<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Ideas and reviews for websites, film, business, products, and design &#187; internet</title>
	<atom:link href="http://socialthumbs.com/category/internet/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://socialthumbs.com</link>
	<description>Microblog your ideas and be discovered</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:52:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1</generator>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
			<item>
		<title>Start-Up Help at Your Local Library</title>
		<link>http://socialthumbs.com/start-up-help-at-your-local-library/</link>
		<comments>http://socialthumbs.com/start-up-help-at-your-local-library/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:23:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>bacecemia</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Public]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[startups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brooklyn-public]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[competition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[council]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[library]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[small-business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[success]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[success-council]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://socialthumbs.com/start-up-help-at-your-local-library/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ A tree grows there, so why not a startup? The Brooklyn Public Library has been running its &#8220; PowerUp! &#8221; program since 2003, and more than 2,400 entrepreneurs have participated. That&#8217;s a lot of saplings that have started their growth using library resources. Maud Andrew of BPL&#8217;s Business Library Programs and Outreach told me their &#8220;Success Council&#8221; came up with the idea and started a competition. Members of the council gave prize money for the first round, and The Citi Foundation was the largest initial donor. In subsequent years, Citi has been the primary sponsor. How is supporting startups part of a local public library&#8217;s mission? &#8220;The mission of BPL's Business Library is to promote economic development for all Brooklyn residents. PowerUp! is a real life example of the important role access to information plays in the success of a business venture. The participants are required to take classes at the library on writing a business plan, doing market research, making financial projections and giving a presentation,&#8221; said Andrew. &#8220;They are required to meet with a pro bono business counselor, get a library card and use the Library's resources.&#8221; The winners certainly benefited from the competition. Stacey Toussaint, President and CEO of Inside Out Tours, Inc. won $15,000 for having a first place plan to launch a &#8220;cultural tourism company, offering bus and walking tours of NYC, specializing in Brooklyn.&#8221; Toussaint said &#8220;The goal of entering and winning the business plan competition gave us an incentive to take classes at BPL&#8217;s Business Library and utilize Brooklyn's small business centers rather than just rely on our own resources. We received training in marketing, creating financial statements, and writing a business plan. We also made valuable connections with other competition participants that have resulted in strategic relationships.&#8221; Runner up Elissa Olin, Founder &#038; Owner of Green in BKLYN , an eco-friendly home goods &#038; gift shop in Clinton Hill said &#8220;The prize money was the most visible and recognized resource. I couldn't have stopped working my "day job" in the months before the shop opened if I hadn't received the award. But an even longer lasting influence on the success of the business has been the media support and coverage. It gave us a leg up and created not only a buzz, but momentum, which has been instrumental in the success of the business in its first and, typically, most difficult year.&#8221; Olin described the experience as &#8220;more work than I could've imagined. If you can start, write and finish a business plan, you end up feeling like you can do just about anything.&#8221; Both report their businesses are running well, with sales up. They're specifically more than 60% higher year-to-year in Olin's case. The future looks bright for library support of entrepreneurs in New York. The NY Public Library and Queens Economic Development Corp. are following the example Brooklyn Public Library has set, and Citi has funded these programs as well. There are business plan competitions in each borough of New York that promote the use of public libraries. Some simple Internet searching turned up libraries all over the US that have resources for start-ups and small businesses as well as plan competitions and connections to college Business Schools. E-books and the Internet may be slowly eroding the original nature of libraries, but it is good to see the smart ones keeping themselves relevant to their community as places of resource, education and economic development. Do you have a local resource people should know about? Share it below. Business - Small business - Brooklyn Public Library - Business plan - Public library ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://socialthumbs.com/start-up-help-at-your-local-library/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Third Apple Founder</title>
		<link>http://socialthumbs.com/the-third-apple-founder/</link>
