What is your "elevator" speech on ephemera?

[Mike Ferguson]

Being a consultant, I have to use buzz words...it's expected. How does someone know you're a real consultant? Because you use buzzwords and phrases. One of those buzz phrases is "elevator speech." The idea is if you're on an elevator with someone for a just a minute or less, how do you effectively describe your company or your job or your product or your qualifications or whatever it is you want them to take action on or understand.

It's a useful concept that can help the chronically verbose, like me, focus on getting an idea across efficiently.

So my question is: what is your elevator speech for ephemera? Imagine you get into the elevator with someone while at the Ephemera Show and they see your attendee badge and they ask, "Ephemera? What's that and why would anyone be interested?"

Then you say...

[Gary Roberts]

Our elevator is only four floors. So I would have to speak real fast.

What is ephemera and why should anyone be interested in it?
Ephemera is "here today, gone tomorrow" and missed later on for the stories it could have told.

[Gejus van Diggele]

First I would check how many floors the building has and on what floor the person like to get out. Ephemera is the history of daily life, reflected on ordinary paper objects, documents that were not considered as documents at the time. Ephemera is yesterday's paper, last year's catalogue, used stamps, a user's guide for a long disposed machine, a business card for an out of business company. So ordinary that nobody thought of recording and archiving it, so the ordinary became extraordinary. Ephemera is a view on life in the past, as seen from the bin.
"Ting"
Thanks for listening. Have a nice day.