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Welcome to In-Orbit, the fortnightly podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world.
[00:00:00] Dallas Campbell: Hello and welcome to In-Orbit. It's the podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world. Brought to you by the Satellite Applications Catapult. I'm your host, Dallas Campbell and today we are diving into a topic that often gets overlooked, but it is crucial, as you will see, for the long term success of the industry, and that is marketing. I'm joined in the studio by Samantha Amy, she's the Digital Marketing Manager at the Satellite Applications Catapult. We have Jess Ratty, she's the founder of Halo PR. She's down joining us remotely from Cornwall and sitting next to me in the studio, we have Daniel Smith, founder and Creative Director of Astro Agency. Now, strategic marketing, it can help companies of all sizes build brand awareness, communicate complex ideas to a broader audience and even secure funding. We're going to be exploring the importance of shaping public perception and fueling enthusiasm for space technologies, something that ultimately helps push the entire industry forward and will impact the future of our planet.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. It's lovely to have you. We've got two human beings in the studio. We've got Sam and we've got Daniel and we've got Jess in deepest darkest Cornwall. So we'll just introduce everyone properly. So Sam kind of needs no introduction because you're my boss.
[00:01:36] Samantha Amy: that see me?
[00:01:38] Dallas Campbell: Well not really, a sort of boss. You, well, you produce this podcast.
[00:01:41] Samantha Amy: Yes, so I'm the digital marketing manager at the Satellite Applications Catapult and yes I produce the In-Orbit podcast.
[00:01:47] Dallas Campbell: Well there you go, thank you very much for everything that you do.
[00:01:51] Samantha Amy: You're more than welcome.
[00:01:52] Dallas Campbell: And for anyone just joining us, do we need to explain what the Satellite Applications Catapult is? No.
[00:01:57] Samantha Amy: I would hope not, now we're midway through season four!
[00:02:00] Dallas Campbell: Someone's just logged on for the first time and they're like, what the, they can go and figure it out. And so Daniel, from the Astro Agency, where do we start with the Astro Agency? I've worked with the Astro Agency and you for a number of years.
[00:02:11] Daniel Smith: Yeah. So we call it strategic marketing. So basically supporting clients all around the world with communications and profile raising that's really founded on that technical knowledge. So we've got a technical team and that's why we kind of refer to it as strategic space marketing, but purely focused on the space sector since 2019.
[00:02:28] Dallas Campbell: So you, I always think, I do think that up in Scotland, Astro Agency are this kind of like hub. There's this kind of like node and everything comes off it and maybe, maybe I'm just being biased, but you kind of, you kind of, you're sort of pretty plugged in, you just kind of know everyone on...
[00:02:44] Daniel Smith: And yeah, definitely, we really kind of found our way in the sector. I mean, I've been in the sector longer and the management team all come from the space sector. But in terms of the space marketing side, we've kind of learned in Scotland and across the UK and so now we're working, you know, in different countries all over the world, but very connected in Scotland, yeah.
[00:03:00] Dallas Campbell: Everything seems to be happening either in Scotland, or in Cornwall! That tees me up to talk to Jess. Cornwall and Scotland seem to be the places to be. So just, I mean, people may have an idea about what the kind of things from the Virgin Orbit launch a couple of years ago. I say a couple of years ago, when was the Virgin Orbit launch? Was it a year ago? Was it two years ago?
[00:03:18] Samantha Amy: Beginning of 2023.
[00:03:19] Jess Ratty: You're in the past.
[00:03:19] Dallas Campbell: But a lot happens in Cornwall space wise. So Jess, just tell us you're, I keep looking at it and wanting to say hello, but you work at Halo.
[00:03:27] Jess Ratty: Yeah, so we are also a TGIC comms agency. Daniel, we really need to get our patters off, so we sound different when we say the same. We have very...
[00:03:35] Dallas Campbell: can you not just lose the strategic bit? does that mean?
[00:03:38] Jess Ratty: We do, so Halo does storytelling for tomorrow's technology, so we're not just space. We work in science, life sciences, biology, and an awful lot of space, because as Daniel knows, there's an awful lot of people to support. So, although Daniel and I, our companies do similar things, which is marketing, PR, videography, podcasts, social media management, all of those things, or event management, we generally, there's enough work to go around for both, for all of us.
[00:04:06] Dallas Campbell: Is there enough? Is the space industry in the UK big enough to accommodate two titans of the PR, or three titans of the PR world, like...
[00:04:16] Jess Ratty: We're all international, I would say. I would argue that we're all international. I mean, the last time, when did I see you Daniel? I've seen you in other countries.
[00:04:23] Daniel Smith: Yeah, and I think we were in Singapore around the same time and yeah, we bumped into, and I think we've collaborated on a couple of things as well in the past too, closer to home. But yeah, exactly. I mean, we worked with 70 space companies around the world and, you know, we're currently looking at setting up in Asia actually and we did have a presence in Ukraine as well in the past. So it is really international, but it's, we were talking about earlier, it's really interesting that there's a lot going on in the UK around space marketing, quite exciting.