		<comments>http://socialthumbs.com/the-third-apple-founder/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:46:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AttilaWollein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Public]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[startups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[steve-jobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[zuckerberg]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://socialthumbs.com/the-third-apple-founder/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Wozniak, Jobs, . . . and Wayne? The Mercury News heads to the Nevada desert and catches up with Ron Wayne, " Apple's forgotten founder ." Wayne was recruited by Steve Jobs to mediate disputes with co-founder Steve Wozniak and, in exchange for his help, was given ten percent of Apple's stock, which, today would be worth a staggering $22 billion. But after 12 days with Jobs and Wozniak, who were unable to agree on strategy and had quickly gone into thousands of dollars in debt, Wayne had had enough. He quit Apple, selling back his shares for just $800. The Mercury News finds Wayne living off of social security checks and passing the time in casinos, declaring him "one of the most luckless men in the history of Silicon Valley." Let that be a lesson to you: If Steve Jobs offers to give you 10 percent of his company, definitely do not say no. Want to see Mark Zuckerberg break a sweat? Just ask him about Facebook's privacy policy . New York Times blogger Nick Bilton reported from last night's D8 conference , writing that the 26-year-old CEO was "visibly uncomfortable and sweating profusely" as host Walt Mossberg grilled him about the site's complicated privacy settings. Bilton notes that Zuckerberg he even took off his signature hooded sweatshirt. The most straightforward answer Facebook's leader gave regarding privacy issues was, "There have been misperceptions that we are trying to make all information open...That&#8217;s completely false." But he did take a definitive stance on whether or not he's planning to take Facebook public (he isn't). For now, Zuckerberg said, he plans to fuel the site's tremendous growth by continuing to push the limits. "As companies get bigger people expect you to slow down and do less crazy stuff. I guess I hope we never do that.&#8221; The innovation dilemma. In his latest post, serial entrepreneur, B-school professor, and diagram impresario Steve Blank outlines the difficulties of continuing to innovate as your start-up transitions into a stable mid-size company and then a large company with several hundred employees. "Disruptive innovation in a large company," he writes, "may require processes and individuals that look a lot like those in a startup." Intuit founder Scott Cook has similar, and specific, advice in this 2009 Inc. piece on incubating new ideas while still staying focused on your current business. Is 35 months too long to wait for a patent? U.S. Patent and Trademark Office chief David Kappos think so. To the relief of inventors everywhere, he's proposed a new way to expedite patent applications. If approved. the new three-tier system would allow inventors to pay more (on top of the typical $1,090 filing fee) to bump their application to the front of the approval line. The Wall Street Journal reports that the speedier patent review option is part of an Obama administration effort to ramp up the patent office's capabilities. It could also nudge other government agencies into offering fast-track options, such as the State Department's $60 expedited passport service. How to become an angel. Tuesday's Angel Boot Camp in Boston brought together a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, angel investors, and angels-in-training, for a series of talks about all things angel-related. The most buzzed about panel? Tips on how to become a successful angel investor . If you weren't able to attend, angel investor and tech honcho Don Dodge has a nice recap of the main points of the talk. Among the tips Dodge suggests is investing in people that you know and businesses you understand. He also suggests investing alongside other investors you trust. For those entrepreneurs hoping to land some of that angel investing money, check out our angel investing guide . Can Groupon morph Chicago into a VC hotspot? The top three centers for venture capitalism have always been in California, Massachusetts, and New York, but CB Insights thinks Groupon could change all that. On multiple occasions the state has broken into the top five ranking for dollars invested or deals, with a steady climb over the last four quarters (including a big bump from Groupon). CB Insights then measures how Chicago stacks up against Paul Graham from Y Combinator's thesis about a region needing "nerds" and "rich people" to build a thriving ecosystem for startups. (via peHUB ) Skype and Kazaa founders return to online music. We first told you about online social music service Rdio in October , but today the promising start-up became official. Venture Beat explains that Rdio, founded by serial entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis of Skype internet calls and the Kazaa music service, will store the music you listen to in the cloud, with the benefit of being able to play your music on any device you want. One of Rdio's more interesting features is being able to follow and listen to your friends' purchased music as well. Also unlike iTunes and its 99-cent-per-song model, Rdio (which is currently in a small beta testing program) will offer $4.99 monthly subscriptions for an unlimited number of songs, thought its catalog of songs is about half the size of that of iTunes. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle Follow us on Twitter or Tumblr . Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500&#124;5000 . Facebook - Steve Jobs - Apple - Mark Zuckerberg - Rdio ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://socialthumbs.com/the-third-apple-founder/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How to Master Your Elevator Pitch</title>
		<link>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/</link>
		<comments>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mubimmetemy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[film]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[startups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[daily]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hollywood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[power]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[publishing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[university]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ As Thomas Jefferson said, the most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Perhaps that sentiment has never been more apt than in the age of Twitter. Brevity is an asset online, but in person it can be far more difficult to maintain. After all, no one is going to cut off your impassioned monologue after 140 characters. How do you snag and hold the attention of someone important who has at least 15 other things on her mind? How can you turn a quick hello into a promising business lead without being abrasive? We spoke with authors who specialize in the topic as well as business-communications professors about how to break down your idea into a digestible bite of information and deliver it like a pro. Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Script It and Test It If you have an idea you believe strongly in, talking to people about it probably comes naturally. If you're like most entrepreneurs, it comes almost too naturally, says Chris O'Leary, the author of Elevator Pitch Essentials. That's because you know the logistics, the minutia, and every single component of your business. Guess what? Most people don't care at least about what you're working on hour-by-hour. Potential investors, collaborators, or mentors, might need a mile-wide view before wanting to zoom in. "One of the reasons some people have a hard time with elevator pitches are that some personality types aren't compatible with it," O'Leary says. "Entrepreneurs are so into their idea sometimes that because they care so much they assume that everybody else does too." Whereas the "elevator pitch" as we know it originated as a quick hit a synopsis that can be rambled off in the 30 or 60 seconds an elevator ride used to take these days, it's more like a well-crafted ad than a condensed thesis. Consider your elevator pitch a personal 30-second TV spot: It should be a simple-to-grasp promotion that's catchy enough to not let your viewer think about changing the channel or about walking away. Moreover, your pitch should impress your listener enough to induce the possibility of a future meeting. Think of it as a hook that makes the person you're talking to need to ask "How does that work?" or simply request, "Tell me more." At the very minimum, an elevator pitch should be used as an opportunity to broaden your network of professional contacts. What an elevator pitch is not, says James S. O'Rourke, a professor of management at the University of Notre Dame, is this: "An opportunity to exploit, use, bore, or terrorize someone trapped in an elevator with you." So, remember to be conscientious, O'Rourke says. "Your first objective during an elevator pitch is to get them to like you," he says. "Because if they don't like you, they might just take the stairs next time." To get there, relying on trial-and-error isn't wise. O'Leary suggests sitting down with a pen and paper to hash out your elevator-pitch ideas. "You actually have to put a pitch together - literally script it out," he says. "One of the reasons most people don't put one together is that they try and the first version is terrible. You have to put it down on paper and start revision." Test it out aloud, and enlist a colleague, friend, or mentor, to let you know if it's both comprehensible and engaging. O'Leary suggests that if someone two decades older than you is engaged by it, test it on someone two decades younger. A truly effective pitch can work across attention spans and engagement levels, and will appeal to members of both groups. Master this, and you'll have plenty of time to specialize it in the future. Of course, a close friend or spouse might not provide an unbiased opinion. So Catherine Smith MacDermott, a business professor at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, suggests you further test your elevator pitch with someone in your field or with an expert Recently, she says a pair of local entrepreneurs asked to meet with her, in order to test a pitch before meeting with potential angel investors. "It was really smart that they thought to come to me first," Smith MacDermott says. "I think they have a wonderful new product, but was able to offer them a lot of straight critique of how they needed to work on their pitch." Dig Deeper: How to Make Your Best Pitch Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Use Your Time Well At first, shoot for a 30-second pitch. You can time yourself, or go for about three sentences of content. If you are pitching potential investors, some experts recommend trying to explain how the world will be different in five years if you succeed in what you're doing. If you are instead looking to use the pitch to land customers, MacDermott suggests you focus on describing your technical skills, your transferrable skills, and your personal qualities. Let's say your idea is complex because it involves a new business model or innovative technology. If you can't get your concept down to a sentence, instead squeeze in a basic explanation of your end product or service and if that's tough, go for a metaphor. O'Leary suggests a tactic Hollywood producers have made popular. He calls it X meets Y modelthe movie Cloverfield is Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project, for example. The formulation is designed to give a quick impression of a show or idea based on existing, widely-known, complex works. Say you were starting a social-networking site for pet adoption; it may be pitched as Facebook (or Match.com) for cats, dogs, and the humans who'd like to adopt them. The X-meets-Y formulation seems to narrow the definition at hand, but also remains vague enough to excite the imagination. A modification of that tactic is relating your product or idea to a familiar concept, but negating what it doesn't incorporate. Josh Schwartz, creator of TV show The O.C., has written that it originally was pitched as "The Karate Kid without the karate," which makes no sense on the surface, but if you in fact eliminate the main aspect of the film, you have a Los Angeles-area high school with a new kid in town who's under major culture shock. As a bonus: Once your concept is understood, you've not only built associations that work, but can open up a well of curiosity. If your idea doesn't fit any mash-up, just go with a simple simile. "It's as easy as making toast/sending an Evite/posting a listing on Craigslist." When writing your pitch, use simple language and avoid buzzwords such as "synergy," "monetization," and "uniquely positioned." Everyone has heard just how "customer-focused" everyone else is before. Remember, this is not just a pitch, it's a first impression and being authentic and human is as helpful to your cause as getting across your professional message. Once you have a solid 30-second pitch, develop both a long version (at around 2 minutes, for instances where you have time for a more in-depth discussion something that can be expanded upon should you, say, meet a potential investor on a long airplane ride), and a short version (15 seconds or so, for times you have to introduce yourself to more than one individual at