately as he was breathing out threatenings he had received letters to take any who had he had discovered who were believers in Christ he had received letters of authority to imprison them bring them back to Jerusalem and try them as heretics but as he was on his way to Damascus Syria he was on the road to Damascus when Saul of Tarsus was arrested by Jesus Christ and we all know his story it's found in Acts chapter 9 and that's why Jesus said to him Saul Saul why are you persecuting me who am I persecuting his his response was it's me you're persecuting me when you're when you're taking out your anger on those who believe in me you are actually raising up your hand against me and Jesus Christ arrested him as he was on his way trying to arrest those who believed in Jesus and Saul of Tarsus a great persecutor of the church became became the great apostle of the faith and he speaks about that in his writings in Galatians for example in chapter 1 verse 13 he was writing to the church of Galatia there and he said you've heard of my former conduct in Judaism how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it and so he remembered what he did he never forgot what he did Jesus and stated that there would be those who were in opposition who would take you before the synagogues they would excommunicate you they would cause you great pain they would even put you to death and this is a man who was guilty of doing exactly what Jesus and said and he never forgot what he did and he spoke of it quite often he understood the extreme mercy of God he understood how far God would go in somebody's life to rescue them he was one who was able to share about that and he did quite often in Acts chapter 22 verse 4 after he had been seized while preaching in the temple well while being in the temple and when and he was speaking to a mob this is what he said to them he said I persecuted this way to the death binding and delivering into prisons both men and women Paul never forgot what he did he was a persecutor of believers that's what he did and he said I persecuted this way to the death and that memory again never left Paul it became for him a testimony of the grace and mercy of God one of the more powerful places that he refers to that is found in 1st Timothy chapter 1 when he was writing a young pastor by the name of Timothy a man who was a pastor in a church in the city of Ephesus Paul writing to him letters relating to pastoral ministry began to speak to him and said this to him he said in 1st Timothy chapter 1 verses 12 through 16 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me because he counted me faithful putting me into the ministry although I was formerly a blasphemer a persecutor and an insolent man but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of our Lord was exceeding the abundant with faith and love which were which are in Christ Jesus this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief however for this reason I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show all long suffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life I've never forgotten what I did I've never forgotten and I am now the extreme example of how deeply the love of God actually goes and how great the grace of God is and how wonderful his mercy is as it has been poured out in my life Paul never forgot about that and Jesus said this is what's going to take place verse 12 chapter 21 Luke he said before all these things they will lay hands on you and persecute you delivering you up to synagogues and prisons you will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake so a second source of persecution is human government you will be brought before kings and rulers he says for my name's sake you're going to be hated for the sake of Jesus there are some people who were hated just for their own sake they just don't like them but he's saying you are going to be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake we see that in the book of Acts we see that when Herod reached out and took James and killed him in Acts chapter 12 verses 1 and 2 it says about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the church and he killed James the brother of John with the sword so persecution will have a second source and that is human government when you read church history and especially when you study the the book of Revelation you discover that there were a series of ten Roman persecutions that the church endured you see that Caesar Nero began the first one in AD 54 Domitian in 81 Trajan in 98 Antoninus in 117 Severus in 193 Maximum in 235 D.C. us in 249 Valerian in 254 Aurelian in 270 and it ended with Diocletian somewhere between 284 and 312 8010 persecutions that were actually government authorized there was a governmental persecution against Christian believers there was a bishop of the Church of Smyrna his name was Polycarp he was a pupil of John and he died a martyr's death it's recorded that when he was ordered to recant his faith Polycarp said four score in six years have I served the Lord and he never wronged me how then can I blaspheme my king and Savior so he wouldn't recant and therefore he was burned to death there's a book that is called a history of Christianity it was written by a man by the name of Paul Johnson and he records some of the atrocities that were perpetrated on believers the persecution that early believers endured he writes in the second half of the second century Christians were systematically persecuted this account of a massacre in the Rhone Valley is typical