Pitch [anything] in 15 seconds

Read an article about pitching anything in 15 seconds. As a techie, I often find myself caught tangled in details of an artificial problem - spouting off ideas and technical feasibilities.

But life isn’t all about technology and this article is an excellent reminder of how important it is to step back and look at the bigger picture.

{% img full-width /media/pitch-anything-in-15-seconds/universe.jpeg %}

The article explains 3 easy steps to pitch [anything].

Step 1: I really like the Twitter friendly headline. It forces you to simplify and shorten your idea to less than 140 characters.

Step 2: Give three benefits of [anything]. Again, simplicity is king here.

Step 3: Reinforce with stories, statistics and examples.

These three steps can be applied to other things as well. For example, education. What would happen if we design our class around these steps? Cut out the powerpoints and paragraphs. Stick to the bare necessities. Stick to examples and stories.

What if we applied these steps to software design? Too often I see co-workers skipping to programming language specifics or server operating systems before even simplifying what is they need to do (I’m guilty of this myself).

I’m going to jot down these steps and try them out in a upcoming few meetings, I want to see how well they work. Again… to paraphrase…

  • Twitter-like Headline
  • Give 3 benefits
  • Reinforce with stories, statistics and examples
post by K.D. on 08/08/2012