WAS THE SPEECH EFFECTIVE?
The test of whether your new speech had any impact will be the contacts you receive after the conference, such as e-mails, invitations to join colleagues on LinkedIn, invitations to collaborate, invitations to present workshops or consult, and invitations to parties and elevator rides. Sometimes these invitations may occur months later. Usually there’s a flurry of activity immediately after you get back to your institution. Then it just trickles for 20 years. You never know what relationship seeds you planted with your spiel and cards. Your ROI (Return On Investment) in relationships will usually exceed your effort expended in those one-minute bites.
BOTTOM LINE
I suspect some you may find the elevator speech blogs a total waste. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of preparing a speech, as described in the preceding 27 blogs, and you prefer to continue to just “wing it,” at least, at minimum, give some thought to what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. You just might be able to help a colleague at another institution and, maybe, you’ll benefit from that contribution or collaboration.
Building professional contacts at every opportunity can have lots of advantages. I see relationships as the most important experiences in my career journey. Eventually, you might even want to consult, speak, or collaborate. The elevator speech is just one way to initiate that process. Happy spieling!
Let me know your thoughts and reactions to any of these suggestions.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
EXAMPLE RECAP
To recap, here are the 2 examples from the previous blogs, plus a bonus:
EXAMPLE 1: Professor of TV Production
“Hi, I’m Clarissa, but you can call me Rissa. I think inside the box, because I teach TV production. I also work with IT staff on campuses to help them connect with their faculty on media techniques in the classroom. I’ll be doing a session here tomorrow on that topic at 1:30. Here’s my card. May I have your card? I’ll contact you about joining my network on LinkedIn so we can stay in touch. I hope to see you at my session tomorrow.” (84 words)
EXAMPLE 2: Researcher on Cheating
“Hi, I’m Bucko. I do research on cheating. I present a dozen techniques for faculty to use to detect and eliminate cheating in their classrooms. I’m doing a workshop on a few of them on Thurs. at 10AM. Here’s my card. Do you have a card? Let me know if I can help your faculty. Here’s an invitation to my university’s reception tonight. See you there.” (66 words)
BONUS EXAMPLE 3: Professor of Film and Media
“Hi, I’m Jim from Pandora University. I create Oscar-winning movies, just not this year. I’m working on the sequel to my 2009 release. It’s called Avatar 2. I’m casting for parts now, especially blue people. No, not smurfs. Would you be interested in auditioning? Here’s my card with audition information. I hope to see you there." (56)
Any questions? Is this helping at all? Each example provides buckets of critical information in only 56–84 words. Notice the shift in emphasis from the traditional intro of “what I do” to “what I can do for you with follow-up.”
WHAT ABOUT DELIVERY?
How do you say it? With style and pizzazz! Whatever you say in your version of the above spiels, say it with passion and enthusiasm. Convey energy, excitement, and professionalism about what you do. If you’re not excited about what you do, why should anyone else be? Are you forgettable or unforgettable with a positive image?
The final blog in this long, overdrawn, bloated series will suggest how you can determine whether your spiel was effective. There will also be some bottom-line advice. See you tomorrow.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Given that the concept of the elevator speech originated in the fields of business and marketing, my approach has been to extract “best practices” from those fields and spin their practices for academicians. The concept is transferable to different applications.
ACADEMIC ACTIVE INGREDIENTS
Obviously, anyone can read your formal name, title, and institution off your boldface printed plastic badge. That’s a starting point. But you haven’t said a word yet.
Here are 3 ingredients to consider:
1.HOOK (What are your first words?): Please do not repeat the obvious. What’s NOT on your badge? Think of something new that breaks the ice or smashes it? Maybe a nickname, word play, or humor. Try to avoid trite and boring.
Use a statement to grab the attention of your contact; one that will pique the his or her interest. (WARNING: No, it’s not a lame pick-up line. Don’t even think about it.) Choose your words carefully.
Example 1: "Hi, I'm Clarissa, but you can call me Rissa. I think inside the box, because I teach TV production." (Note formal first name to nickname intro and wordplay on popular expression with humor linked to job.)
Example 2: “Hi, I’m Bucko. I do research on cheating.” (Note nickname and simple attention-grabbing topic. Most sins and crimes work well.)
2. BENEFIT (What service or benefit do you provide?): What do you do that can help the contact or contribute to what he or she does? What problem can you solve—cheating, low test scores, poor attendance, high drop-out rate, PC/iPhone distractions in class, losing football team, or burglaries? What benefits could your contact derive from what you do?