many Christians were tortured in the stocks or in cells Sanctus a deacon from Vienna had red hot plates applied to his testicles his poor body was one whole wound and bruise having lost the outward form of a man Christians who were Roman citizens were beheaded others were forced through a gauntlet of whips into the amphitheater and then given to the beasts severed heads and limbs of Christians were displayed guarded for six days and then burned the ashes being thrown into the Rhone one lady blendina was the worst treated of all she was tortured from dawn until evening till her torturers were exhausted and marveled that breath was still in her body she was then scourged roasted in a frying pan and finally put in a basket to be tossed to death by wild bulls these are people who endured that because of their love for the Lord Jesus Christ it's been estimated that from AD 64 to AD 312 some six million Christians were persecuted to the death since AD 33 and estimated 40 plus million Christians have been martyred 290,000 Christian martyrs died per year during the decade of the 90s alone if you think that persecution only occurred in the early portion of the church it's continuing to this day it takes different forms there is physical persecution obviously there are deaths that occur because your believers I was reading of a young man in an African nation who was a Christian he was kidnapped and taken into slavery and because he was a Christian he wanted to go to church and so he snuck off and he went to a church service and the man who owns him discovered that he was gone and took him and nailed him nailed him to a bench nailed him to a bench I was reading of another young believer in an Asian country who was as a believer was taken and was ordered to no longer speak openly about Jesus Christ and and what they did with her is they they beat her feet and forced her to walk in her own pool of blood as they kept on beating her feet till her feet were opened up open wounds and she would walk in her own trail of blood and she was saying I know that Jesus died and Jesus died and poured his blood out for me this isn't too large a cost for me to pay this happens all the time these are things that are taking place right now in foreign countries you can see that in in the United States persecution through government is undoubtedly something that's very very real I have a book it's by David Limbaugh and it's simply called persecution how liberals are waging war against Christianity and you ought to read it you ought to read the court cases you ought to read what's being done of the little boy I think he was eight or nine years old who was in in in the cafeteria he's been trained by his mom and dad to give thanks to God for the meals that he has and so he bowed his head in prayer and as a result of that he was told that he was taken to the principal he was made a public example he's nine years old he was made a public example in the cafeteria taken to the principal ordered to no longer pray over his meal he went home his parents said do you know what God teaches us to do now we're talking about nine years old he went back and prayed again was taken again went back and prayed again was taken again and and you know it's finally suspended for a week because he gave grace over his meal I was reading about Christian teachers who were told you have to take your Bible and and remove it from your desk in case somebody might see that and see that you read it and that these are these are things that take place right now and you can read that and I mean this is a very thick book that is documenting persecution and indeed it does occur it's happening in our day right now and that's what's taking place and he was saying from the very beginning this is what's going to happen you're going to have sources of persecution now notice in verse 13 how he says but it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony he's saying instead of getting upset about it it's going to give you an opportunity to share it's going to give you an opportunity to bear witness of the Lord Jesus Christ I mentioned to you about that healing there that took place at the beautiful gate there in the book of Acts chapter 3 when the apostles were taken before the Sanhedrin and they were being tried before them and they gave their defense according to Acts chapter 4 verse 13 it says this is the result this is what happened it says when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men they marveled and they realized that they had been with Jesus when they saw the answer the answer that was beyond them when they saw the testimony that was given they were amazing and what was interesting is how it says it they realized that they had been with Jesus but the fact is as they didn't realize they were still walking with Jesus and it was the Lord who was giving them that power and that ability listen when people put your faith on the line when it's time for you to share don't be worried about it don't be all concerned about it because Jesus gives us something here in verse 14 he says settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand and what you will answer for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist instead of panicking oh no what am I going to do instead of panicking we trust the Lord and we pray and we say God give me peace and God give me wisdom now one of the things that I would encourage you to right now is very simply put is that if you want to have the words in the wisdom it's always good to get into the Word of God