Are you ready for the new challenges and opportunities 2010 presents? It's set to be a huge year, with opportunities aplenty for organisations ready, willing and able to confidently seize them. For those brands hanging nervously around the edge of the broadcast media dancefloor, it could be an uncomfortable experience. Howard Kosky, chairman of markettiers4dc, outlines what delegates will hear in probably the most rewarding few hours you could spend away from your desk.

Major media event: check. Press material prepared and sold in: check. Need to get top quality TV and radio coverage: check. Got senior spokespeople available for interview at short notice the day before the embargo is lifted: er…I'll get back to you on that one. Unfortunately, that delay often means a missed opportunity for coverage, and a frustrated news producer who might not be so receptive the next time you go to them with a story.

What can you do to help news broadcasters get your story on-air? Geoff Baron is a senior producer for Sky TV's award-winning Sunrise show, and for whom the real work happens before the embargo is lifted, not after it.

From the huge global corporate, to the tiny artisan retailer, every business has a heart…a warm and generous one beating inside the corporate social responsibility programme. For most companies, that CSR strategy has been thumping away quietly and predictably for some time. But now, as we emerge from recession, that CSR beat needs to get to get louder, and more powerful, to bring a new energy to corporate reputations and help the media and public understand what makes them tick.

We can't predict the future with 100% certainty. That's the challenge of thought leadership for PR practitioners, but the potential for enhancing brand reputation and business profile is huge. So how do we know what issues are important to our audiences, and to the media? What do we need to do to create a distinctive voice for our organisation in broadcast media? Can we get it wrong, and what are the consequences?

Charlie Beckett is perfectly placed to share his unique insight into thought leadership. He is the first director of Polis, the London School of Economics' media think tank which drives public debate and policy on the key issues affecting news journalism. He is also a former journalist and senior editor with more than two decades of experience for LWT, the BBC and ITN's Channel 4 News.

Radio may well have been called 'the wireless' by our grandparents, but today, the only 'wireless' should refer to how you're streaming a digital station through mobile internet. Nine in ten of the entire population listen to the radio regularly, with stations broadcasting across analogue, DAB and internet platforms. It means radio gives PR practitioners a huge range of opportunities to reach audiences, targeted by geography, age, gender, specialist interest or all of the above, with excellent efficiency.

Got an awareness campaign and need to reach parents and their children? Then why aren't you talking to Fun Kids Radio on DAB. Got a major issue to debate? Well why aren't you contacting 'the home of free speech' at SunTalk, the Sun Newspaper's own online radio station? David Cameron and the ASDA CEO have given exclusive interviews to the station, so if you're not thinking audio when pitching to print, you're missing out on a crucial coverage opportunity.

The next General Election is only a few months away and will be the first domestic campaign to be fought as hard in cyberspace as it is on the doorstep. Political parties have embraced the new media channels in the battle to win voters, from Twitter tsars to interacting on Mumsnet, while media owners themselves are working harder than ever to find new ways of engaging with audiences on different platforms. Are you doing the same? And does the Election itself mean opportunities to get your organisation onto the news agenda instead of being forced off it by the extended political coverage?

As deputy editor of Channel 4 News, Martin Fewell has driven many of the innovations behind Channel 4 News' divergence across social and digital media platforms, as well as managing the programme's daily news agenda.