So you have a lot to say about your favorite organization and little time to say it? Try creating an "itty bitty messaging guide" like the one that our friends at the Initiative for Global Development give to their trustees and staff and members.

The guide is simply printed as a booklet that fits in the breast pocket of a shirt or inside a wallet. (If you love the finer things, like the New York Metropolitans Baseball Club, it's about the size of a Mets pocket season schedule.)

The itty bitty guide starts with a simple description of the IGD that doubles as a mission statement, written in nicely accessible language. Then it expands one sentence at a time into what is in effect an "elevator speech" for a five-floor ride, a ten-floor ride, and then a deluxe version that might take thirty floors. Finally, it has a more conversational version and some tips for personalizing the user's pitch.

I have it only in hard copy and so for now can only share the idea, not the thing itself. (But maybe our friends at IGD would make it accessible online and send us a link.) It's a great way to inspire the chronically verbose to tighten it up and achieve vertical eloquence. 'Nuff said.