[00:04:49] Dallas Campbell: Yeah. Well why don't we start, question one, why, I suppose, why do we need space marketing? I mean, particularly start ups, smaller companies, is being visible important to them? I mean, it's not like you're kind of selling directly to the public, perhaps.
[00:05:06] Daniel Smith: You know, the space sector, particularly in the UK, when we come back to the UK again, it's really SME driven. So there's a lot of small businesses that are setting up and they're very focused on their technology, their innovation. So they're spending a lot of time trying to figure out, you know, the funding investment and you know, how they can get from their technology readiness levels and really focus on that technical aspect. So they're not often thinking about how am I actually going to sell this product when it's ready or this service when it's ready. So I think, you know, there's a real gap there and that's where there's an opportunity for...
[00:05:35] Dallas Campbell: How do you mean, how do you mean they need to sell the technology rather than the products?
[00:05:40] Daniel Smith: So they're spending their time building the product, the technology, whatever it may be, the service and they're really focused, you know, scientists, engineers, et cetera, on that innovation and they're not necessarily thinking about, okay, how am I actually going to, how am I going to get the word out? How am I going to, you know, and be louder than my competitors and so then...
[00:05:56] Dallas Campbell: They'll go, I'm not going to think about that, I'm going to hire Daniel or Jess, or...
[00:05:59] Daniel Smith: Jasel In theory, although we don't work with, and Astro can decide as many startups as I, I thought we would. I thought it would be fully focused on logos and social media and stuff for startups, but it's not really turned out that way. But yeah, definitely, I think it's about helping them commercialise and while they're still focused on their technology.
[00:06:13] Dallas Campbell: Yeah and just how important is that, that these companies are visible?
[00:06:19] Jess Ratty: There's two ways of looking at this. If Daniel's right, you know, these businesses, my point on it is that space is a business and businesses, marketing, branding, it's a story as old as time, it's an industry as old as time. So it's not as opposed to why do they need it? It's why would they not be doing it in my view? But also I think that the challenges that the space industry has, or science in particular, is that they are bringing to market technologies that are literally mind blowing, nobody's ever heard of it. In space manufacturing, isn't that something that was off like a sci fi movie, like 20 years ago? Or asteroid mining, you know, all these things that are actually going to happen. Or the fact that we're going to try and do stuff in the moon or Mars, you know, it's amazing. But Miss General Public and the young people that we want to bring into the industry, it's as much about educating and building the terminology that is universally understood so that we're ready and priming the planet to move into an industry where space is so vital and important to everyone. But first up, everyone needs to understand what that is.
[00:07:20] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, that's interesting and do you think, Sam, do you think the kind of companies that you're dealing with, do you think they, or this particular sector has a bit of a PR issue in that they're not really as switched on about PR as, you know, if perhaps you were, if you were producing cornflakes and needed to sell a box of cornflakes, you know, you'd go to an ad agency and away you go.
[00:07:40] Samantha Amy: Yes, potentially. It's not as obvious. Like you say, if you're selling cornflakes, you know...
[00:07:44] Dallas Campbell: Yeah.
[00:07:44] Samantha Amy: ...you need to buy them for your breakfast. Whereas it's maybe not quite as obvious how you would communicate a brand new technology.
[00:07:51] Dallas Campbell: It's kind of a bit more complicated, isn't it? Then cornflakes, that's obvious, but like space is like, well, is it technology? Like what, how, it gets murky and messy.
[00:07:58] Samantha Amy: It can also, it can feel very distant. I mean, obviously, literally, it's very distant, but figuratively, I think for some industries and some, like members of the public, it doesn't feel like it's going to affect them or like it's relevant for their kind of day to day activities and it's kind of our role to, to show them that it is and the differences that it can make.
[00:08:15] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, that's interesting. And Jesse, you mentioned something that's interesting, and that is that public perception. How important, I mean, I bang on about this all the time, so apologies, but how important is this a public perception of what space is and how does that sort of filter up to the companies themselves? Like, is that gap needing to be filmed?
[00:08:36] Jess Ratty: It's critical, right?
[00:08:37] Dallas Campbell: Critical because we need an educated public and that's a good thing, but I'm just thinking particularly in terms of companies making money in PR, how important is it?
[00:08:46] Jess Ratty: It's all about your audience targeting, isn't it? You can have any company and they have to talk to different audiences at different times. So the public is one of those threads and then you've got the government, we need to be able to articulate to the government and Daniel will know just as well as I do that when you're briefing the government, it's got to be a really intensive, high technology briefing on one page and we use all the white paper space that we could possibly fill. Yeah, so you've got...
[00:09:10] Dallas Campbell: I'm a big fan of that, I think that's really important. I think you've got to be able to get it on one page
[00:09:14] Jess Ratty: Yeah, and that's our job.
[00:09:15] Dallas Campbell: Otherwise it's, because, you know, you say it's all very complicated and it is, but ultimately, generally, it's actually quite simple once you kind of filter it down and get the essence of what a company or a technology is.
[00:09:26] Samantha Amy: Yeah, and it can be one of the biggest challenges, especially from like a digital perspective. We're dealing with social media character limits and also people's attention span when they're sort of scrolling on the internet is quite small. So we have to kind of bring some of these concepts that are massive down into really only a few hundred words, which can be really challenging, but that's also, you know, that's where the fun is.