it's always good to have that in your heart you know the Bible makes it very clear that that's what we're to do in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15 the Apostle tells us that we should be ready to give an answer concerning the hope that lies within us and so we should be prepared to do that and the Psalmist told us thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you in Psalm 119 verse 11 and so spending time in the Word of God is what feeds you and gives you the ability to have this answer because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth is going to speak Jesus was telling us that in the book of Matthew chapter 12 when he was speaking to those who were opposing him in Matthew chapter 12 verses 34 and 35 he said brood of vipers how can you being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things our heart is a repository we pour things into it it's like that old thing garbage in garbage out we pour things into us and upon the a moment that you have the opportunity to share you will be amazed how God will awaken your memory to the things that you read you'll be amazed I've had it happen so many times and I'm talking to somebody and a scripture will come to mind and I forget that I even knew that scripture to be honest with you and and I'll just share it and it just comes out and it's it flows out because the Lord he draws it out of you and God will do that you'll be speaking to somebody and they'll be speaking concerning your faith in Christ and and perhaps I'll have a disagreement with it which is understandable many people too but as you're sharing with them and as they're as they're opposing there you are just just sharing wisdom that that you know comes from above and and it's so good sometimes you're thinking man I wish I could tape this and put it on K wave this is good stuff boy this is good that has happened so many times it's thrilling when it happens it's so thrilling it's so exciting when it happens to be to be sharing with somebody or even sometimes having a discussion that that is a debate if you will they're saying this and and then you have a response and it's not like you're making things up it's it's the Holy Spirit is provoking you he's he's reminding you of things that you've studied and you've read and many times I discovered especially prior to coming into the full-time ministry I discovered that there were opportunities given to me because I'd be going to school or going to work that in the morning when I'd read a passage and I'd meditated on a scripture very often I would find a place that day an opportunity to use that scripture as I was sharing with somebody about the things of the Lord you've discovered that too if you share if you read the Word of God and you go to work or school or whatever prepared to share and you say Lord here I am use me you'll be amazed how God gives you opportunities and sometimes you might be that person who's thinking I don't want to talk I'm real quiet I'm real shy I have no desire to talk I want to keep things to myself I want to be a believer I want to follow Jesus and all of that but you know there are other people out there who've got big mouths I don't I just like to keep things to myself you'll be amazed of how the Holy Spirit will use you if you simply say but you know Lord my personality type is quiet you know that but if you use me if you want to use me I'm willing I've had that happen you know contrary to how it appears now after all of these years standing up in a pulpit like this and sharing the fact is by nature I'm very shy by nature I'm very reserved and very quiet I've had people in our church approach me and tell me that they've talked to me outside of the pulpit and and they thought I was kind of like cold to them in fact is I don't mean to be it's just that I'm real shy you know I'm just kind of a quiet guy reserved you know this is not the David show I don't mean to be talking about myself to you that much but might as well I like it no but that's just the truth you know I'm kind of a quiet person and I'm very quiet until I have something that I feel I need to say and so I'll do that and I've done that for many years since when I first got saved since when I first got saved I got saved and the same day I got saved I heard some of the things that the evangelist said and and I remember them and I went home and my sister Madeline was talking to me and and I started telling her what I had heard that day I just repeated what had been said to me just the things I'd heard what do I know about the Bible never read the Bible tried to read it once but I was loaded on mescaline so it didn't really stick with me I was I was loaded I was on a hallucogenic now I was trying to read it and it made no sense of course and so I stopped but I'd only tried to read it once to my knowledge and now I go I hear a message I embrace that message I come home my sister Madeline and Becky are talking to me and as I'm sharing I'm repeating what I heard and it's the basic things you know I was in sin you guys know I was in sin you know what I've been all about but today I heard that Jesus forgives sins and today I heard that I could have the Spirit of God in me that I could be his temple that he'll actually live in me that I don't have to try to be good because I'm bad anyway and so God gave me something called grace I remember sharing these kinds of things and and I and and what I did is I opened my heart I prayed and I told my sister how it happened I told them how it happened I said the evangelist his