once). Next: Memorize your pitches. "The advantage of committing them to memory is that you're able to read your audience while you're talking to them," O'Leary says. "You've got to rehearse it, but then make it not look canned." O'Rourke stresses the importance of a well-rehearsed pitch. "Even the Major League long-ball hitters step into the batting cage before the game," he says. Dig Deeper: Harnessing the Power of Referrals Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Get to "Tell Me More." The first goal of your meeting (however informal) should be to get another one. So you'll want to have a pitch of an appropriate length prepared for meetings with potential investors, partners, or clients, as well as the ability to tailor it in a few ways for different circumstances and timing. A few basic pointers: Know your target. Who are you talking to? How much do they know about your industry? What do you have in common? What problems might they be facing in their business right now? Can you help them? Stay current. Your pitch will need to change as your business and the technologybehind it evolves. Any formal presentation materials should change with the times, too. You don't want to rely on a PowerPoint presentation that is out of date. Frame your message. An elevator pitch isn't much good if first you don't come across as a credible, likeable individual. To achieve that, remember your business etiquette, O'Rourke says. "The first thing you have to do is introduce or re-introduce yourself. Stick out your hand, and put your face and name back in context for them," he says. "Only then should you explain how they can help you." And after you deliver a pitch, try to give a really brief review of your talents, education, or skill set, "just so the contact knows, yeah this guy is qualified, and I wouldn't be reluctant to introduce this person to someone else," he says. Dig Deeper: How to Talk to the Press About Your Company Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Embracing Alternatives No matter how concise, clever, and useful your pitch is, there will be some people who just won't want to hear it. When you do meet a potential partner, client, or investor in person, remember that if things start to tank, there are other hooks that can renew their interest in you. If the subject of your elevator pitch is about to blow you off, there are two options, which translate roughly to "fight or flight." If you feel like you made a real impression before being cut off, just make sure you get your business card into the hand of your subject before ducking out. If you barely got a chance to open your mouth, just be confident and straight with who you're talking to. "If you're good at pushing on through, if you're not obnoxious about it, just be very specific and ask for two minutes of their time," Smith MacDermott says. If they say no: "Ask is there a better time to talk with you?" If a pitch has been cut short, try to get the person to go to your website to learn more. Another tactic: Simply ask a question. Remember, it's not all about you. You're trying to give a pitch at the moment, but the ultimate goal is to build a solid business relationship. You'll never get there if you don't engage the other person and get them talking about themselves. You should also open yourself up to future networking or re-connecting online, if you can. Plenty of elevator pitching has gone digital, so you should expect to take your pitch to an Internet audience, too. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, for example, handles almost every ounce of his daily business over e-mail . If you can say it in person or over the phone, you can put it in writing be it in an e-mail, or on your website. With the proliferation of social media, you'll have to also know how to make an online pitch one that can be individualized or blasted to 1,000 Twitter followers. "The newer forms of communications and technologies are just reminding us what the rules of thumb are," O'Leary says. "Twenty-five words or less is a very old kind of concept. I think people are getting better at it today they are getting more aware of it online." Dig Deeper: When to Ditch Your Elevator Pitch Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Additional Resources Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. (Random House, 2007.) One of our favorite books on coming up with a winning message by the Heath brothers, who write a column for our sister magazine, Fast Company. Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience by Stephanie Palmer (Broadway Business, March 2008.) Good in a Room is a brand new book that understands successful communication and teaches actual tactics. Stephanie Palmer, a former movie executive, shares her experience listening to thousands of pitches. Much of her direction on how to pitch well is counterintuitive, but it's dead-on accurate. Elevator Pitch Essentials: How to Get Your Point Across in Two Minutes or Less by Chris O'Leary (The Limb Press, September 2008.) How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less by Milo O. Frank. (Pocket Books, April 1990.) Be Sharp: Tell Me About Yourself in Great Introductions and Professional Bios by Paula Asinof and Mina Brown. (BookSurge Publishing, December 2008.) How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Selling Your [Brilliant] Self in Any Situation by Frances Cole Jones. (Ballantine Books, March 2009.) Elevator pitch - Business - Twitter - University of Notre Dame - St. Edward's University ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How to Master Your Elevator Pitch</title>
		<link>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/</link>
