Elevating Your Elevator Talk

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Elevating Your Elevator Talk

• Katherine E. Rowan, Ph.D.
• George Mason University
• Krowan_at_gmu.edu
• Presentation for the
• BIO IT Coalition
• at George Mason University
• October 19, 2005

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What IS an Elevator Talk?

• Simple, non-technical summary or explanation of
  an idea that could be expressed on a short
  elevator ride
• Requires non-geeky, audience-centered language
• The statement you would make if you have no
  access to notes or illustrations, as in an
  elevator

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What an Elevator Talk is NOT

• The office talk -- the 5-minute explanation of
  your work given when you have access to paper or
  whiteboard (Reis)
• The guest lecture, the 20-minute version
• Long-winded comments that make fellow passengers
  want to get off the elevator early
• Self-focused comments (what I need.)

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Who Invented the Phrase?

• Perhaps Richard Reis, Stanford. He created
  several programs to improve the elevator-talk
  capacities of Stanford graduate students
• Phrase elevator talk found in trade literature,
  marketing literature via Google
• Garry Duncan in Denver Business Journal describes
  how to take your elevator talk to a floor above
  the rest.

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Why Developing Good Elevator Talks is Important

• They build support for you and your work
• They build enthusiasm for your field
• They serve as a reality checkif you can explain
  a complexity, you understand it more fully
• They, or the ability to explain clearly,
  literally can save lives

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Elevator Talk Challenges, 1

• Knowing whos on that elevator with you
• To some, the terms, pharma and CROs, will sound
  like farms and an unfamiliar acronym others will
  understand
• Being brief
• Assume a three-story building

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Elevator Talk Challenges, 2

• Explaining without notes or visuals
• Explaining without patronizing
• Explaining in a way that encourages your listener
  to think with you
• Communicating about a concept where there could
  be pre-conceived notions (BIO IT --- too
  specialized to be profitable?)

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Elevator Talk Challenges, 3

• Communicating in the language of your audience to
  build credibility
• Communicating using words that nearly
  everyonethe masses, fifth-graders,
  investors, county commissioners, can understand
• Making clear your ability to solve some problem
  important to your audience

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Great Elevator Talks, 1

• Great elevator talks are short
• So whats a PEO (Professional Employer
  Organization)?
• Answer (the elevator talk) We solve payroll,
  personnel, and insurance problems. (Schneider)
• Great elevator talks address problems that matter
• I study why some nations are rich and others are
  poor. (Peter Boettke, George Mason economist)

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Great Elevator Talks, 2

• Great elevator talks use simple terms
• FIRST TRY The Sirsi ILS now generates native
  RSS 2 feeds.
• MUCH BETTER The new software can tell patrons
  when the library has a new book they want.
• (from Schneider, freerangelibrarian.com)

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Goals for Elevator Talks

• To generate Confidence
• To create Awareness
• To deepen Understanding
• To create Satisfaction with your solution
• To encourage Enactment
• (Rowans CAUSE Model for Communication)

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Overcoming Barriers Expect and Address
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How to use CAUSE

• Why elevator talk may not be effective
• Lack of confidence in your motives, competence?
• Lack of awareness of acronyms, jargon
• Lack of understanding (can pronounce, but do not
  understand key terms, cant visualize)
• Lack of satisfaction or agreement with ideas?
• Lack of enactment, action, follow through?

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Earning Confidence

• Key Obstacle
• Doubts about speakers competence
• Solution
• Be clear and accessible
• Choose simple words
• Be friendly, real
• Use sentences that elicit questions

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Earning Confidence

• Earn Confidence with direct eye contact
• Earn Confidence with enthusiasm
• Earn Confidence with authenticity
• Earn Confidence with active listening

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Creating Awareness

• To increase comprehension, begin with the big
  picture
• NOT -- We deal with pharma (could be mis-heard)
• BUT rather -- Were a software company that helps
  scientists understand disease and ways to combat
  it.
• Avoid acronyms and jargon (CROs, pharma)