name was Arthur Blessed the evangelist gave told us if you want to be a Christian to stand up and and I couldn't because I'm shy so I prayed and I hadn't prayed I hadn't prayed since I don't remember I and I and I prayed and I said God I know you're real I know you're telling me I need to stand up but I'm shy and I can't stand up I want to but I can't there were 4,000 people sitting on a carpet 4,000 and and there was just no way that I was gonna stand in front of 4,000 people there's just no way so I told God I said you know I'm shy and you know I can't I can't do that but if somebody would stand with me I would stand and that's when Arthur blessed and I have never had a doubt that God was involved in my salvation never because I prayed and I said God if somebody would stand with me I would stand and I have promised you no sooner had I finished saying I would stand Arthur blessed said perhaps you're afraid of standing by yourself but if one of your friends would stand with you would you stand with them and my friend George Adams tapped me on the shoulder and he said David I'll stand with you if you want to give your heart to Jesus Christ that was a miraculous intervention on the part of the spirit of God into my life I have never had a doubt that God answers for I know he answers prayer I didn't say to George if someone stood I didn't send a message to Arthur blessed say it once you say this that'll get me to stand it was it was just the Holy Spirit's movement it's so neat George wrote me an email just today he writes me sometimes George who stayed in contact over these 37 almost 38 years you know and he wrote me a word of encouragement today which is what George does best and that's how it works the Holy Spirit works he does work in your life and and what happens is yes these words that that you hear you begin to share but if you don't have the word in you you have very little that you can give to anybody else and so when he says here in verse 14 settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you'll answer I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist he's not saying you shouldn't know the word of God what he's saying is don't plan out a strategy just trust me you'll know my word and I will provoke you to be able to give what is necessary at that time because when standing before opponents Jesus gives words and Jesus gives wisdom and the result he's saying is that your opponents will not be able to refute what you say now this isn't guaranteeing that those who oppose are going to automatically become Christians it simply means they're not going to be able to overthrow that message in Matthew 16 verse 18 Jesus said and he was speaking to the Apostle Peter he said I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it and so even though they may not agree with you they cannot in any way shape or form defeat this message it's a message that goes on and continues reaching people now he goes on in verse 16 and he says you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers relatives and friends they will put some of you to death you will be hated by all for my name's sake so a third source of persecution comes from your own family members it's interesting how in Matthew chapter 10 verses 34 through 36 Jesus said do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth I didn't come to bring peace but a sword I've come to turn a man against his father a daughter against her mother a daughter against her mother-in-law as if they need help a man's enemies will be members of his own household that's true I thought that my experience was the normal experience for all people I got saved my sister Madeline after sharing that day with her went to bed that night after I shared on December 27 1970 as I shared with Madeline she went to bed that night and she told me she went to bed and she said Jesus whatever you did for my brother would you please do that for me and my my mom and my dad within three weeks or so of my conversion I led them both to Christ and they came to a saving knowledge of Jesus my mom to this day on occasion and she does this often I'll call her up I call mom a couple times a week at least and I'll visit with her my mom lives in New Mexico and I'll call her up and as we talk at least twice a week we'll speak for some time and and my mom often will say to me thank you for bringing Jesus into our home my mom does that so I thought everybody leads their mom and dad to Christ I thought everybody leads their sister to Christ encourages her brother to Christ I thought that was just natural everybody does that and so when Madeline my sister began to date a young man by the name of Pat and he came to the house one day and I was the older brother that that gives me the honor of sitting him down and he came into the house and we were in my parents Dan and all and and I gave him the third degree you know who are you and how long do you want to live that kind of thing you know don't touch my sister we had a nice talk and as we're visiting I said to him Pat how long you been a Christian he tells her I've been a Christian for so long and I said really I said and your parents are they Christians he says no he said your parents aren't Christians he says no and I looked at him and I thought I wonder if you're a Christian because how come you haven't made your parents to Christ because I thought everybody did I thought that was an automatic I thought you get saved you go home mama says yes to Jesus I didn't know I didn't know that was not my experience I didn't know that