Strategies for Engaging Thought Leadership Debate Panels

As the managing director of LaunchTech, a tech-focused marketing and public relations agency, Wayne Schepens has transformed the firm into the industry’s fastest growing cybersecurity communications agency. Under Wayne Schepens’s direction, LaunchTech executes credibility campaigns that promote their executive clients as industry experts through public relations strategies such as thought leadership panels.

For many companies, participating in thought leadership panels are ideal opportunities for sharing industry-advancing information while raising brand awareness, promoting the company’s authority in their sector, and identifying potential collaborators or clients. Before submitting a panel to a conference, firms should consider the following points.

Topic Relevance - Vendors in the fast moving technology sector must constantly make high-stakes decisions. The most useful panels bring together experts to discuss an area where many companies are mulling changes. Some examples are customer data protection policies, tech-centered ethical dilemmas, and cloud migration. The panel should provide attendees with enough information to help guide the decision-making process.

Panel Expertise - Once the topic is decided, the panel should feature leading figures who can make arguments for both sides of the question. It is important that panelists do not solely express their personal views, but also use their background knowledge and experience to describe any advantages and disadvantages of various approaches. An experienced moderator should also join the panel to keep the conversation focused.

Audience Response - Thought leadership panels shouldn’t be a passive experience for attendees. Organizers should schedule an adequate amount of time for audience members to react to the presented arguments, ask questions, and seek clarification.

LaunchTech - A Top PR Firm in Baltimore

Wayne Schepens has worked in cybersecurity for more than 20 years and now serves as the managing director for LaunchTech Communications in Baltimore, Maryland. Working with a strong team of staff and executives at LaunchTech, Wayne Schepens has used his talents to help guide the company to becoming one of the preeminent PR firms in the Baltimore area. 

Earlier this year, research company Expertise identified LaunchTech Communications as a public relations company of excellence, naming it as a Top 15 PR firm out of 168 total in Baltimore. The ranking comes in the midst of a banner year for LaunchTech that has seen it raise the profile of several clients, including Ntrepid, which was featured in Consumer Reports magazine, lending its expertise to an article examining phishing scams on the Google Docs platform. 

LaunchTech was also able to help Denim Group secure a featured spot in a Reuters piece about Google’s Titan technology and also connected several other clients with CyberDefense Magazine in featured article content. To learn more about LaunchTech and its services, visit golaunchtech.com.

LaunchTech Seeing Strong 2018

An experienced security professional who has been in the field for more than two decades, Wayne Schepens serves as the managing director of LaunchTech Communications, a role he has held since 2015. As part of a diverse team of professionals at LaunchTech, Wayne Schepens helped lead the company to a strong first half of 2018. 

At the beginning the year, the company helped guide the launch of a new Internet of Things (IoT) startup known as Zuul, which began its seed phase of investment funding. LaunchTech was able to build a strong public profile and presence for the company by leveraging its media network contacts throughout the state, ensuring solid news coverage in Maryland for Zuul, which had been named Start-Up of the Year by Information Security Products just before making its media push. 

Later in the spring, LaunchTech worked on behalf of 10 different clients during the RSA 2018 cybersecurity conference, helping these companies arrange briefings with dozens of media outlets and leading analysts. LaunchTech is rolling out its Launch Tips monthly series, which will focus on providing simple and practical tips for firms trying to spread their messaging throughout their respective marketplaces.

Mental Advice for Pitchers

In addition to his work with LaunchTech Communications, Wayne Schepens enjoys baseball. Wayne Schepens likes to study the ways in which baseball players develop their speed, agility, and mental stamina for the game. 

Pitchers can be greatly improve if they focus on the mental aspects of the game. As initiators of the action of every play, pitchers have a great deal of control over the game. However, their role is typically finished once the ball is in play, unless a ball is thrown straight back to the mound. Good pitching, therefore, requires a strong focus on what a pitcher can control.

With that said, a clear, actionable plan, such as throwing a specific type of pitch or aiming for a specific location, will go much further than if a pitcher just focuses on the end result. However, pitchers can also benefit greatly from focusing on the future and pitching with conviction. Throwing the wrong pitch well will yield better results than throwing the right pitch while nervous or doubting oneself. Also, focusing on the next pitch rather than focusing on the last one helps. Furthermore, pitchers who begin to feel frustrated should take a moment to re-center themselves before pitching again.

Wayne Schepens & LaunchTech Named Top PR Firm in Baltimore

LaunchTech is proud to announce that it has been named a Top 15 PR Firm serving Baltimore by Expertise, an independent research firm that grades businesses on 25 variables across different judgment criteria.  Expertise looked at 168 PR firms in the Baltimore area and LaunchTech was selected in the top 15.  Big shout-out to our first-class team members and clients, with whom we collaborate and create awesome work!

This year has been an exciting time for LaunchTech and all of our clients!  We have worked around the clock to get to get all of our awesome clients featured in many different placements.  Some of our major wins are featured below.

In May, Consumer Reports our client Ntrepid was featured in an article entitled Google Docs Phising Scam: What You Need to Know.  This article talked about how to avoid falling prey to fake emails.

In August, Denim Group was featured in an article on Reuters.  This article focused on Google and the technical details of the Titan computer chip.  Dan Cornell, principal at Denim Group, said “Those level of adversaries certainly have an incentive to hack or to have influence over the security of hardware.”

CyberDefense Magazine  featured many of our clients including DarkLight, MasterPeace, ThreatQuotient, and Ntrepid.  They shared “Innovating Technology to Lower False Positives and Generate Efficiencies with Cyber Defense Solutions” in February 2017.  This byline placement was featured both online and in print.

In 2017, SC Magazine selected Virtru and OptioLabs as finalists in the SC Awards.  This year, D3 Security and Enveil have been selected as finalists!  In addition to this, ThreatQuotient and Ntrepid were selected by SINET as two of the 16 most innovative and compelling companies in 2016.

For the RSA Conference, LaunchTech developed and coordinated a panel with Will Ackerly (Virtru), Debora Plunkett (Plunkett Associates), and Jedidiah Bracy (IAPP).  Our clients were also  frequent speakers at Today’s General Counsel and CyberMD events.

We are honored to be named a Top 15 PR Firm in Baltimore!