Small talk at a party is not everyone's favourite activity. It can be hard work. Getting a conversation going is difficult. The usual opening question "What do you do?" is often surprisingly difficult to answer for some people. But it's vital if you want to carry on the conversation.

If you answer it with something vague or mumbled, it is likely that the person asking the question will switch off and go and talk to someone more interesting. If you answer it with something simple, exciting and intriguing, people will ask you more about that you do. Even if you think what you do is dull, don't presume that other people will have the same opinion. 

MMT Digital has just been through this exercise. The business has been going for over ten years now and it has been through several changes in that time. One of the most challenging aspects of what we do is differentiating ourselves from the hundreds, if not thousands of other web designers and developers in the market. 

Web design and development is a large part of our business, but it is not the biggest part of how we spend our days. Most of our business comes from helping our clients to transform their analogue content (e.g. books, text books and magazines) into dynamic, easily searchable digital versions which are accessible through the internet, devices and applications. 

 

So, when we are asked by anyone now "What do you do?" we can answer them far more clearly than we could before. Our answer is "We help clients with digital product design, consultancy and web site solutions. We specialise in the publishing, non-profit and public sector".

Of course, it's polite to ask "How about you? What do you do?". It is interesting to hear how clearly people can explain what they do or not. It really does make a difference to whether you want to carry on with the conversation or not. 

And if you want to read about what someone else thinks about this topic, Bill Taylor at the Harvard Business Review has written an interesting post called "What's Your Company's Sentence?" which sums up the challenge nicely.