		<comments>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jagimmalekago</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[film]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[startups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[publishing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[university]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ As Thomas Jefferson said, the most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Perhaps that sentiment has never been more apt than in the age of Twitter. Brevity is an asset online, but in person it can be far more difficult to maintain. After all, no one is going to cut off your impassioned monologue after 140 characters. How do you snag and hold the attention of someone important who has at least 15 other things on her mind? How can you turn a quick hello into a promising business lead without being abrasive? We spoke with authors who specialize in the topic as well as business-communications professors about how to break down your idea into a digestible bite of information and deliver it like a pro. Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Script It and Test It If you have an idea you believe strongly in, talking to people about it probably comes naturally. If you're like most entrepreneurs, it comes almost too naturally, says Chris O'Leary, the author of Elevator Pitch Essentials. That's because you know the logistics, the minutia, and every single component of your business. Guess what? Most people don't care at least about what you're working on hour-by-hour. Potential investors, collaborators, or mentors, might need a mile-wide view before wanting to zoom in. "One of the reasons some people have a hard time with elevator pitches are that some personality types aren't compatible with it," O'Leary says. "Entrepreneurs are so into their idea sometimes that because they care so much they assume that everybody else does too." Whereas the "elevator pitch" as we know it originated as a quick hit a synopsis that can be rambled off in the 30 or 60 seconds an elevator ride used to take these days, it's more like a well-crafted ad than a condensed thesis. Consider your elevator pitch a personal 30-second TV spot: It should be a simple-to-grasp promotion that's catchy enough to not let your viewer think about changing the channel or about walking away. Moreover, your pitch should impress your listener enough to induce the possibility of a future meeting. Think of it as a hook that makes the person you're talking to need to ask "How does that work?" or simply request, "Tell me more." At the very minimum, an elevator pitch should be used as an opportunity to broaden your network of professional contacts. What an elevator pitch is not, says James S. O'Rourke, a professor of management at the University of Notre Dame, is this: "An opportunity to exploit, use, bore, or terrorize someone trapped in an elevator with you." So, remember to be conscientious, O'Rourke says. "Your first objective during an elevator pitch is to get them to like you," he says. "Because if they don't like you, they might just take the stairs next time." To get there, relying on trial-and-error isn't wise. O'Leary suggests sitting down with a pen and paper to hash out your elevator-pitch ideas. "You actually have to put a pitch together - literally script it out," he says. "One of the reasons most people don't put one together is that they try and the first version is terrible. You have to put it down on paper and start revision." Test it out aloud, and enlist a colleague, friend, or mentor, to let you know if it's both comprehensible and engaging. O'Leary suggests that if someone two decades older than you is engaged by it, test it on someone two decades younger. A truly effective pitch can work across attention spans and engagement levels, and will appeal to members of both groups. Master this, and you'll have plenty of time to specialize it in the future. Of course, a close friend or spouse might not provide an unbiased opinion. So Catherine Smith MacDermott, a business professor at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, suggests you further test your elevator pitch with someone in your field or with an expert Recently, she says a pair of local entrepreneurs asked to meet with her, in order to test a pitch before meeting with potential angel investors. "It was really smart that they thought to come to me first," Smith MacDermott says. "I think they have a wonderful new product, but was able to offer them a lot of straight critique of how they needed to work on their pitch." Dig Deeper: How to Make Your Best Pitch Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Use Your Time Well At first, shoot for a 30-second pitch. You can time yourself, or go for about three sentences of content. If you are pitching potential investors, some experts recommend trying to explain how the world will be different in five years if you succeed in what you're doing. If you are instead looking to use the pitch to land customers, MacDermott suggests you focus on describing your technical skills, your transferrable skills, and your personal qualities. Let's say your idea is complex because it involves a new business model or innovative technology. If you can't get your concept down to a sentence, instead squeeze in a basic explanation of your end product or service and if that's tough, go for a metaphor. O'Leary suggests a tactic Hollywood producers have made popular. He calls it X meets Y modelthe movie Cloverfield is Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project, for example. The formulation is designed to give a quick impression of a show or idea based on existing, widely-known, complex works. Say you were starting a social-networking site for pet adoption; it may be pitched as Facebook (or Match.com) for cats, dogs, and the humans who'd like to adopt them. The X-meets-Y formulation seems to narrow the definition at hand, but also remains vague enough to excite the imagination. A modification of that tactic is relating your product or idea to a familiar concept, but negating what it doesn't incorporate. Josh Schwartz, creator of TV show The O.C., has written that it originally was pitched as "The Karate Kid without the karate," which makes no sense on the surface, but if you in fact eliminate the main aspect of the film, you have a Los Angeles-area high school with a new kid in town who's under major culture shock. As a bonus: Once your concept is understood, you've not only built associations that work, but can open up a well of curiosity. If your idea doesn't fit any mash-up, just go with a simple simile. "It's as easy as making toast/sending an Evite/posting a listing on Craigslist." When writing your pitch, use simple language and avoid buzzwords such as "synergy," "monetization," and "uniquely positioned." Everyone has heard just how "customer-focused" everyone else is before. Remember, this is not just a pitch, it's a first impression and being authentic and human is as helpful to your cause as getting across your professional message. Once you have a solid 30-second pitch, develop both a long version (at around 2 minutes, for instances where you have time for a more in-depth discussion something that can be expanded