[00:09:47] Jess Ratty: And what people don't realise is that it costs, how much does it cost us to craft a LinkedIn post or a tweet? You know, I don't know how many Twitters, x is having its moment, but it costs as businesses ourselves within the space industry, which everyone needs to recognize that we are also that we are a space business ourselves. We have to work out how much it costs to communicate, to sell these things so that our business models work as well so that we're not overdoing it or underdoing it and bringing value to the market.
[00:10:18] Daniel Smith: And just to come back to the point on government as well, I think it's really interesting, you know, to break down public and look at things like government and also other sectors when it comes to the government, you know, they can really support if we come back to that SME point again, you know, these companies need to commercialise and government can be a customer for a lot of their services, whether it's the upstream, the supply chain to launch or downstream services are indeed In-Orbit Service and Manufacturing that Jess mentioned earlier. So government is a really important one to support the sector and to understand the sector and to get the messages across so that they understand why, you know, how they could be using it and in other sectors as well, so other industries, adjacent industries, forestry, mining, energy, transport, logistics, you know, reaching, putting it in a way that people understand why it's relevant to them.
[00:10:59] Dallas Campbell: Yeah. What about, how is the government at the moment? We've got a new government.
[00:11:03] Daniel Smith: Still early days. Farnborough was a lot of engagement. That was a good opportunity to meet with a lot of the new ministers that were in. So yeah, so far so good, I think.
[00:11:12] Dallas Campbell: I always think there's great enthusiasm when I hear government ministers talking about space and then I sort of, I wonder if it...
[00:11:19] Jess Ratty: You wait for the follow up.
[00:11:20] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, I wait for the follow up and then also is the public perception, I'm not sure how much it's changed over the last 10 years or so. Has it changed? I mean...
[00:11:29] Jess Ratty: I mean, I think that like Daniel said, they were really well prepared for Farnborough. I thought I was actually really impressed because we hadn't heard much in terms of the space industry and what government, where government we're going to take and it is early days, but I've met with some local MPs down here, they're really actively engaged, they want to hear it. Of course, they're hearing it for the first time. The thing I love about politics in the UK is that, yes, the party might have changed, and the policies might be changing, but the civil servants are the same.
[00:11:56] Dallas Campbell: A really good point.
[00:11:57] Jess Ratty: That are driving the, you know, like clockwork, the mechanisms of our politics. They're still there, they're still our friends and they're also really open and supportive and welcoming, and helpful.
[00:12:07] Dallas Campbell: Sam, what about you? I mean, you must work a lot with government.
[00:12:10] Samantha Amy: Yes, well I guess from a catapult perspective, we kind of talk government in quite a few different ways. I'll only talk about a couple, otherwise we'll be here all day. But I think at least two of the main ones would be kind of thought leadership and then also sort of facilitating those connections. So thought leadership wise in the catapult, we've got a huge array of different skills and experiences, across all our different teams and then a lot of those people have then produced kind of reports and white papers about how space is being used across different markets and sort of pitching, I guess, how space can be used in the future for kind of the betterment of society and then it's our responsibility as a marketing team to get those out there, whether it's just on socials or also like our events team will run events such as round tables, where you can actually kind of get these reports under the noses of policy makers so they can see how they could implement the technology.
[00:13:03] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, when you're so deep, when you're talking to companies or governments, is there any kind of misconceptions, any kind of skepticism about space generally as a concept?
[00:13:13] Jess Ratty: Oh, every day. I sometimes think the biggest challenge we have in terms of a segment of audiences parents, because they're the ones we need to inspire the next generation into these incredible roles that are open to people and they're going, wait what? You can do that? And I'm like, yeah, you can do it, it's happening, it's amazing, and they're like no.
[00:13:34] Dallas Campbell: It's quite hard, it is hard, I mean, you know, we spend all of our time trying to promote science generally as a thing, but the amount of competition, you know, especially when you're young.
[00:13:45] Jess Ratty: You're so right and, but I think the launch and we all know the launch from Cornwall just, I mean, it took off, output was amazing and then the rest kind of didn't go as planned, but the amount of children that we had engaged over that entire campaign was unbelievable. So space became sexy and it was like, I think it was also at the time we had like, you know, winter TV schedules on and we did really well and I was so proud of it and these kids, their face had just lit up and you think, oh, we got you. But space, sexy, science, biology, you know, they've got a ways to go, those industries.
[00:14:19] Dallas Campbell: Space, yeah, well in TV we always had this mantra, it was kind of science, then ancient Egypt, then dinosaurs. Actually, I quite like to talk about the Virgin In Orbit, that's quite an interesting example. But actually, just before I do, I, you know, when you say space is sexy, My brain automatically thinks of SpaceX and the way that they've managed to sell themselves and market themselves. I mean, everything from sexy spacesuits, just to the whole way they do their webinars. Everything is very thought out and they seem to be doing a pretty good job. I'm interested in your thoughts and what you think about kind of SpaceX, just from a kind of PR point of view.
