elevator spiel
n.— «The art of the pitch boils down to what we call “the two-minute elevator spiel.” You’re on your way to your office, and you’re riding the elevator. The doors open, and the CEO gets on. As the doors slowly slide shut, she turns to you and asks, “What are you working on that makes a difference to this company?” Her eyes bore into you. You’re alone in the elevator with the biggest of the big cheeses, and you’ve got two minutes to tell her exactly why your project matters.» —“The Wow Project” by Tom Peters Fast Company May 1, 1999. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...