upon should you, say, meet a potential investor on a long airplane ride), and a short version (15 seconds or so, for times you have to introduce yourself to more than one individual at once). Next: Memorize your pitches. "The advantage of committing them to memory is that you're able to read your audience while you're talking to them," O'Leary says. "You've got to rehearse it, but then make it not look canned." O'Rourke stresses the importance of a well-rehearsed pitch. "Even the Major League long-ball hitters step into the batting cage before the game," he says. Dig Deeper: Harnessing the Power of Referrals Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Get to "Tell Me More." The first goal of your meeting (however informal) should be to get another one. So you'll want to have a pitch of an appropriate length prepared for meetings with potential investors, partners, or clients, as well as the ability to tailor it in a few ways for different circumstances and timing. A few basic pointers: Know your target. Who are you talking to? How much do they know about your industry? What do you have in common? What problems might they be facing in their business right now? Can you help them? Stay current. Your pitch will need to change as your business and the technologybehind it evolves. Any formal presentation materials should change with the times, too. You don't want to rely on a PowerPoint presentation that is out of date. Frame your message. An elevator pitch isn't much good if first you don't come across as a credible, likeable individual. To achieve that, remember your business etiquette, O'Rourke says. "The first thing you have to do is introduce or re-introduce yourself. Stick out your hand, and put your face and name back in context for them," he says. "Only then should you explain how they can help you." And after you deliver a pitch, try to give a really brief review of your talents, education, or skill set, "just so the contact knows, yeah this guy is qualified, and I wouldn't be reluctant to introduce this person to someone else," he says. Dig Deeper: How to Talk to the Press About Your Company Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Embracing Alternatives No matter how concise, clever, and useful your pitch is, there will be some people who just won't want to hear it. When you do meet a potential partner, client, or investor in person, remember that if things start to tank, there are other hooks that can renew their interest in you. If the subject of your elevator pitch is about to blow you off, there are two options, which translate roughly to "fight or flight." If you feel like you made a real impression before being cut off, just make sure you get your business card into the hand of your subject before ducking out. If you barely got a chance to open your mouth, just be confident and straight with who you're talking to. "If you're good at pushing on through, if you're not obnoxious about it, just be very specific and ask for two minutes of their time," Smith MacDermott says. If they say no: "Ask is there a better time to talk with you?" If a pitch has been cut short, try to get the person to go to your website to learn more. Another tactic: Simply ask a question. Remember, it's not all about you. You're trying to give a pitch at the moment, but the ultimate goal is to build a solid business relationship. You'll never get there if you don't engage the other person and get them talking about themselves. You should also open yourself up to future networking or re-connecting online, if you can. Plenty of elevator pitching has gone digital, so you should expect to take your pitch to an Internet audience, too. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, for example, handles almost every ounce of his daily business over e-mail . If you can say it in person or over the phone, you can put it in writing be it in an e-mail, or on your website. With the proliferation of social media, you'll have to also know how to make an online pitch one that can be individualized or blasted to 1,000 Twitter followers. "The newer forms of communications and technologies are just reminding us what the rules of thumb are," O'Leary says. "Twenty-five words or less is a very old kind of concept. I think people are getting better at it today they are getting more aware of it online." Dig Deeper: When to Ditch Your Elevator Pitch Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Additional Resources Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. (Random House, 2007.) One of our favorite books on coming up with a winning message by the Heath brothers, who write a column for our sister magazine, Fast Company. Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience by Stephanie Palmer (Broadway Business, March 2008.) Good in a Room is a brand new book that understands successful communication and teaches actual tactics. Stephanie Palmer, a former movie executive, shares her experience listening to thousands of pitches. Much of her direction on how to pitch well is counterintuitive, but it's dead-on accurate. Elevator Pitch Essentials: How to Get Your Point Across in Two Minutes or Less by Chris O'Leary (The Limb Press, September 2008.) How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less by Milo O. Frank. (Pocket Books, April 1990.) Be Sharp: Tell Me About Yourself in Great Introductions and Professional Bios by Paula Asinof and Mina Brown. (BookSurge Publishing, December 2008.) How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Selling Your [Brilliant] Self in Any Situation by Frances Cole Jones. (Ballantine Books, March 2009.) Elevator pitch - Business - Twitter - University of Notre Dame - St. Edward's University ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How to Master Your Elevator Pitch</title>
		<link>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/</link>
