Startup Nation UnitedTech PR community fills the vacuum
Startup Nation United
Tech PR community fills the vacuum
Rachel Glaser tells of how her fellow PR professionals united to ensure journalists had what they needed to tell our story as accurately as possible
We all remember the panic and confusion that marked the days following October 7th, from scrambling to gather equipment and supplies for the IDF to finding shelter and safety for families in the Southern communities. No one was ready for the chaos.
But another aspect of disorganization during the crisis was on the PR front.
Rachel's story is part of Startup Nation United, a series showcasing how individuals and organizations in the tech industry have united under a common vision to do their part during the ongoing war. The podcast is produced and moderated by Michael Matias and Yaffa Abadi, in collaboration with CTech, as a spin-off of the popular podcast series “20 Minutes Leaders”, also published in collaboration with CTech.
With thousands of journalists flocking to Israel from the moment the war began, there was not yet an organized team, resources, contacts, or footage to ensure the story of what was happening in Israel would be told as authentically and accurately as possible.
This is where communications professional Rachel Glaser and a group of professional tech PR experts came into the picture.
We spoke to Rachel about how she and her professional PR ecosystem rallied together to address this significant gap and establish an organized and coordinated effort to support journalists covering the atrocities of October 7th and onwards.
The PR tech space is usually a highly competitive one. With competing tech companies and sometimes crowded spaces, many PR professionals, in-house and external, are fighting for coverage for their company and their executives. But like a microcosm of Israeli society, the PR community united with a singular mission. In Rachel's words, “We all just had this shared goal and this shared purpose of portraying Israel fairly and accurately in the media.”
Rachel tells us of a Whatsapp group, Comms Cabal, where most PR professionals covering Israeli tech belong, one that is there to plan meet-ups and share occasional tips. But one month ago, this became the online headquarters for this team of PR warriors, a place where journalists could get whatever they needed before any official system was put into place.
This encompassed tasks like sorting through the overwhelming number of videos and images, and meticulously labeling and organizing them into folders. The goal was to ensure journalists had access to correct and authentic B-roll footage to support their stories. Moreover, the group facilitated connections between journalists and families of hostages who could share their harrowing personal experiences with the world. They also took on crisis control duties by reaching out to news outlets with inaccurate and damaging headlines to correct the narrative, and so much more.
The significance of their efforts is no secret. We have all seen the tendency for the media to spin an incorrect narrative, so having these PR professionals, ones with connections to every major outlet and with the know-how of sharing narratives, proved to be a valuable asset for our country.
When discussing their actions and the unity they achieved from day one, Rachel offers a broader perspective: “I think, our little comms cabal group is just one very small indication of the unity among the people of Israel in every way. From real estate agents finding people housing to people cooking in Citizen's Kitchen preparing something like 5,000 meals for people in the South, to endless donations. People just stepped in where needed, worked together and took care of everything.”
With their shared goal of telling our stories accurately and enabling personal stories of victims to come through to the forefront, these Comms professionals have stepped forward to lend their time and expertise and play this unique and significant role in these dark times.
About:
Yaffa Abadi is the founder and CEO of Abadi Brands, a boutique consultancy specializing in personal branding and thought leadership for investors.
Michael Matias, Forbes 30 Under 30, is the CEO of Clarity, a startup that preserves trust in digital media by fighting deepfakes, and an active angel investor in the AI and Cyber domain.