[00:14:56] Daniel Smith: Yeah, I think the thing with launches, it's always very interesting, right? So I think it's easier, but as you know, I worked for a launch company in the past and there's a lot of attention, a lot of interest in on the launch side. But for me, actually, it's the application side's even more interesting and we're talking earlier about misconceptions and I think when you're a company that's trying to sell, you know, space applications, space services, data, information from satellites, which is what a lot of the UK is about, you know, we're not launching to Mars or anything like that. It's about, you know, putting satellites in orbit. So yeah, just for me, that's the really interesting part and when you go to other industries and you try to help those companies to sell, which is what our job is really on the B2B side, on the business side, away from the public for a moment, it's the perceptions around, you know, it's expensive or, you know, it's low or it's just government. So trying to use language that just changes that a little bit. So I think that the launch and again, coming from launch is really interesting and exciting, but...
[00:15:48] Dallas Campbell: It's a kind of, it's a story thing. I mean, this is what Jess mentioned. I mean, human beings, we communicate through story, but I always, David Mamet, I don't know if you know David, David Mamet, the great American playwright. He always says that all drama is the quest for a solution, that's all it is. It doesn't matter whether it's the Iliad or whether you're selling a box of cornflakes. Have we kind of got that story in the UK in terms of PR, in terms of the way we sell space? I mean, if you're SpaceX sending people into space, it's much easier because obviously you've got astronauts and you've got sexy spacesuits and da, da, da, da, da, but selling kind of data or selling products that perhaps...
[00:16:25] Daniel Smith: And I see that as like a great opportunity as well and that's something we really want to make space about. The perception to be about Earth, not to be about space, space technology isn't about space, it's about Earth from our perspective and yeah, when you speak to companies that are using space data to, you know, track illegal fishing and check the sustainability of supply chains, or, you know, endangered species, we've got a client that works in Mozambique tracking, tracking elephants and deer in the north of Scotland and you think, well, wait a minute, that's a story, that's interesting, why are we not hearing more about that? Why is it always about launch, which is an enabler
for all that other stuff, you know?
[00:16:58] Samantha Amy: it's the real stories that really resonate with people rather than, I always try and sort of stay away from, you know, being too technical or kind of the data side, even though that is very important because it's those stories about the real impacts and how they're affecting real people because they're tangible and they're really powerful and they're relatable for people as well.
[00:17:18] Jess Ratty: I just think it's so cool listening to you guys being in a room with people because we are the storytellers, we're the ones that are getting to write these stories that are getting out there and we're, you know, the questions Dallas are absolutely brilliant, but equally we're making it up as we go along in terms of it's never been done before. So we're like, right, how do we do this? How do we shape this? How do we excite people about it? But also SpaceX is, you know, love or hate Elon Musk, the brand is thrilling and I reckon they're thrilling because NASA is thrilling and NASA did it brilliantly before anyone else. Like who doesn't want a t shirt with NASA on it to state
what you do?
[00:17:55] Dallas Campbell: It's really, that's really interesting actually, I've been thinking about the NASA, I'm writing a book at the moment and actually I've been writing about the creation of the NASA logo and how fundamental that was in promoting this idea of space as myth and legend. There is just something really amazing about, well, NASA's history and NASA's story. Actually, I was thinking about something like gwynne Shotwell, who's, I mean, I guess she was the PR person at SpaceX who really was Elon Musk's secret weapon in terms of actually getting it off the ground.
[00:18:26] Jess Ratty: Just in it, do you know what, and I'm, no offense Daniel or Dallas because you guys, but a woman driving one of the most iconic new age space companies for me just rocks my boat massively and also shows the rest of us that there's a place for us in a really iconically male dominated industry and actually we've got so much to bring, she did it I also met some incredible people from NASA when we were at Space Symposium in April this year. Is it April or March? I always get confused and I just, we stayed friends and I love them. I just think they're incredible what they're doing.
[00:18:57] Dallas Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. I'm interested actually, why don't we, I'm interested in, you mentioned the Virgin Orbit launch and that's kind of a stuck in our minds as a big kind of launch event that happened at the UK with a lot of PR attached to it. I'd be interested just to hear from your point of view, what went right, what went wrong with that? And maybe Paint us a little portrait of how that all worked from your point of view.
[00:19:19] Jess Ratty: Oh my gosh, it was wild. You know, we did two years on that launch. So made us a space company, Halo, because we were obviously doing other stuff before that. I'd met Mel Thorpe, who is the CEO of Spaceport Cornwall on a plane to London. I met her five years before the launch happened, and we got chatting and she knew my friend and she said, I'm going to launch a rocket from Cornwall and I said, I'm going to do your PR and that was it and that was, Spaceport Cornwall was our first client and has spawned, we don't have as many clients as Astro Agency do, but I think that the ones we've got are all sort of, they sprung from our time in Cornwall. We then had sort of eight partners in launch. So we were telling individual stories on behalf of each of the organisations involved in the launch. So that was the payloads, launch provider, it was Spaceport Cornwall, it was local businesses, the supply chains, it
was amazing.
[00:20:09] Dallas Campbell: And just give us a bit of background. So for those, anyone who's listening who doesn't know what it was, this is a rocket that slung on the bottom of a plane in order to do what? was
the point
[00:20:19] Jess Ratty: It was to demonstrate the horizontal launch. So the plane took off as it would normally, up to a certain altitude, the rocket drops, engines kick in, off it goes, off to orbit and then that's where, unfortunately, this particular horizontal launch had a second stage failure where the fairing didn't detach properly and stuff came back
down.
[00:20:42] Dallas Campbell: so rather than a vertical launch that people can imagine, basically you launch from higher up dropped from an airplane like the old space planes of the 1960s, I suppose.
[00:20:52] Jess Ratty: And there's loads of benefits to it, there's loads of different benefits, people say it's less harmful to the environment or it's easier and you can do, but that's still yet to be proven on a regular basis that horizontal launch is
a regular thing,
[00:21:05] Dallas Campbell: And that was
quite, that was a big deal because it was, this is the first launch in the UK for a million years or...
[00:21:11] Jess Ratty: the,
First UK.
[00:21:11] Dallas Campbell: Since the Jurassic, But, so you as a PR company, so you've got, so they want to do this, what do you do? What's kind of your first thing?
[00:21:18] Jess Ratty: We had loads going on, so we did all the PR, so we had all these stories going out, we had a timeline of stuff, we worked really closely with the UK Space Agency and obviously Catapult as well, talking about the stories and we mapped everything out, so every other week there was a story going out from one of the partners in it, and they all knew what each other was doing, so it was very evenly spread, very collaborative, we'd have meetings every week and we worked really closely with Virgin Orbit, which obviously, it hurts my heart to say that, because we became, in the space of two years, incredibly close with the team that then obviously don't exist anymore, as a team, but we're all still alive, we're all still friends with them, but they're scattered around the world. So yeah, and then we had the big event, the launch night. So we had a public facing event where it was a bit like big launches in America where loads of people piled in to the UK and to stick with their, like, Picnic benches or whatever, watching the launch, watching the plane take off essentially and we also had 350 global media fly into Newquay airport or get to Newquay airport to come and cover the event and that was another big part of our role was to create the scaffolding for all the viewing of the platforms and all the different camera angles and to manage all the interviews on the night with all of the and of course, we ended up doing crisis comms when things didn't work out, so that was a bit of a mission as well,
Excuse the pun.
[00:22:36] Dallas Campbell: and so two years on, what's your kind of reflections on it? Were you sort of happy with how it went? I mean, obviously it didn't go quite according to plan. I mean, companies like SpaceX have been quite adept, I've noticed, about selling the idea of things going wrong as a bonus, this idea of iterative engineering. It's like, it's okay that things blow up, it's part of the learning curve. Did we manage to sell that idea to the public, do you think?
[00:23:00] Jess Ratty: It was difficult, I'm not gonna lie, because we're living in a world where there's a financial crisis like looming every five minutes, there's a cost living crisis, people have opinions. Social media means that people can pile in. So we have a bigger job and getting that swell of support. We felt that it was amazing afterwards, everybody was very sympathetic, everybody came together really kind, but it took a lot to get it to that point. It was really difficult. It was really sad when it went wrong. You know? Yes, failure, great. We're all going to be change makers, we're changing the world, we're changing off planet and that's not going to happen unless things go wrong, we won't learn, but it doesn't mean it's not difficult when it happens for the people on the ground.
[00:23:46] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, no, I remember and Sam, one of the things we talk about, actually, when we're communicating ideas, communicating stories about space, is language and jargon.
[00:23:56] Samantha Amy: Absolutely.
[00:23:57] Dallas Campbell: I still tear my hair out when people, when I read LinkedIn
posts and I read press releases
[00:24:02] Samantha Amy: You've given me some stern feedback on
the podcast notes.
[00:24:05] Dallas Campbell: It drives me crazy. Everyone goes into this kind of business speak and I crave people just to talk normally. Do you think that's changing at all?
That, idea of jargon
and
[00:24:16] Samantha Amy: I think so, yes. I think there's definitely times when it is needed, you kind of need that, like, you need the technical language and you need the kind of corporate comms,
essentially.
[00:24:27] Dallas Campbell: okay technical language, I understand. I don't understand corporate speak. I just find
maddening
[00:24:33] Samantha Amy: Well, Maybe maybe we're still just quite attached
to it as marketers. It's hard to get away from, oh, you know, this is the company's tagline, so we have to use this. Like, maybe we'll all, Change our minds in the future.
[00:24:44] Daniel Smith: I think it depends a lot on the target audience. You know, space is also quite formal. We're talking a lot about government, there's a defense
element to it. So...
[00:24:50] Samantha Amy: still very traditional some aspects.
[00:24:51] Daniel Smith: But then again, when, you know, some of the, Jess talked about the work being done with school children and things. So it depends on your target audience and you just need to be able to adapt, but I know what you mean, it is very
formal.
[00:25:01] Dallas Campbell: I don't know. I mean, even if you're a business or a government, I'm certainly from my experience, I just crave plain speaking, I crave
clarity. And when, when I
[00:25:11] Jess Ratty: where our success comes from because we come in and we're like, Whoa, I don't understand a word you're saying. Lay it out for me in layman's terms and then that's what we start with and then take up. We have a lot of fun doing it. It's meant to be fun, right? Just because it's business, doesn't mean it's boring. I don't like the term B2B either, because I think
everything is human to human.