some of you go through some terrible times with family members who reject Christ who want nothing to do with Jesus Christ I didn't know about that I didn't have that experience when I got saved the whole family basically followed my my trail the first church I pastored was my parents and my sister that's how it worked for me so I thought that that was the way it is I thought everybody know Jesus said otherwise he said no he said that's not the way it's going to always be some people have the blessing of seeing that most do not and that's why he says in verse 16 you'll be betrayed even by parents and brothers relatives and friends and they'll put some of you to death so the third source of persecution your own family members what happens today when a Jewish person comes to Christ do you think that their family gives them a party some places they give a mock funeral for that because this person became a Christian and for the Jew that automatically means you are no longer Jewish you become a Gentile I have Jewish messianic friends who live in Israel some of whom have never even told their husband or wife that they're followers of Messiah and I've asked why not and their answer has been because they will immediately divorce me that happens to this day what happens if you're in a fanatical Muslim country and you stand up on a corner and say follow Jesus he's the truth the way in the life you know even in England at Hyde Park there are many fanatic Muslims some of you know speakers corner in London been there before where you can come and you stand on a soapbox and you have the freedom to speak and say whatever you want that's what it's all it's called speakers corner and people come and they'll speak what they want but if you stand up and oppose Islam there's this one guy who's been attacked and beaten several times for actually calling into question Islam when the people are there preaching Islam he gets beat up quite regularly for opposing that happens in England we're not talking about Saudi Arabia or Iraq or Iran we're talking about England that happens in various places even in the United States it does happen because they don't want you to come to faith in Christ some families are very radical in their faith and their devotion to their God and when you come to Christ it could mean your own life one of the most compelling true stories that I heard in my young Christian life I heard back in 1973 concerning a man who is a who is a minister who is speaking in chapel at Biola when I was going to college Biola University there in Lamarata and he grew up on the mission field in India and he gave a chapel during missions week and he came and shared how that as a young minister in India a young man had come to him and spoken to him and said to him I'd like to hear about this Jesus that you've been preaching and so this pastor shared the gospel with him and gave him details concerning Jesus and then gave him an invitation he said to the young man would you like to receive Christ the young man responded by saying you don't know what that'll cost me but this minister said well I believe I do and he began to share some things about dying to self and works of the flesh and things of that nature and shared for a few moments with this young man and the young man just looking at this minister kept shaking his head and finally said you really don't understand what is going to cost me if I became a Christian and so the minister said well you're right about that I'm certain that I don't understand what costs you'll pay but the invitation remains do you want to receive Christ as your Lord and your Savior and this this pastor who was speaking to us at this chapel said the young man looked at him for a moment and said yes and he bowed his head there in his office and he said and I led him in prayer to receive Christ a few days later he said a knock came at the door and it was the local police who asked him to please go with them they had to take him someplace he says he climbed into the car and we drove out of the town city limits and went to a dirt road he said and we pulled the car over and as we climbed out of that car he says I walked up and I looked down and there's a tarp that's covering an object on the ground and the police said we needed to bring you out here to ask you if you could identify somebody for us he said you can't imagine what it felt like when they pulled the tarp away and there was the body with a severed head of the young man who had been in my office just a few days before it was the young man who said to me you don't know what it would cost me to give my life to Jesus Christ he said and as I was looking into the face of this man who had had his head cut off he said the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said do you believe what you told him because if you don't you murdered this young man serious words from the Spirit do you believe because if you don't you murdered this young man because you convinced him to believe what you yourself don't believe Jesus said it he said you're going to be persecuted this man's family was a radical family in their faith and when he came home and shared that he had committed his heart to Christ they cut his head off and left his body on the side of a road that happens to this day and that's what's being spoken about Jesus is saying it's serious business when you follow him in verse 17 when he says you will be hated by all for my name's sake the bottom line is society is also a source of rejection and persecution he says you're going to be hated