		<comments>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 13:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JeffSchaaf</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[film]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[startups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[daily]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[imagination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[movie]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[network]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[person]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[power]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sister]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[viewer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ As Thomas Jefferson said, the most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Perhaps that sentiment has never been more apt than in the age of Twitter. Brevity is an asset online, but in person it can be far more difficult to maintain. After all, no one is going to cut off your impassioned monologue after 140 characters. How do you snag and hold the attention of someone important who has at least 15 other things on her mind? How can you turn a quick hello into a promising business lead without being abrasive? We spoke with authors who specialize in the topic as well as business-communications professors about how to break down your idea into a digestible bite of information and deliver it like a pro. Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Script It and Test It If you have an idea you believe strongly in, talking to people about it probably comes naturally. If you're like most entrepreneurs, it comes almost too naturally, says Chris O'Leary, the author of Elevator Pitch Essentials. That's because you know the logistics, the minutia, and every single component of your business. Guess what? Most people don't care at least about what you're working on hour-by-hour. Potential investors, collaborators, or mentors, might need a mile-wide view before wanting to zoom in. "One of the reasons some people have a hard time with elevator pitches are that some personality types aren't compatible with it," O'Leary says. "Entrepreneurs are so into their idea sometimes that because they care so much they assume that everybody else does too." Whereas the "elevator pitch" as we know it originated as a quick hit a synopsis that can be rambled off in the 30 or 60 seconds an elevator ride used to take these days, it's more like a well-crafted ad than a condensed thesis. Consider your elevator pitch a personal 30-second TV spot: It should be a simple-to-grasp promotion that's catchy enough to not let your viewer think about changing the channel or about walking away. Moreover, your pitch should impress your listener enough to induce the possibility of a future meeting. Think of it as a hook that makes the person you're talking to need to ask "How does that work?" or simply request, "Tell me more." At the very minimum, an elevator pitch should be used as an opportunity to broaden your network of professional contacts. What an elevator pitch is not, says James S. O'Rourke, a professor of management at the University of Notre Dame, is this: "An opportunity to exploit, use, bore, or terrorize someone trapped in an elevator with you." So, remember to be conscientious, O'Rourke says. "Your first objective during an elevator pitch is to get them to like you," he says. "Because if they don't like you, they might just take the stairs next time." To get there, relying on trial-and-error isn't wise. O'Leary suggests sitting down with a pen and paper to hash out your elevator-pitch ideas. "You actually have to put a pitch together - literally script it out," he says. "One of the reasons most people don't put one together is that they try and the first version is terrible. You have to put it down on paper and start revision." Test it out aloud, and enlist a colleague, friend, or mentor, to let you know if it's both comprehensible and engaging. O'Leary suggests that if someone two decades older than you is engaged by it, test it on someone two decades younger. A truly effective pitch can work across attention spans and engagement levels, and will appeal to members of both groups. Master this, and you'll have plenty of time to specialize it in the future. Of course, a close friend or spouse might not provide an unbiased opinion. So Catherine Smith MacDermott, a business professor at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, suggests you further test your elevator pitch with someone in your field or with an expert Recently, she says a pair of local entrepreneurs asked to meet with her, in order to test a pitch before meeting with potential angel investors. "It was really smart that they thought to come to me first," Smith MacDermott says. "I think they have a wonderful new product, but was able to offer them a lot of straight critique of how they needed to work on their pitch." Dig Deeper: How to Make Your Best Pitch Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Use Your Time Well At first, shoot for a 30-second pitch. You can time yourself, or go for about three sentences of content. If you are pitching potential investors, some experts recommend trying to explain how the world will be different in five years if you succeed in what you're doing. If you are instead looking to use the pitch to land customers, MacDermott suggests you focus on describing your technical skills, your transferrable skills, and your personal qualities. Let's say your idea is complex because it involves a new business model or innovative technology. If you can't get your concept down to a sentence, instead squeeze in a basic explanation of your end product or service and if that's tough, go for a metaphor. O'Leary suggests a tactic Hollywood producers have made popular. He calls it X meets Y modelthe movie Cloverfield is Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project, for example. The formulation is designed to give a quick impression of a show or idea based on existing, widely-known, complex works. Say you were starting a social-networking site for pet adoption; it may be pitched as Facebook (or Match.com) for cats, dogs, and the humans who'd like to adopt them. The X-meets-Y formulation seems to narrow the definition at hand, but also remains vague enough to excite the imagination. A modification of that tactic is relating your product or idea to a familiar concept, but negating what it doesn't incorporate. Josh Schwartz, creator of TV show The O.C., has written that it originally was pitched as "The Karate Kid without the karate," which makes no sense on the surface, but if you in fact eliminate the main aspect of the film, you have a Los Angeles-area high school with a new kid in town who's under major culture shock. As a bonus: Once your concept is understood, you've not only built associations that work, but can open up a well of curiosity. If your idea doesn't fit any mash-up, just go with a simple simile. "It's as easy as making toast/sending