Do I have your attention? If I do, how long do you think I could keep you interested? 30 seconds? 1 minute? 2 minutes? One thing is certain: if you don't have a well-honed pitch that you can deliver in about 2 minutes, you're missing an important opportunity to communicate the value of your organization and its mission.
At this years NetSquared conference in San Jose, I watched 21 organizations make their pitch. They had only 2 minutes to explain what they do. The stakes were high. Each organization was a contender in the NetSquared Mashup contest and stood to gain substantial technical and monetary support.
You never know who you're going to meet, so the question is this: can you pitch your work in 2 minutes? If not, start drafting one and practice giving the pitch with colleagues and friends to get feedback.
My favorite pitch was given by Peter Deitz and Christine Egger of Social Actions. They took a unique conversational approach. The whole conversation is only 1 minute 32 seconds long. It's just awesome. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Update: What a difference a good pitch can make! I wrote this post last night, but I just found out that Social Actions WON!!! So if you have a chance, check out www.socialactions.org and congratulate them. Specifically, the pitch and their great work won them third place in the NetSquared Mashup challenge and one of only two prizes in the NetSquared Donate Now Challenge, sponsored by the Case Foundation. Last week, Social Actions also participated as a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge.