by all on my account because you see when when you actually stand up for the truth and you speak it boldly and with confidence you will be persecuted there are those who may just mock you verbally and you know some of you in this room perhaps have experienced the physical persecution we were in India in a small church many years ago and during the church service they actually have a time of testimony where people who have been persecuted that week have an opportunity to come up and share and I remember this woman standing up with an enormous black eye and she shared my husband's anger at me because I'm a Christian and he beat me just before she came to church her face is all swollen and they go through that they even have testimony time in church because of the rejection and the things that take place society in general will reject you I know a man his name is Moses Paulos I met him many years ago he's an Indian missionary he ministers in southern India and he and his son minister the gospel and they received an opportunity to go to a city the city actually had invited them to come and preach the gospel so Moses his son and a couple of other team members went to this particular city but did not know that it was a trap when he got there the people who had invited him actually took him to the city center and in some of the villages in India they have an old oldest tree is the place where they do their worship and so they took him to the oldest tree in the city and they tied him and his son to this tree Moses they took rods and they beat these two almost to death they were passed out and they sent for a man who skins people alive they send to go get him the guy wasn't in town so they beat him and they let him go and warning them never to come back Moses his son at that time was a young teen and Moses and his son healed up and when they healed up they went back to that town and as they went back to that town to preach the gospel the people saw them coming and came out rushing towards them and they said we have been waiting for you to come back because your God is very angry at us and what had happened is the tree that they had been tied to withered up and died it was the center of their idolatry it's where they did all their sacrifices and after they had been tied to that tree and beaten the tree died and so these people said to Moses we know we've offended your God you have to tell us how we can make him satisfied so that he's no longer angry at us and Moses planted a church in the city where he had been beaten almost to death society itself will reject you but Jesus is saying no in verse 18 not a hair of your head shall be lost by your patience possess your souls just remember that if the world hates you it hated him before it hated you death doesn't have the final victory over a believer we overcome even if we are put to death because no matter what the circumstances death doesn't have victory that's why Paul could say in 1 Corinthians 15 55 through 57 oh death where is your oh Hades where is your victory the sting of death is sin and the strength of the sin is the law but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ you see endurance doesn't produce or protect salvation endurance are holding on simply evidence is its reality we hold tightly to the Lord and that's what he's calling us to do that's why Peter in 2 Peter 1 10 says give diligence to make your calling and election sure for if you do these things you shall never fail and so you hold fast Jesus is preparing his disciples for what is coming and by way of application he's preparing us to because the louder you are about your faith the more resistance you're going to have but hold fast to the Lord and watch what the Lord will do through your testimony


Okay, Coolish Project 2018, the idea that we do it to inspire you, usually Daria helps me with this and she helped me this time as well, these are the projects done by chapters as you said but also by Wikimedians and Wikipedians, not just the chapters, it's really important to know that first of all everybody can send in their projects, I published it on Facebook and Wikimedial and everybody could have submitted it and the point is these are projects that you can do in every country, some of them you might see that it's a bit difficult to do in other countries but I believe that the idea can be propagated and used again and again by other groups so that's why we're here to give you ideas. So, disclaimer, not all projects, not all chapters, only the ones that were sent to me and that I think that are cool and low budget. Cool and low budget is the most important thing because if it's expensive as you said most chapters cannot do it or most groups cannot do it. So what makes a project cool? I always use this definition by Claudia, need to motivate volunteers, inspire newcomers and partners and have added value for our projects. So that's the definition of cool that I use, what we're going to do today I'm going to present the coolest project not from Africa because we had those already and then there are the finalists, half of these are from Africa and then you choose, so don't go until you choose. So what do we have? Coolest project of 2018, anything that started or reached a conclusion after January 1st, 2017. Previous year I used different categories, these are the categories they used in previous year, this Wikimania had a different teams so I tried to translate the categories into teams, probably I did it wrong but this will help you compare years of this lecture. So first