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Speeddating...
Yesterday I went speeddating (Thanks Hullabaloo for the tip)
Now I know what you think: speeddating, isn't that that crazy thing where you get to speak with 200 people in less than 2 hours and and up with a lover in your bed?
But this was speeddating for networking: an alternative way to enlarge your network in a fast way.
I thought it was kind of interesting to go and to check it out.
And indeed, you get to speak to your talking partner for 6 minutes and then it switches.
I think it is an easy opportunity to leave the crap, to go to the core idea, to meet interesting people and if you see some possibilities in common, you can meet afterwards.
My father used to go to 'Rotary', he spent long hours in an expensive restaurant, spent loads of money on food, and got to know some people. But it was always the same inner-crowd.
The other alternative was to go to a reception of something and start talking to people, but mingling isn't always that easy, and you get very quickly into again your same inner-crowd circle.
The newer generation thinks different. We want it fast and we want to cut the crap.
I don't want to spend loads of money in sitting somewhere, eating too many calories, and maybe end up with nothing.
I want interesting contacts, and I want to eat one to one in a next meeting, when it's worth it ;)
And if the speeddating ends up with no real contacts, nothing bad happened.
The concept was interesting and it was too bad I had to leave early.
I had expected more IT-related people, and less KMO's that had few in common with internet. (The evening was announced with a speech on ICT)
But then again, KMO's are also possible clients, so in overall it was fun.
I wouldn't be surprised if one day marketing companies like i-merge might organize this stuff in a alternative, nice and light way.
You might argue they might loose clients, I would say they'd probably win...
Posted on December 9, 2005
in Living in Belgium
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Comments (7)
Comments
After attending a few of these speeddating events, you'll find that it is also always the same inner-crowd... Been there, done that.
I'll invite you to one of the JCI ( http://www.jcigent.be ) meetings one day ;)
Posted by bart | December 9, 2005 2:55 PM@bart: Right remark. but then again, everything gets boring.And then new things are born.
As long as you explore the whole country or beyond, I think there are places to meet.
It's like a bloggersmeeting: same inner-crowd
Love the idea of champgen at JCI ;)
Posted by ine | December 9, 2005 3:06 PM@Bart: Did it bring you some jobs?
Posted by ine | December 9, 2005 3:07 PMIf so, I guess it can be called succesful.
hey Ine, what a great idea. Let's talk about it at our web2.0 seminar ;-)
The only problem we'll have to deal with is that, when introducing your idea to our creative department, we'll have to give them about an hour for coming up with very cool, but rather useless ideas, in which there will be lot's of medieval battles, lovemaking metaphors, funny dances, etc... but we might end up with a good formula.
I personally think that speeddating should not be conceived as an event as such. It should rather be integrated in business events. e.g. in stead of attending a workshop between 2 and 3PM, you do the speeddating session, which will off course be called: "introduction jams" or something like that, because most people will get intimi-dated by the word dating.
Posted by Tom De Bruyne | December 10, 2005 6:56 AMTom,
Posted by Bart | December 10, 2005 11:33 AMGood concept. The speedbusinessdating concept is used extensively by JCI - and always embedded in other events.
Take a look at: http://www.go-event.be .
@tom: indeed the same idea I had. It fits perfect into thngs like seminars or other stuff, as something aside. People can participate if they want to but don't need to.
See you @ the seminar. I was so free to push some other interesting people ;) to come along (see Peter, Bart and Bart)
Posted by ine | December 10, 2005 1:47 PMI know, i've already seen it in the database of subscriptions. All people i'm very curious to meet for a long time.
Posted by Tom De Bruyne | December 10, 2005 3:29 PM