Why every scientist needs an elevator pitch (and tips on writing your own)
Have you ever been on an elevator (a.k.a - a lift) and had someone turn and ask you “what do you do for a living?” If the answer is no then you have lived a relatively normal life. While this scenario sounds ridiculous but it is the core concept behind the “elevator pitch.” It is the pitch you make when you are selling a product/service, or when you want someone to invest in your idea, and only have a short period of time to convince them, say the time it takes for an elevator to get to the top of a building. The person doing the pitch might be selling a new type of fidget spinner (“this one has lasers”), trying to convince you to switch brands (“we use lasers”), or a writer promoting his latest sci-fi novel (“it’s all about lasers”).
The odds you’ll need a literal elevator pitch are slim, but we’ve all been at a party and had some ask “so what do you do?” When this happens you have two options: option 1 - give a sensible coherent answer that informs and impresses the person you are talking to. Or in my case you option 2: panic and say “science…” then laugh awkwardly. The same thing can happen at a conferences when someone asks “what is your PhD about?” Despite being a PhD for 3 years and attending several conferences I’m amazed how often I stumble and stutter only to end with “so…these bacon wrapped shrimp are delicious.”
In my experience you can’t trust your future self to come up with a good answer on the spot. I find that situations like these are easier if you have a scientific elevator pitch ready to use when you’re at a party or a conference†.
† I’m currently writing this in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic so parties and conferences are a thing of the past. But it’s still worth having an elevator pitch ready –you’ll just be using it over the internet rather than in person.
The benefits of a good pitch
Some jobs are self-descriptive - when I was a teenager I helped my mother deliver takeaway food (she drove, I dropped the food off). That job was easy to describe. Other jobs are harder to explain and as a PhD student when you’re put on the spot you feel like you have to describe every component of your research in only a few sentences. This situation is a lot easier if you plan ahead and know what you’re going to say. That’s the main reason to write your own scientific elevator pitch; but it’s certainly not the only reason.
Firstly, making your own pitch is a chance to practice your communication skills. As a scientist it’s your job to communicate your results to other people. No one else is going to do it for you. You might be giving a conference talk, presenting a poster or telling you supervisor what progress you have (or haven’t) made in the last month. No one knows your work like you - this means no one can sell your work like you. Creating and using an elevator pitch is your chance to sharpen those skills.
Secondly, making your own pitch forces you to look at the bigger picture. When doing research it can feel like your work is all that matters, but you have to understand how it fits in with your field as a whole. How does what you do help the field progress? Why is your research important for society? Who can benefit from your work? Answering these questions requires a birds eye view of your research. Writing an elevator pitch forces you to take this perspective. Once you have answered these questions, and can articulate them to others, you will have a better understanding of your research. How can you become an expert in the field without looking at the bigger picture?
What does a good pitch need?
I’ll be honest I don’t think there is a perfect pitch (and if there is I certainly can’t help you write it) but there are a few key elements that will help you structure your own scientific pitch. You want whoever you are talking with to walk away feeling like they learned something. To achieve this you need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Ask yourself: what would I want answered if someone was telling me about their work? There is no definitive answer but these are some questions you'll want to try and consider:
o Who you are – What is your role; are you a post-doc, a PhD student, or if you’re talking to someone outside of academia do you want to just call yourself a researcher?
o What is your general area of research? Some areas of science have wonderfully long and confusing names; my PhD will officially be in Advanced Therapeutics and Nanomedicine. That always feels like a mouthful so when I’m talking about my work I narrow my focus and say “bioelectronics”. You don’t want to over complicate it; people might stop listening before you’ve finished the first sentence.
o Define your area – don’t just state your area of work, put it in context. You might think that everyone has heard of your area of work “what do you mean you don’t know what advanced nanospectroscopy is?” Don’t risk making any assumptions. This is especially true if you’re talking to a non-scientific audience e.g. family and friends. This is a good opportunity to use an analogy to help make your work easy to understand.