Example 1: “I also work with IT staff on campuses to help them connect with their faculty on media techniques in the classroom.” (Note benefit for IT staff.)
Example 2: “I present a dozen techniques for faculty to use to detect and eliminate cheating in their classrooms.” (Note benefit for faculty.)
I will continue with the third ingredient tomorrow with examples. Can you guess what it is? It’s probably the one most often overlooked, but critical to relationships. See you then.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE NONBUDDY KIND
When you attend your professional conferences with your buddies, you will undoubtedly face encounters of the nonbuddy kind. You will run into peers from other institutions or planets whom you have not met and don’t know you from Stephen Hawking. These run-ins may occur in the following settings:
• Receptions
• Meals
• Bars and other evil hangouts
• Annual Banquet (traditional rubber-chicken dinner)
• Conference sessions
• Elevator/escalator
Typically, you may be standing or sitting next to someone you don’t know for an extended time period (30-sec. elevator ride to 2-hr. dinner). Wow, is that uncomfortable! So far, does any of this seem familiar? “NO!” Then what do you do at conferences? Stay locked in your room playing video games or tweeting your students? What’s that all about?
Any way, for those of you who can relate, what do you usually do in those situations? Do you ignore the person on either side or do you start up a conversation? If you're sitting at a round table, do you ignore the person on each side and strike up a conversation with a buddy across the table? If you initiate a conversation, keep reading. This blog’s for you. If you ignore everybody, buhbye!
THE INTRODUCTION
What do you say? How do you introduce yourself? I know you think you already know how to introduce yourself because you have a PhD or MD and you’re thinking: “Like how hard could that possibly be? I’m not a moron. Look at all of the ribbons with my titles dripping down below my nametag, you ninny.” Calm down. Don’t call me a ninny. You called yourself a moron. Don’t get upset. This is just a blog.
ORIGIN OF “ELEVATOR SPEECH”
Business-type people created an introduction to moi called the elevator speech (aka “lift speech” in UK), named after the familiar mode of transportation in most hotels,“Amtrak.” They have been using it for thousands of years to promote their businesses even before elevators were invented, when it used to be called a “stone stairs speech.” It was originally intended as a quick pitch about their business and what services or benefits it could offer a potential client.
That being said, what are the academic purposes of an elevator speech? How can you use it in professional conferences to network with other professors? Great questions. Unfortunately, I’m blogged out for today. Tomorrow I’ll answer those questions and, maybe, just maybe, define the characteristics of the speech. Stick around. This week is elevator week.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
This blog continues my tribute to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Faculty training and athletic training is not a match made in Olympic heaven! Among the vast array of occupations represented by the athletes from 8000 countries, the number of college professors is, according my latest calculations, 0. There are probably a lot of reasons we’re not found in the Olympic gene pool. After minimal thought and no research on Google, I generated the following “twisted” top 10. Enjoy!
TOP TEN REASONS YOU WON’T FIND U.S. COLLEGE PROFESSORS ON THE 2010 OLYMPIC TEAM:
10. PowerPoint is not permitted in Olympic events
9. Teammates refuse to complete assignments on Blackboard
8. No one will attend a faculty development workshop at the Olympic Village
7. Home institution will not reimburse “foreign” travel expenses to Vancouver
6. No meetings with agendas and minutes to attend for 2 weeks—what a bummer!
5. Events on snow and ice are too much fun to be scholarly
4. Lecturing to “non-student” teammates will put them in a coma
3. Forbidden to use NIH research funding to support training at Vail
2. Olympians text and tweet; they don’t like to e-mail
AND THE NUMBER 1 REASON:
1. Your department chair or dean will never understand
Maybe by the next Olympics in Russia, a professor will find a way to conquer the above reasons and represent us proudly on the “speed lecturing downhill” team. With the increasing number of furloughs many of you are experiencing, you’ll have more time to practice. Go for it.
Blog-wise, please let me know what topics you would like me to address that I haven’t covered in the last 7 months and whether you prefer “humor” blogs. I want them to be useful and/or entertaining for you. Thanks in advance for your feedback.
(BLOG ALERT: If you would like to send this list to your faculty, PLEASE DON'T COPY and send electronically. It will be detected by COPYSCAPE. Send faculty the blog URL: http://ronberk.blogspot.com/.)
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