[00:25:30] Samantha Amy: So Jess makes a really good point though. I really like to use like questions in a lot of like sort of my social media content, for example. So to sort of say, did you know that satellite data can be used to track deforestation, or did you know satellites can be used to tackle climate change? Because I think it just, it pivots the way people engage with the content, because it gets them thinking about it in a slightly different way, as opposed to if you presented it in a very, you know, formal term.
[00:25:58] Dallas Campbell: Well, I guess it's striking the balance, isn't it? I mean, no one wants to be over formal, but then there's a tendency for the pendulum to be wacky and so informal that it becomes really annoying on the other side as well. So I don't know, it's a difficult one, I think.
[00:26:11] Jess Ratty: It's gotta be relatable to the audience that you're targeting, right, and that's the whole point. You've got to get it right for the right, because, you know, some of the people from government, they are very serious, you know, we're talking about regulation in a lot of cases, and that's really damn serious, that involves people not dying when we launch rockets, so, you know, or satellites, but you're right. I've been on the edge of too wacky before. Yeah, you don't want to go there, there's nothing, yeah, that's...
No, luckily, my team are just incredible. So they're like, no, Jess, you've gone too far. We've got a couple of, we've got some podcasts coming out soon and you guys are going to be like, I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but we'll go with it.
[00:26:48] Dallas Campbell: Well, I think that's why people like podcast. The reason podcasts are successful, I think, is because it's just people chatting rather than that really formal, you know, well, I suppose television interviews are generally more formal. But yeah, you don't want to be too informal.
[00:27:04] Daniel Smith: And Jess mentioned regulations and I think that's part of it too. When we talked about strategic at the beginning that from, certainly from our side, you know, knowing the regulations, knowing the politics, knowing the little niche things that make the space sector a little bit different and quite serious sometimes and I think that's maybe why Halo and Astro Agency are seeing so much growth because I think space companies feel, they just feel more assured knowing that they're going to an organisation that isn't going to make a silly mistake and that kind of knows where they're coming from.
[00:27:31] Dallas Campbell: And for the satellite applications catapult, I mean you've got a slightly bigger remit as well, cause your skills, education links with academia, you're kind of
in a slightly different, I suppose,
[00:27:42] Samantha Amy: Yes, no, yeah, much broader remit.
[00:27:44] Dallas Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. maybe give us a little bit of a, with your PR hat on, like where your sort of priorities
are and how you juggle all that.
[00:27:51] Samantha Amy: Oh, that's a very good question. I think one of our big focuses at the moment, is something called the UK Space Ecosystem, which is a brand we've developed in partnership with the UK Space Agency. and that's essentially designed to create kind of connected community, basically to make the UK more connected across the space industry. So we do that kind of through a few different ways, everything from kind of business support and facilities services for SMEs, facilitating those conversations and kind of encouraging better knowledge exchange between the different communities across the UK and then also kind of providing, pushing forward national capability, which the first two kind of inform that sort of access to technology, but also kind of an injection of skills in as well and as part of that ecosystem we've developed the Space Enterprise Community, which is a platform for all different types of stakeholders, kind of commercial research, academia, to all come together and have a sort of centralized location to be able to share news and opportunities and resources and to platform different programs and projects that are happening. Because even though we're a very, we're a very small country in comparison to the rest of the world, it can be easy to end up a little bit segregated. So we're just trying to make sure that everyone's speaking to each other, which very important.
[00:29:07] Dallas Campbell: And is everyone speaking to each other? We tend to, humans like to kind of silo themselves and make sure everyone's in their right lane. are you solving that issue of
people
[00:29:17] Samantha Amy: I think so, yes. I mean, we hope so,
That's always the
aim.
[00:29:19] Dallas Campbell: I think
so. Well, I actually just, Daniel, with one sort of case study I'd like to talk about for Astro Agency is Spacebar. Now it was lockdown, Daniel called me up, Daniel called me up said would I host this thing he's doing called Spacebar, which was a kind of live space social and I said, of course.
[00:29:38] Daniel Smith: Yeah, I think I told you it would just be one time and 72 episodes later.
[00:29:42] Dallas Campbell: but just explain what Spacebar was and what was the point of Spacebar.
[00:29:45] Daniel Smith: So I guess, like, we really see ourselves as a space company and it kind of feels like when the pandemic happened, you know, we go to so many events and, you know, I've been involved in the space sector with different companies over the years and I know how events driven a sector is. So when the pandemic happened, I felt it, it was kind of fell on us to step up and create, you know, that missing piece of the jigsaw for a while, which was really to give people a place to come along and talk about, you know, are they looking to hire people? Are there people looking for jobs? Are they looking to sell their services? You know, they can't get into their factories, they can't manufacture. So they could be, you know, thinking about how can they actually, you know, network and have conversations and at first it was a case of just putting something on zoom and saying, you know, do you want to come along and have a glass of wine or a cup of coffee at nighttime? Cause a lot of the webinars that were happening then too, it was all just broadcasts. So we're just sitting, listening to things. So obviously that's important too for information, but I felt there wasn't that ability to talk. Normally it's the opposite problem, normally we don't listen enough, but I just felt in the pandemic we didn't, we weren't getting a chance to talk. So I'd put something out on zoom and the first one we had like 10 people join or something, but within two or three weeks we were up to like 80, 120, 150 and so I knew I wasn't going to be able to handle it.
