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SpeedNetworking
Retired Times of India correspondent; associated with a Mysore green group - http://www.fortmysore.blogspot.com/
I have 90 plus LinkedIn contacts,whose contacts add up to 12,800 connections.In SiliconIndia my 60 odd friends account for over 27,000 connections. Notionally, I can network with so many. Snag is, I don't know how to go about sending them messages, without getting deleted as spam. How many us open a message from an unknown ID or forwarded to us by a contact.
I reach for 'delete' tab when I see a chain mail, even though many of the messages sent out are well intended; and the sender believes his mail would interest me.Far too many e-mail users do not want to have anything to do with messages received from an unfamiliar address;there is too much viral traffic.
Spamless and viral-free networking is what Oli Barrett does to promote Global Entrpreneurship Week. He has developed what he terms speednetworking, which is like speed-dating. Mr Barrett puts together in a room some 20 people of varied fields, unknown to one another,and lets them interact among themselves. He carries a whistle, which he blows every three to five minutes. At the blow of whistle each partipant finds someone else to talk with. This way,at the end of the day, each participant would have created a few contacts.
Mr Barrett believes speednetworking gets people talking ideas; it helps them find answers; and brings together people who don't know each other,and want to build connections fast. All you need is a venue, a whistle and a gathering. When you blow the whistle, everyone finds someone to talk to. Blow the whistle every 5 minutes and everyone has to talk to someone new.
You must speednetwork with people you don't know well enough or have never met before. No sticking with the person you arrived with or your buddy! Talk about anything you like! You can speednetwork anywhere - be it at school, college, cafe, or a club.
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