o What problem do you solve? Are you solving a problem or trying to find something new? Tell them the question that your work will answer. “Currently all lasers suck – my laser will be better” or “the planet is slowly dying – I’m trying to stop that.” The answer doesn’t have to be dramatic but in my experience humour always helps.
o Why is your solution better than someone else’s? – The previous question helped the audience understand why you do what you do (to solve a specific problem). Now you need to tell them how your approach will solve this problem, and why you’re doing it that way. Maybe you use a new technology, you have more accurate equipment or the people before you were just stupid. Now is the chance to tell them why your work is cool/interesting/impressive (insert appropriate adjective).
An elevator pitch doesn’t need a checklist. It all depends on who you are talking to and what you are talking about. When talking to an expert in the field you don’t need to define your area instead you would focus on why your work is important. The opposite is true for your parents; they don’t know much about your field so you might need to spend more time giving them context, otherwise they will struggle to understand why you do what you do.
Where to start with your own pitch
This might seem counter intuitive but a good place to start when writing a pitch is Wikipedia. It’s not the most reliable or accurate source for advanced scientific knowledge but it does provide a good overview. If a fact is important enough to be on Wikipedia it might be worth mentioning in a pitch. When I wrote my own pitch, about Bioelectronics, I used pacemakers as an example of the most common bioelectronic technology. Guess where I found most of the information on pacemakers – Wikipedia. I’m not saying trust everything you read but a lot of the facts on Wikipedia are a good starting point.
The second reason to use Wikipedia is the “in popular culture” section. Not all entries have this but it can be helpful if your area of research does. This section lists movies, TV shows, and general pop culture content which references that topic. This can be a good starting point because you can steal some of the references for your pitch. For bioelectronics I use examples like Terminator, Star Wars and a ton of video games from the last decade. All of them feature some kind of cyborg/bioelectronic device. My pitch usually has this line:
“In bioelectronics we’re just a few years away from cyborg soldiers, bionic limbs and self-healing nanobots. We haven’t made a Terminator yet - but we’re on our way there”
In my work I’m trying to combine biology and electronics, thanks to pop culture most people think they know what that means. I try and use that and put my work in context that people can relate to. It works more for some areas of science than others – look at what movies like Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian have done for public interest in space travel. I think this is the key to a good pitch – combine what people already know with what you want to tell them. This will help them understand what you’re talking about, but it will also make them more likely to remember what you’ve told them. If you make this your starting point when writing your own pitch you can build the rest around that foundation.
Tips for writing your own pitch
I wrote my first draft a little under a year ago and if I’m being honest I’ve only needed it a handful of times. But before you run off to write your own pitch (I know you can barely contain your excitement) I have some suggestions that I have learned from the few times I have used my own pitch:
1. Don’t memorise your pitch word for word – There is a difference between having a rough plan and reading from a script. You want to sound confident and natural, not pre-written and rehearsed (easier said than done I know – it comes with practice, I promise).
2. Know your audience – your pitch should be flexible and will need to change depending on the audience. When I talk about my work with my grandparents it’s very different than when I talk with my supervisor (obviously if one of your grandparents is your supervisor then ignore this suggestion)
3. Have fun – a pitch is not supposed to be difficult, and you might not see the benefit of having one. You can read this article and immediately forget the concept of a scientific elevator pitch, that’s fine I won’t hold it against you. I enjoyed writing my own pitch and when I’m asked about my work I can now answer confidently and come away feeling like I did a good job rather than like I made a fool of myself. But not everyone will feel that way. If you don’t enjoy doing it - don’t waste your time.
When I wrote my pitch it took about an hour of googling, writing and editing. Since then I open the word document once a month and spend 5 minutes going over it; adding new information or changing a bit don’t like. For me it’s worth the investment; hopefully you’ll feel the same way and give it a go. If you do decide to write your own scientific elevator pitch I look forward to hearing it one day (once the world is back to normal and we’re allowed to get in elevators with strangers again).