How do you do "speed-friending?"
Here's my idea: you use a face-to-face LinkedIn gathering to do "speed-befriending." Just like in "speed-dating," you go from table to table and talk to someone for a few minutes and determine whether there is a match, based on stuff like location, interests, activities and all that. There would have to be a series of rules in place to help keep us from, you know, using the event for dating or recruiting new customers -- which in my mind would be equally bad at such an event. LOLBut after the event, it's up to the folks who make friends to decide what they're going to do next with that. This is, of course, not the same as "speed-networking," in which you are in a room with several numbered tables for four and a moderator rings a bell every 12 minutes. Each person talks about his/her business for 2-3 minutes until everyone has shared. Business cards are traded and when the bell rings you head for the next table.
Contributors: Kelly Karius, Kelli Bond, Bradley Benson, Lisa Van Allen, Linda Fredrick, Justin Trowbridge, Marcella Rousseau, Wilton Alston, and a couple nice anonymous people.
Strengths:
- You can quickly build up a support network; the more exposure you get, the better
- Strong personalities are controlled by the nature of quick meetings
- You can assess what people really want in a couple of tries
- This may attract people with the same types of personality qualities
- You could make snap judgments – making business contacts involves more complex forms
- of decision-making; never mind what it takes to make friends
- The results could "feel weird"
- People lie about themselves; they even lie TO themselves
- You have time to make a bad first impression, but not enough time to make a good one (LOL)
- This may attract people with the same types of personality qualities (LOL)
- This may increase communication between neighbors; it’s "networking practice"
- This may open up unforeseen mentoring opportunities
- It can really be done anywhere – though would you want to?
- Some may find a potential friend "creepy."
- Some may try to use the meeting to drum up business
- May involve a complicated setup like using a central person to hold on to the contact information
- You need carefully planned rules to prevent attendees from trying to sell something
- May require each round of meeting people to involve a central topic; you may need a next level to give people a chance to consider one another more carefully; you may also need a quick exit (LOL)
- Be prepared to follow up, make coffee dates, and get permission to add folks to your newsletter/ezine/blog
Labels: recommendations
posted by Ron @ 8:46 PM
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