When I was in college the irreverant comic strip Doonsebury was in it’s prime. Because it featured college kids it was a favorite on campus. One frequent story line involved the young college kids workig as polsters during election years and in a particularly memorable line the polster responds to a woman who’d never heard of his candidate with “he’s never heard of you either.”

So, here I am going through that same dance with other startups at AjaxWorld. Sure, Oracle and IBM are here along with a few other industry stalwarts, but a large chunk of conversations between exhibitors is “so what do you guys do?” Ah, the life of a startup.

For startups, how you answer this question is an important decision, it’s your elevator pitch to use the venacular. What three sentences can you string together to convey what you do. If you’re building a faster, smaller, cheaper widget then your answer is pretty simple. On the other hand, if you’re building something new, as we believe 3tera has, then the job gets a little tougher.

Imagine showing a spreadsheet for the first time, a GUI, or maybe a mouse. I’m sure showing the first web browser stretched a few imaginations. Each of these is well understood today, but when first created the developers had to find a way to communicate. You search for a meme you can associate with.

I just did my video interview with sys.con.tv here at AjaxWorld and have a panel session this evening - all preparing for the day when no one will have to ask what we do.