[00:30:51] Dallas Campbell: It
was, but it became a really nice thing actually, I kind of, because it wasn't recorded, it was just a live networking social and people would just rock up on Zoom.
[00:30:59] Daniel Smith: would go on and
on and on.
[00:31:00] Dallas Campbell: And on and on all night with people moaning about things, sort of whinging.
[00:31:05] Samantha Amy: It's always the moaning.
[00:31:05] Daniel Smith: It was like an outlet and I'm sure you get it.
[00:31:07] Dallas Campbell: Jess must
have been on Spacebar,
[00:31:09] Jess Ratty: No, I was very
envious of it.
[00:31:11] Dallas Campbell: Why didn't you come on Spacebar?
[00:31:12] Daniel Smith: Oh, it was a lot of work. We should do it together, Jess. Honestly, we should, it's a lot of work.
[00:31:16] Jess Ratty: I'll be over with the tequila or the lemon chelic. We, every time someone whinges, we all have to take a shot and that's what we should do to keep it positive. So we were in the early stages of our work in space at that point. When you were all smashing that out in lockdown, but one of the reasons we ended up really pivoting into technology quite rapidly was because I lost like 40 percent of my business in two weeks when lockdown happened and then I was like, Oh God and I was so angry. I was like, Oh my God, my whole life here, got to turn it around and then we pivoted into technology and then again into space. So I've seen them, I've heard of them, I knew that they were pretty iconically cool, these hangouts, but it was a bit before my time in the industry. Might have been a bit more messy if I had been there, I'm not gonna
lie
[00:32:03] Dallas Campbell: we had some pretty messy Spacebars.
[00:32:04] Daniel Smith: Pretty messy. Three
o'clock in the morning, four.
[00:32:07] Dallas Campbell: used to have to
[00:32:07] Daniel Smith: the
[00:32:08] Dallas Campbell: off about sort of 10 o'clock cause I get so exhausted and then sort of four o'clock in the morning, it would still be going on.
[00:32:13] Daniel Smith: The amount of people that, I mean, I even had it earlier this week. The amount of people that say, you know, that kind of, you know, it was part of my lockdown routine is something they'll say a lot or you know, I got a job because of space. But it's just, it's really cool, I don't really see it as a case study for us, it was more something that I felt we were in the right position to do, you know, we weren't building hardware or anything. So step up to the plate and create this platform.
[00:32:34] Dallas Campbell: I agree, it was great fun and also Sam, we should talk about this
podcast as well. this is,
[00:32:39] Samantha Amy: It's
very
meta,
[00:32:40] Dallas Campbell: it? is very meta., but this, I mean, this has been going for, howlong has this podcast been going?
[00:32:44] Samantha Amy: Four years now, it's our fourth series
[00:32:46] Dallas Campbell: So
it's also kind of a lockdown thing.
[00:32:48] Samantha Amy: Yes, we started the conversation, just at the tail end of 2019. I remember the time we were kind of ready to start recording episodes. Yeah, lockdown hit, so our first series is very much a kind of a capsule of, remote conversations.
[00:33:00] Dallas Campbell: what was, the thinking from a PR point of view? Why did you suddenly decide, okay, was it crikey, everyone else is doing a podcast. We better do a
podcast. Or was there something
[00:33:08] Samantha Amy: I think there was definitely sort
of a through line of podcasts are an incredible medium for these stories, but the Catapult is a neutral convener and we are connected with and have relationships with some of the best companies in the industry and companies that are delivering the applications that in ten, twenty years are going to be completely commonplace to the average person and we thought we have the ability to bring these people together and have some really exciting, really interesting conversations. So that's, that's exactly what we set out to do because it's kind of the whole, it's the whole ethos of the Catapult is that kind of connection and trying to drive forward the industry and platforming SMEs as well. We've had some fantastic SMEs who only have, you know, two, three, four employees who have been on to talk about their
capabilities.
[00:33:57] Dallas Campbell: mind blowing stuff, as Jeff said earlier on. Absolutely mind blowing stuff and actually being able to focus on the human stories as well and Daniel, like you said as well, space, not just looking out, but looking back at Earth and how everything that we do up in orbit, affects us down here. Thank you for having me on the podcast, by the way because I used
to listen to it. I must've bumped into it, looking for podcasts when Sarah was, Sarah Kratos was doing it and you've had, I remember thinking to myself, why, why aren't I doing that? I want to be doing that podcast.
[00:34:25] Samantha Amy: And lo and behold, you got a telephone call. Yeah. I think, I remember, I think in our first conversation, one of the things I said to you is that we're trying to answer the question, why should we care? Which sounds, maybe sounds a little bit dismissive
or a bit simplistic, but I think in answering,
in answering that question, in answering why should we care about this project, why should we care about this opportunity, why should we care about this data? If we can answer that, I think that's kind of the key to real sustained change.
