Did You Hear the One About the Privacy Officer Who Walked into an Elevator?

Privacy is a many-faceted topic, and the privacy profession is relatively new, so privacy officers regularly hear the question, "What does a privacy officer do?" Having a short elevator pitch at the ready prevents those awkward moments when the elevator reaches your companion's floor but you haven't finished reciting your lengthy job description. The elevator pitch is a handy tool to bring to any professional gathering, but feel free to try it at the dog park, too. (Your mileage may vary with Rover.)

UC Berkeley Staff Career Development Lead Terrie Moore offers the following tips for crafting an elevator pitch:

• Aim for a 30-second initial pitch that you can extend into a discussion as time allows.
• Draft a checklist of bullets rather than a script to keep your pitch fresh.
• Start with your professional identity. (This may not be the same as your job title!)
• Describe the types of people and environments you work with or in.
• Include one thing that is unique about your professional work — e.g., your passion.

Here is a sample elevator pitch to use as a model for your own:

• Name, professional identity: "Hi, I'm ___________, your campus privacy officer." (If off-campus: "I work in privacy in higher education.") ["Hmm? What does a Privacy Officer do?"]
• Tag line: "It's my job to protect and promote our campus privacy values."
• Why (value): "Privacy is especially important in a setting like ours, where we have a mission to experiment with and challenge the status quo. Creativity requires time to develop and freedom to take risks. Privacy makes that possible."
• How and what (people and responsibilities): "I partner with staff all over campus — information security, healthcare, registrar, legal, IT, as well as faculty and students — to develop and implement policy, conduct outreach, comply with regulations, assess privacy risks, handle complaints, and design campus practices that ensure we use personal information responsibly." ["Oh! That sounds like interesting and important work."]
• Timeliness: "Now is a particularly exciting time to be in privacy because of emerging technologies and growing concerns about creepy or invasive data practices."
• Passion: "I'm personally interested in the overlap of privacy and social justice — how minority groups often face unwarranted surveillance."
• Connecting: "I'd love to talk with you more about safeguarding privacy in your department. May I schedule some time for us to chat?"

Oh, and the one about the privacy officer who walked into an elevator? You wouldn't have heard of it because she made sure surveillance records were appropriately restricted at her university.

(Ba da bum!)

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Lisa Ho is the Campus Privacy Officer at the University of California, Berkeley.