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What do you do? Interesting how often this question is asked and the answers that are provided, with some people so immersed in their organisation and their role that they have become unable to provide an explanation in clear and concise language. It was a question asked a fair amount this morning at the Rushcliffe Business Network but to give attendees credit, everyone was fairly adept at soundbite responses. The Chief Reporter on my first newspaper would always ask interviewees to imagine themselves in the pub (which for this Chief Reporter was not difficult because that was his office all day inbetween times when he had the inconvenience to have to occasionally visit the court or the newsroom) and ask them to explain their story to their best friend. Imagining this scenario would invariably help the interviewee tell the story in plain, jargon-free language and would help them get to the point an awfully lot quicker. I tried this visioning approach on clients from the non-profit sector recently as they were having difficulty explaining what they did in a succinct and meaningful way. ‘Imagine you’re sitting down for your Christmas meal and your mother or grandmother asks you ‘what do you actually do?” I asked, to which the reply was: ‘Well, I wouldn’t be talking about work on Christmas Day.’ Fair point.