[00:34:52] Dallas Campbell: exactly. Yeah. Why should we care? Getting that message out seems to be the, seems to be the thing and also the, you know, having done this podcast and having done Spacebar and these sorts of things, civilization would not function without what we, without our activities in orbit. I mean, getting that message out is, I think is pretty...
[00:35:11] Daniel Smith: Yeah, I think that we often get that question about, you know, why should we care or why are we investing in this when we could be investing in something else, you know, and there's, it always comes back to there's no banks in space. So, you know, any, every pound that's spent is spent here and then on the downstream side, it's just that, it's like, imagine we didn't have satellites, what would the day be like without satellites, you know, it wouldn't be easy.
[00:35:33] Dallas Campbell: just to round off, I'd like to give you a sort of a magic wand that you can wave with your PR hat on. If you could sort of right any wrong or anything that's irking you or niggling you, if you could wave a magic wand. We'll keep it to the space industry and business rather than your personal life, although if you want it!
[00:35:53] Daniel Smith: How long have you got Yeah.
[00:35:55] Dallas Campbell: But yeah, what's the kind of, what's the thing you want to solve or what's the big thing that's in the industry?
[00:36:00] Daniel Smith: For me, it's just that perception. I just love to see that perception change from, you know, deep space exploration to thinking about that, but also thinking about how space impacts our day,
every single day.
[00:36:10] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, the trouble is with deep space exploration, there is just something sexy about deep space.
It's that, you know, the great unknown, it's the explorers in us, you know, humans, we love that story. That's the thing.
[00:36:20] Daniel Smith: Yeah, for sure. But again, you know, space, the way you can use space data, one of our mutual friends, Andrew Forney, always says, it's limited only by your imagination. So I like that idea as well. How can we think, what can we not solve? You know, what, there's anything, there's companies that have looked at homelessness, there's companies that have looked at, you know, all kinds of incredible things and how could we use satellite data to solve that? For me, that's an adventure
in itself.
[00:36:40] Dallas Campbell: Well said, thank you. Jess, what's your...
[00:36:43] Jess Ratty: How am I going to follow that?
[00:36:46] Dallas Campbell: You can just sit in stony silence if you want.
[00:36:50] Jess Ratty: Mine's a bit more close to home. I think it is taking a very long time for the likes of us to be having conversations about how critical communications is in the space and tech and science industries and I know that it is not our jobs to be the people on the podcast. It's generally we're the people behind the people on the podcast, but we're changemakers ourselves. We stand behind some of the greatest minds that we have on this planet, and I'm really proud that that's my job and that's what we do and I'm such a fangirl of all the people that we work with. These people are so extraordinary and their stories deserve to be told. The more people realize how critical communications is, not only to the industry now, but to the young people coming up to the ranks and also for the legacy, you know, for the history of what we've achieved as humans on planet earth, that's what I want to see, more of this.
[00:37:43] Dallas Campbell: No, it's very good, communications, it's so important. Sam, what do you think? If you could, if you were Prime Minister, if you had a magic wand, if you could change anything, what would
it be?
[00:37:52] Samantha Amy: I think I'd have to concur with both Daniel and Jess. it's really important to me and it's something that makes me really proud of my job is that we are bringing that focus back to people and to the human impact stories on Earth. I think the likes of SpaceX and even years ago when we landed on the moon, I think, Space was being shown as being, you know, very explorative and very, it was more about sort of national pride and progression, but it was all looking out into the stars, whereas now everything's a lot more focused on down here on Earth, which I think is really important.
And I think eventually, we as marketeers, by kind of raising awareness and things, we're going to make space part of everyday reality and that's really exciting.
[00:38:32] Dallas Campbell: It would be lovely if both of those stories, the outward urge and also the adventure and the imaginative possibilities about looking back on Earth and the solutions that we could find, were sort of equally matched and could work in sort of harmony and that would be a, that would be a nice thing I think.
[00:38:49] Daniel Smith: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:50] Jess Ratty: That's the
dream.
[00:38:51] Dallas Campbell: That's the dream, that's it, that's it. Hey, well, listen, Jess, thank you very much for joining us in sunny Cornwall where the sun always shines, best of luck to everything that you do down there and thank you for everything that you do down there. Daniel, thank you so much for coming down, you do amazing
things up in Scotland. and Sam, thank you very much for having me on your
podcast and for being such a terrific boss.
[00:39:12] Samantha Amy: Thank you.
[00:39:12] Dallas Campbell: I call you
a
boss? Sort of a
boss?
[00:39:14] Samantha Amy: Maybe.
[00:39:14] Dallas Campbell: Producer, yeah, anyway, so it's a great pleasure. I love talking about this stuff and I hope you've enjoyed listening, so don't forget to tune in. But until next time, we'll see you then.
To hear future episodes of In-Orbit, be sure to subscribe on your favourite podcast app and to find out more about how space is empowering industries between episodes, you can visit the Catapult website or join them on social media.