category was participation. As I mentioned I always do this with Daria and she's not here, that's lack of participation, there she is last year, no this is a single area, yes last year, she's sitting next to me. So participation, why is Daria not here? That's the first question you may ask and that's because she has her own coolest project which I will present. This is Jan Bart, he was the chairperson of the board of Wikimedia board, he came to Israel because the local community was very upset with Israeli pictures being deleted from the commons. The whole community met and shouted at him, that's the whole community. Well you see Daria, she's in red, very easy to see, she's always in red. The room is not filled, this is the offices of Wikimedia Israel but as more people came the room got filled and still she's the most noticeable person, she's the only one in red and that guy noticed her and they both went on a wiki photo hunt. This is in the Golan Heights, actually we went to take pictures of the Golan Heights and the Syrian Civil War, you can actually see it from there and it's a nice setting, I forgot the name of the tree, Cherry Blossoms, yeah Cherry Blossoms, they fell in love. This is an article from Hebrew Wikipedia, it's wedding proposal. See this picture here? That's from a Hebrew community wiki meet-up, he gave a lecture, he has to be the last one on the day and in the middle of the lecture he proposed to her by reading a love song and we are talking about wikipedia, so they married in wikimania in Mexico. Jan Barat was the married man, their wedding vows were on wiki to be edited by the community, were edited. Jimmy Wells was on the job of the father of the bride giving her way, Michal our ED was the best man and there is me, I was the flower girl. They forgot to tell me that in advance so I didn't have any flowers and her coolest project that's why she's not here, is Yair, he is now three months old and we have the GLAM conference in Tel Aviv in November, I think November 5th, he's volunteering, he's going to do the help desk, you will come and you will see him there, I'm not sure how much help he's going to give but he will be there. So this is one coolest project that's why Daria is not here, it is not eligible for the finals because it's very difficult to do again in other countries, well look at him, yeah. So our next project is from Germany, it's not in the finals because it doesn't fit the teams but I think it's cool. It's a project done regarding the wikimedia conference, you may have seen some of the pictures outside, the idea is that before the conference people will send their pictures and a quote and this way people attending the conference can see the faces of the other people attending and meet them online and know them better. So when they actually meet in person they already have some common thing to talk about, their quotes, they know them. I'll show you some examples in a minute but the tip that wikimedia don't give is make sure you get the pictures well in advance, so if you have to ask for another picture as you can do that, have the quote well in advance and make sure it's CC by SA that you can reuse it and that the people agree to having the picture used. Here are some examples, this is Catherine and a quote Elena from Spain, Susana from Armenia, this is Michal from Israel, remember the best man, Asaf from the foundation and even from Mexico. Okay, so this can be used not only on the wikimedia conference but in any local conference. My next project is from England, I think it is from England, it's a bit difficult to tell. This is an Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and what makes this project interesting is that wikimedia is no longer Earth bound, actually wikimedia is no longer Earth bound, this is the International Space Station, first ever content made in space. There is a project in English wikipedia called voice intro project, when you have an article about a person, that person updates the article and then read it in his own voice and that voice is uploaded to commons. I think it's cool that present that's not the cool project here but that you can hear the actually person reading his own article and he read this article from the space station uploaded it to commons from the space station and that's the project. It didn't cost any money first of all because they just approached the European space agency and they were enthusiastic about it and so was he and they made it happen. The next project is from Belgium. This is similar to a project done in Israel previous year but they made it differently and I always like to show that was the theme of last year's coolest project talk, how projects move from one country to another and become cooler. I call it cool begets coolness or propagation of coolness and I think this is what should be doing. This project it called, Ludewijk helped me, either in Brument, I hope I'm saying this right, it means everybody famous, there is a television, this is the name of a television program in Belgium and they did a weekly program on writing articles in Wikipedia. The presenters did the research, wrote the article, added pictures and it was an episode, each with a different chapter with research and everything. This is the list of the subject they wrote. I know it's too small to read but you can go to the project and see and I think you can guess the main drawback of this project. When you have a million people watching this episode, how quickly do you think the article will be vandalized? So the articles had