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Creating Awareness

• Connect to everyday experiences
• Were a clinical research organization. Most
  people remember when they were in college and
  they read ads in the local paper looking for
  participants in some study. The ads said youd
  get 10 for participating, maybe beer money.
  Well, now clinical research organizations or CROs
  are a 40 billion industry (Pat Donnelly,
  President CEO PRA International, on Tommorows
  Business Radio)

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Deepening Understanding

• Sometimes awareness is not enough
• People often need fuller comprehension
• When explaining complex information, anticipate
  two standard obstacles or sources of confusion
• Familiar words not well understood
• Ideas hard-to-understand because hard to
  visualize

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Explaining Familiar WordsOften Misunderstood

• Examples
• Convergence
• Biotech
• Clinical research trial

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Clarifying Intended Meaning

• Research shows confusion is often caused NOT
  solely by jargon but by familiar words.
• Examples
• Biotech, BIO IT
• Enterprise information management
• Convergence
• Clinical application of therapies

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Clarifying Intended Meaning

• To address confusion over key terms
• Use a familiar experience or example first
• Define by essential features, not associated
  features, e.g.
• A biotech product involves the use of cells or
  cell components to make or modify products such
  as food and pharmaceuticals, wine, cheese, etc.

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Clarifying Intended Meaning

• Give a range of examples, not just one
• Biotech products include new treatments for
  Parkinsons disease, Monsantos Bt corn, and
  ancient technologies such as bread making, which
  uses the one-celled animal, yeast. There are also
  biotech services such as .
• Use a non-example
• Breeding animals by conventional means is NOT an
  example of biotechnology.

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Encouraging Visualization

• People may struggle to understand your business
  NOT because of key terms but because it is hard
  to envision
• Research and Development. Whats development?
  What steps are you taking?

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Encouraging Visualization

• You are in an elevator so you cannot use a piece
  of paper or whiteboard, but you can
• Use analogies (DNA is a library of instructions)
• Use previews -- The biopharmaceutical industry
  consists of three groups university spin-offs,
  big pharmaceutical companies, and a third group
  that speed up drug discovery and delivery.

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Encouraging Visualization

• Example
• We help with five steps in the clinical trial
  process
• Protocol design
• Patient recruitment
• Data capture and scrubbing
• Analysis and reporting
• Warehousing

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Now Its YOUR Turn

• Lets look at some elevator talks
• Seem positive?
• Focus on solvingproblems that matterin everyday
  life?
• Avoid jargon?
• Explain terms?
• Promote visualizing?

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Sample Elevator Talk A

• Sample talk to analyze
• Well, the title of my dissertation is
  experimental investigation of social support as
  a predictor of emergency preparedness. I am
  looking for a job right now, and I have a lot to
  offer many organizations.

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Sample Elevator Talk B

• Sample talk to analyze
• Youve probably heard of microchips. We use
  them to run all sorts of complex things such as
  your car, satellites, and even pacemakers for
  peoples hearts. Unfortunately, microchips dont
  always work the way they should. I study ways to
  see if they are working correctly.
• (www.eecs.umich.edu/valerie/elevatorTalk.html
  )

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In Summary

• Use CAUSE model to identify obstacles
• Practice your elevator talk. Seek feedback.
• Be enthusiastic
• Realize there are no magic words
• There are better and worse steps
• Your steps will be good ones

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References

• Garry Duncan, How to make your elevator talk a
  floor above the rest. Denver Business Journal,
  Feb. 11, 2005
• Rang, H. P. The drug discovery process
  Elsevierhealth.com (visual in slide 23)
• Rowan, K. E. (1991). Goals, obstacles, and
  strategies in risk communication. Journal of
  Applied Communication, 19.
• Rowan, K. E. (1999). Effective explanation of
  uncertain and complex science. In S. Friedman et
  al. Communicating uncertainty. Mahwah, NJ
  Erlbaum.
• Schneider, K. G. Ontario Library Assn. ComBlog,
• freerangelibrarian.com/archives, Feb. 2005