an Evite/posting a listing on Craigslist." When writing your pitch, use simple language and avoid buzzwords such as "synergy," "monetization," and "uniquely positioned." Everyone has heard just how "customer-focused" everyone else is before. Remember, this is not just a pitch, it's a first impression and being authentic and human is as helpful to your cause as getting across your professional message. Once you have a solid 30-second pitch, develop both a long version (at around 2 minutes, for instances where you have time for a more in-depth discussion something that can be expanded upon should you, say, meet a potential investor on a long airplane ride), and a short version (15 seconds or so, for times you have to introduce yourself to more than one individual at once). Next: Memorize your pitches. "The advantage of committing them to memory is that you're able to read your audience while you're talking to them," O'Leary says. "You've got to rehearse it, but then make it not look canned." O'Rourke stresses the importance of a well-rehearsed pitch. "Even the Major League long-ball hitters step into the batting cage before the game," he says. Dig Deeper: Harnessing the Power of Referrals Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Get to "Tell Me More." The first goal of your meeting (however informal) should be to get another one. So you'll want to have a pitch of an appropriate length prepared for meetings with potential investors, partners, or clients, as well as the ability to tailor it in a few ways for different circumstances and timing. A few basic pointers: Know your target. Who are you talking to? How much do they know about your industry? What do you have in common? What problems might they be facing in their business right now? Can you help them? Stay current. Your pitch will need to change as your business and the technologybehind it evolves. Any formal presentation materials should change with the times, too. You don't want to rely on a PowerPoint presentation that is out of date. Frame your message. An elevator pitch isn't much good if first you don't come across as a credible, likeable individual. To achieve that, remember your business etiquette, O'Rourke says. "The first thing you have to do is introduce or re-introduce yourself. Stick out your hand, and put your face and name back in context for them," he says. "Only then should you explain how they can help you." And after you deliver a pitch, try to give a really brief review of your talents, education, or skill set, "just so the contact knows, yeah this guy is qualified, and I wouldn't be reluctant to introduce this person to someone else," he says. Dig Deeper: How to Talk to the Press About Your Company Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Embracing Alternatives No matter how concise, clever, and useful your pitch is, there will be some people who just won't want to hear it. When you do meet a potential partner, client, or investor in person, remember that if things start to tank, there are other hooks that can renew their interest in you. If the subject of your elevator pitch is about to blow you off, there are two options, which translate roughly to "fight or flight." If you feel like you made a real impression before being cut off, just make sure you get your business card into the hand of your subject before ducking out. If you barely got a chance to open your mouth, just be confident and straight with who you're talking to. "If you're good at pushing on through, if you're not obnoxious about it, just be very specific and ask for two minutes of their time," Smith MacDermott says. If they say no: "Ask is there a better time to talk with you?" If a pitch has been cut short, try to get the person to go to your website to learn more. Another tactic: Simply ask a question. Remember, it's not all about you. You're trying to give a pitch at the moment, but the ultimate goal is to build a solid business relationship. You'll never get there if you don't engage the other person and get them talking about themselves. You should also open yourself up to future networking or re-connecting online, if you can. Plenty of elevator pitching has gone digital, so you should expect to take your pitch to an Internet audience, too. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, for example, handles almost every ounce of his daily business over e-mail . If you can say it in person or over the phone, you can put it in writing be it in an e-mail, or on your website. With the proliferation of social media, you'll have to also know how to make an online pitch one that can be individualized or blasted to 1,000 Twitter followers. "The newer forms of communications and technologies are just reminding us what the rules of thumb are," O'Leary says. "Twenty-five words or less is a very old kind of concept. I think people are getting better at it today they are getting more aware of it online." Dig Deeper: When to Ditch Your Elevator Pitch Mastering Your Elevator Pitch: Additional Resources Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. (Random House, 2007.) One of our favorite books on coming up with a winning message by the Heath brothers, who write a column for our sister magazine, Fast Company. Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience by Stephanie Palmer (Broadway Business, March 2008.) Good in a Room is a brand new book that understands successful communication and teaches actual tactics. Stephanie Palmer, a former movie executive, shares her experience listening to thousands of pitches. Much of her direction on how to pitch well is counterintuitive, but it's dead-on accurate. Elevator Pitch Essentials: How to Get Your Point Across in Two Minutes or Less by Chris O'Leary (The Limb Press, September 2008.) How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less by Milo O. Frank. (Pocket Books, April 1990.) Be Sharp: Tell Me About Yourself in Great Introductions and Professional Bios by Paula Asinof and Mina Brown. (BookSurge Publishing, December 2008.) How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Selling Your [Brilliant] Self in Any Situation by Frances Cole Jones. (Ballantine Books, March 2009.) Elevator pitch - Business - Twitter - University of Notre Dame - St. Edward's University ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://socialthumbs.com/how-to-master-your-elevator-pitch/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Dynamic Page Served (once) in 0.349 seconds -->