to be updated by registered users only because million people watching and wanting to edit it means a lot of vandalizing of the articles. Next project is from Israel. We always show the pictures from the back because these are little kids and you can't show them from the front without parents approval. It's called student writing dictionary. The first question is what's cool about that? This is done all over the world. It is cool because it's unique. It has a unique problem faced and it's not unique to Israel. It's a problem that you have all over the world. Schools, especially religious schools, usually do not send their students to Wikipedia. The pictures there are not suitable. I'm not talking about English Wikipedia. Hebrew Wikipedia is much more strict but even David by Michelangelo is too much for religious school. So the answer to this, how do you cause students in religious schools to participate in Wikipedia is writing articles in dictionary. It's like a safe environment. The teacher agree to it. The school managers agree to it and it's a way for them to participate and maybe later you can get them on Wikipedia. It's also good because it's really easy. You get satisfaction for the students. The article is very quickly online and it's not a big article. They just need to do a few sentences. This is an example of an article in Hebrew. It's a quote from the Bible. I translated it above. Just the first bit of the quote. Too many waters cannot quench love. This is the sentence. Wikidictionary have quotes and it links to wiki commons and other quotes. So that's an example of the result. Okay, I'm trying to hurry up a bit because time is short. Next project is from Sweden. Wiki Gap. I'll show some pictures and then I will explain. This is a collaboration between Wikimedia, Switzerland and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sweden. The idea is to minimize the wiki gap.   This is a picture of one of these events which took place in Israel. This is all the places it took place. Everything took place on the same day, 8th of March, International Women's Day. And you had 19 countries, 630 editors. Amazing. 30 million articles viewed. 1.14 million words added. 5,000 articles edited and almost 800 articles created on the same day on women. So this is quite an impact. This can be done again in every country, collaboration with the Ministry. And it helps many countries. We're talking about how stuff can be done in Africa, location venues. You could have contacted the Swedish embassy in all African countries and done that. They gave us some tips. What we do is start the discussion early. Wikimedia, Sweden started the discussion with the embassy very early to get them convinced. Do some pilot events first to see how it works. Create materials that can be distributed and if it's around the world, you need to have the local communities tweak it, change it, that it fits them as well. You need to allow time for that and do this. Next team, Access and Accessibility. This is a project from India. It's called Video Wiki. The idea is we live in a post-text world. Most of 70% of what people see on the internet is videos and Wikipedia is text. So people wouldn't buzz a reading a long article, they would want a video. The project, you choose an article and then you turn it into a video file. It's not a one-time version. It always takes the updated version of the article and turns it into a voice file. This is what it looks like. It takes some time to do the conversion and then I never figured out how to put the pictures there. So maybe you need to do the help file better. But then you have a video with somebody reading the current article and pictures. I always like to finish this lecture with a quote. We are changing the world and trying to do it in a cool way. But that's help changing. So it's a quote by a woman who did change the world. Nothing has ever been achieved by a person who says this cannot be done. Everything can be done. So just go and do it. Showtime to choose the coolest project. I need the jury up here. All three of you. And remember, you are voting. You are voting by clapping your hands. We have runners up. We have six runners up. Again, giving emphasis, wait, giving emphasis on Africa. Do not vote yet.  So you can decide. We have our fan club Nigeria. Africa Wikimedia Developers Project. Wiki Massac, MOOC Algeria. I didn't choose this. This guy chose the coolest of the coolest from Africa. Then we have the space, content from space. Wiki got from Sweden and the project from Belgium. Now we'll go back and then we vote. So start clapping when we go one project at time. First one, who thinks this is the coolest? Who thinks this is the coolest? Wiki Massac. As we see we have a very impartial jury. Space. WikiGap Sweden. And the last one, Belgium. Who? Oh yeah. We have a unanimous agreement. This is the coolest project of the year. We hear from WikiGap in the room. Come up. Yeah, come up. No, come up. Oh, okay. So we have the winner. Of course we need to thanks and credit for two licenses. And now we have time for questions. Questions for African project or from Albanians who did WikiGap. If anybody has a question, I cannot see anything from here. Any questions? We have three minutes for questions. Oh, question there? No questions. We have 30 seconds to go anyway. Thank you for being here.


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.  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.  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.  What I mean here is, and