So far in my brief 10 months of Twittering I have gained friends, business contacts, and even clients. Every one has heard of the “elevator pitch”. You know, the 2 sentences or so that describes what you do quickly and succinctly to potential clients, employers, or investors.

But the proliferation of social networking for business, use of mobile devices and instant messaging, it may be important to shave down those elevator pitches to 140 characters or less.

I believe you should be prepared with a Twitter-style elevator pitch for you or your company. Mine is below. What would yours be? Leave it in the comments and feel free to list a link to your business and a contact number as well.

I’m a direct marketer, creative director, and blogger with a focus on identifying, engaging, and driving action to your profitable customers

P.S. Bonus points if you do it in exactly 140 characters.

A new research from Forrester Research this week said that by the end of 2008, there will be 1 Billion PCs in use worldwide. It took around 27 years to reach the billion mark. But it will take only 5 more years to double that number. This number is cited as being achieved due to “advancing technology, lower prices, and global demand on the part of a technology-aware population.”

Finally, it is estimated that emerging countries like China, India, Brazil, and Russia will account for more than 775 million new PCs in that time. Just sounds like a lot of computers in this world. You might be saying to yourself, “Big deal. I’m not in the tech industry. It won’t affect me.”

Not so fast. Regardless of your field of business, there are two reasons why you do not need to care:
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Communication issues between countries can be more than just verbal and written language. A new study from Hokkaido University in Japan has proven that facial expressions can play a big role in communication as well.

As written by Live Science.org,

Japanese people tend to shy away from overt displays of emotion, and rarely smile or frown with their mouths, Yuki explained, because the Japanese culture tends to emphasize conformity, humbleness and emotional suppression, traits that are thought to promote better relationships.

So when Yuki entered graduate school and began communicating with American scholars over e-mail, he was often confused by their use of emoticons such as smiley faces and sad faces, or :(.

“It took some time before I finally understood that they were faces,” he wrote in an e-mail. In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face (^_^) and the sad face (;_;). “After seeing the difference between American and Japanese emoticons, it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical American and Japanese smiles,” he said.

The study that was performed using computer generated emoticons shown to American and Japanese students can shed some light in how you roll out marketing communication and advertising efforts on a global scale.

Just when you thought you have covered all your bases with language translation and checking you haven’t unintentionally offended foreign sensibilities, you now need to wonder whether your campaign is equally effective in a different country.