The premise is simple: The elevator door closes and you’ve got a trapped audience–a U.S. Senator, your dean, or Taylor Swift. Unleash your cell phone and sell your science in 60 seconds. You could step off this metaphoric elevator at the ASCB/IFCB meeting in Philadelphia and be handed a new iPad Mini.
The elevator speech has become a “must have” scientific skill, along with gene editing, grant writing, and surviving on Ramen noodles. To polish your elevator oratory, ASCB’s Public Information and Public Policy committees are running an onsite, all-video, mostly-selfies “One-Minute Elevator Speech Contest” at the meeting.
The Public Policy Committee is coaching newbies on the longer, two-minute version of the Elevator Speech at its “Advocacy Toolbox” workshop on Monday, December 8, 10:30 am-12:00 pm, in Room 115C. Once you’ve tuned up at two minutes, you can enter the Public Information Committee’s more streamlined one-minute version by taking a video of yourself and then uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo.
Then go here and fill out the form with the link to your uploaded video. Don’t have the means to record your video in Philadelphia? Come to the Elevator Speech Contest Video Collection Point at the ASCB Booth in the ASCB Learning Center on Tuesday, December 9, 10:00 am -12:00 pm. A camera awaits you. You must be registered for the ASCB/IFCB meeting to enter and to win.
The Elevator Speech Contest finalists will be shown and the winner of the iPad Mini announced at the Celldance premieres, 3:00 pm, Tuesday, December 9, at Theater #1 inside the ASCB Learning Center.
About the Author:
John Fleischman was the ASCB Senior Science Writer from 2000 to 2016. Best unpaid perk of the job? Working with new grad students and Nobel Prize winners.
