POLICY


Rules of engagement

Booking Synaps for meetings and events



Synaps staff are frequently solicited for media engagements, one-on-one meetings and event participation, and are consistently grateful for the interest. As an organisation, however, we adopt an unusually conservative approach to accepting such invitations. This merits some explanation:

  • Synaps is a small organisation, deliberately operating on a lean budget. This requires considerable focus from our staff, on projects that financially sustain the work we believe in.
  • As such, Synaps strives to view all its activities in terms of both their productive output and their costs relative to staff time, to make the most of our limited resources, not least out of respect for those who invest in us.
  • Busyness, in Synaps’ case, is not a marker of status, but rather a reflection of the fact that staff carefully divide their time between core tasks; pro bono work for organisations that inspire us; and time off to replenish themselves.
  • Finally, although Synaps touches upon a variety of topics, it strives to deal with these specific issues as thoroughly as possible while refraining from generic commentary on issues we haven’t delved into.

With these points in mind, we warmly welcome all engagements that not only meet the needs of our interlocutors but also serve Synaps’ effort to amplify local knowledge. These include interviews and conferences that provide Synaps with a genuine platform to unpack its findings on a particular topic; agenda-driven meetings aiming at a substantive exchange of information; and, of course, any services we can provide to friends of Synaps, in appreciation for various kinds of support, to include helping our published work reach its audience.

Illustration credit: Cabaret Dancers / licensed by Pixabay; Chapeau Claque by Wikipedia / licensed by CC Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.