What would you say ya do here?

Another great concept that a recent Skipper pushed on our Wardroom (through IW/IDW boards) that I in turn encourage upon my own Sailors is the concept of an "Elevator Speech".

An elevator speech is simply a short, 30 second to 2 minute, speech you have in your brain's back pocket that could be delivered at any single moment of any day with zero preparation.  It's name comes from the idea that by chance you find yourself in an elevator with a executive, VIP, or Flag, and they ask the question... "What would you say ya do here..." there is no awkward silence that follows.  I have also heard it called an "Elevator Pitch" for when you can quickly sell your idea to anyone that will listen.

And as we work in communities where not many of our non-18XX shipmates are privy to many details of our daily work, it is great to have something ready to go to sell and represent the IDC well.

So here's me:

As an Information Warfare Officer, I operate in the Cyberspace domain.  Cyberspace is unique from other traditional warfare domains in that it can be very difficult to visualize or physically be present in the domain.  While our Sailors and equipment operate in and through this domain, they and potentially their effects are physically in the air, land, maritime, and space domains.  It is their actions that dive into Cyberspace through networks both wired and wireless, allowing us to exercise C2 while denying our adversaries the same.

My circle of control as an Information Warfare Officer can be broken into three main pillars: Signals Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Cyberspace Operations.  My personal concentration has been in Cyberspace Operations, which operates on all three layers of Cyberspace: the physical, the logical, and the cyber-persona.

My circle of concern, however, reaches out beyond the bits, bytes, and RF we utilize as our weapons systems.  The Information Warfare Community is just one of four communities in the 18XX that make up the Information Dominance Corps.  Together, our goal of dominating the Information Environment drives everything we do.

And that's that, fairly generic, but easily tailored to a specific audience/environment as necessary.  If nothing else, a great exercise in identifying for yourself what your purpose in your professional life, is.  You can even expand the idea to have a one-floor elevator speech, a 15-floor elevator speech, and even an Empire State Building 102-floor elevator speech.

Give it a try,what tips do you have?  Leave your elevator speech in the comments below!

References
Image: http://www.amazon.com/Office-Space/dp/B000I9YWDO/ref=sr_1_1