WHAT IN THE IVORY TOWER IS AN ELEVATOR SPEECH?

Ivory tower-wise, what is an elevator speech? Let’s first examine its purposes in higher education and then its salient characteristics.

ACADEMIC PURPOSES
In higher education, professors are not selling a product. Instead, they are promoting, to some degree, themselves as teachers, researchers, or clinicians, their scholarship, and their institutions. They’re selling their professionalism.

As an academician, the primary purposes of the elevator speech are to build professional relationships in:

1. your teaching strategies or discipline
2. your research area
3. your clinical specialty
4. anything I forgot

Got it? Certainly, those of you who are in recruit mode may use that opportunity to entice faculty, administrators, or students to your institutional lair.

WHAT IS AN ELEVATOR SPEECH?
So what is this speech all about compared to what you’re already doing?

DEFINITION: It is a concise, carefully-crafted, and well-rehearsed description about “Who you are” and “What you can do for the contact” that your mother would understand, delivered in the time it would take to ride up or down to your hotel floor in an elevator. (Note: If your room is on a low level floor, you’ll have to talk really fast.)
It shifts the emphasis away from you and your credentials, which are already visible on your nametag, to what you can do for the person to whom you’re talking. Rather than promoting you and describing what you do, it’s about spinning what you do for the benefit of that person. And, certainly, who is in a better position to write and deliver that speech than you? Well, maybe your mommy.

CHARACTERISTICS: It’s just a short, mini-spiel, sound-bite of 30–60 seconds to succinctly and memorably introduce you to people or livestock you don’t know. Granted, for professors to speak less than a minute can be an excruciatingly painful, restrictive, and nearly impossible task, especially when they’re talking about their fave subject. It’s like a 100-word abstract (5–8 sentences) of YOU to spotlight your uniqueness and how you can help the contact. Is there any characteristic worth mentioning that distinguishes you from the rest of the pack?

What is the role of the elevator as well other modes of transportation? What constitutes an appropriate elevator speech? What are the key ingredients that will make a lasting first impression and showcase you as a professional? Stay tuned.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC