Social in Real Space vs Social Networking

January 18, 2008 · Comments

Fake Steve Jobs Last night, I met Fake Steve Jobs. Technically. We shook hands. He retained knowledge of my first name long enough to write it in the appropriate spot during a book signing, and then I was out of slot, and making room for John Wall to get his five seconds with FSJ.

A few times during the night, my friend David Solomont pointed out that he loved this kind of social event, and that social networking would never replace this, and that I should blog about it and give a hat tip to him for the idea. Only, David had the inverse experience that I had related to my typical experience. Here’s what was different.

I Knew Four People There

All of them came from social media connections. One was Tom Summit, who runs a meetup group out of Facebook in the next town. The other was John Wall, a famous local podcaster and new media friend. The other two were through friends I’d met in the new media space. The only four people who I knew, and who knew me, had only heard of me because of online connections first. Oh, and I knew Fake Steve Jobs from his blog.

What Could’ve Helped

I’m betting almost everyone in that room had a web presence. It would have been cool to have access to their web presence ahead of time. Sure, I get not being handed the list of email addresses of people coming. I wouldn’t want MINE given out, either. But what about our sites? What about the URLs? Those can’t be harmful, and they could have helped us know each other ahead of time.

I’m not thinking that Fake Steve and I would suddenly be best of friends, nor do I think he had to know in detail the 150 folks who showed up. But I think that he would’ve enjoyed knowing the folks who had come down to Boston to see him, and I think the rest of us who only got 30 seconds or so in fSteve’s graces (in general) would’ve had lots more to talk about amongst each other.

No, it’s not that social networking replaces good old fashioned meeting of everyone in a space. But in a room with 150 people, filled to the gills, there’s a lot of silly bouncing off each other that happens while trying to find the right kinds of people to met. David Solomont connected me to Steve Woit from Xconomy, but had I known I was running into him, I would have refreshed my memory of one of his employees that I’d met at another event. David also introduced me to Maura Fitzgerald, a cosponsor of the event, and I could have seen more about her business ahead of time.

If YOU are Planning a Mixer

I encourage you to consider ways that your guests can learn about each other ahead of time. It can make all the difference in the world.

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  • Excellent advice, Chris. Of the mixers I've been to in the past few months, having a list of URLs beforehand to get familiar with the people I was going to meet would have helped me put them in context. Instead, they were a stream of friendly faces that didn't entirely stick in my mind except for the people I already knew.
  • To be honest, that's one of my favorite innovations in Bar/Pod/EtcCamps. I spent a good portion of my free time visiting sites listed on the PodCamp Boston site in the days leading up to the event.

    Providing a registration directory of some sort not only makes others aware of the attendees, but it also provides some indication of the event's tone. You may be able to find common ground between a group of attendees that may be outside of the main focus of the event but worth a conversation. For those of us who try to keep on top of this world, it also gives an opportunity to do the classic, "Oh, *that* blogger will be there? I've got a question I've been meaning to ask him/her!"

    I wish more events would do it, too.
  • Yahoo's Upcoming service (upcoming.yahoo.com) would help with this.. or even a Facebook event (though thats obviously more limiting.

    Makes it easy to see who is/might be coming..
  • thanks, timely advice

    I get to know so much more about a person through their blogging efforts, then Twitter helps me to scratch the surface a little more...
  • You with FSJ:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/39132450@N00/22004...

    You are so right, this is the second event this week that I went to in a conscious effort to only do events outside of the new media fishbowl.

    At the bare minimum you need at least a wingman at a new event so that you can get beyond the "weird loner" stigma that leaves you talking to spouses or people who are not really involved with the event.

    Getting a chance to even check out some URLs makes it much easier to find someone you'd like to meet and you can at least upgrade from "weird loner" to "possible stalker".
  • FSJ may be one of the funniest people that has graced blogging ever. You need to google him on YouTube and watch all his interviews.
  • Chris -

    Excellent post. I keep telling sales professionals to do their homework before they go to an event (trade show, conferences, etc)or a first business meeting. If you learn about people in advance and can find something of mutual interest it can help you break the ice and be the start of a good relationship. I'll add one important point - you must be sincere and not just be picking up nano factoids just to get a deal or a connection because most people will see right through it.
  • This is a great idea. The not-so-innovative but still extremely useful counterpart is to bring blog cards to any meatspace networking event you go to. (Moo and Hugh Macleod's are my favorite formats.)

    Since I live in Denver, most of the networking events I go to are not packed with bloggers & folks with a social media presence, but they're all *interested* in that stuff. I also try to follow up by email with any conversations I have, giving a pointer to the blog. I get a lot of fresh eyes and voices that way, which is always cool.
  • I like the way that Oracle approached this. In advance of Oracle OpenWorld, they opened up Oracle OpenWorld Connect, which among other things allowed you to find attendees with interests similar to yours. This allows you to do some advance planning, request meetings, etc.

    Regarding the gathering itself, I'm going to throw out something that is extremely old-tech, but extremely helpful - name badges. I am a name badge geek - one time I was the only person who was still wearing my name badge at the end of a particular social event. Where appropriate, readable name badges in which both the name and the affiliation are prominently listed are essential to allowing people to connect easily.
  • Irony of ironies. Less than one minute after I finished writing the comment above, I received an email from Oracle OpenWorld Connect. Even though OpenWorld ended two months ago, the Oracle OpenWorld Connect site is STILL active, and they're STILL looking for people who may interest me. To me, that's impressive.
  • This past fall my company held a developers conference with a mix of people who'd known each other a long time and some total newbies.

    I decided to set up a site on Ning for conference attendees to "meet" before the conference. It worked very well. The oldtimers got to see which of their friends were going to be there and get in some pre-show chat and planning. The newer folks got a much better sense of what to expect at the conference. Plus, by being able to recognize faces and names when they got to the conference, it made the experience much more friendly.

    All in all, a big success, and I'll be doing something similar again next time.
  • Great post Chris.

    I think that having some idea of who is at an event and what they do can make the event more valuable.

    I've attended a few blogging/tech conferences, and knowing in advance who will be attending and what they do can greatly improve the networking value of the event.

    What makes this post really interesting is that there are SO MANY ways to connect with people prior to an event (Facebook groups/events, Evite, Conference sites, etc) that this should be easy. The technology and platforms are there, we just need to make better use of them....
  • I use Meetup.com for my monthly social networking event, BKLN 2.0, and though not perfect, it does list those who have RSVP'd for the event, and if they choose that attendee has some bio information attached to their RSVP.

    AND simple name tags are essential. its a very simple ice breaker.
  • I think some events do this well, particularly when they have you rsvp on a Wiki with the option of leaving a URL. It should definitely be the standard operating procedure to get people's sites out to the attendees beforehand, I agree!

    And Fake Steve is a great guy to get at an event, I saw him at the PRSA event in Boston in October (? I think?), and he was hilarious and eloquent.
  • Great post, Chris, and great suggestion on giving attendees access to who's coming to an event. It's something we've done with at PodCamp, and it's something I always make sure to do at my Social Media Breakfasts.

    For the SMBs, I use a site called EventBrite, which allows me to choose which fields to publicize to the world (name, company, title) and which fields to keep private and viewable by my eyes only (e-mail address, phone number, etc.).
  • This is awesome. We're also using eventbrite for Podcamp NYC, and it allows you to see who's coming in advance. I think this is critical, because who else is attending is becoming an important factor to me in deciding what events I am going to attend in the first place. Sure, I know there's fun in the surprise, but if I have no idea what's happening at your event in advance, nor who else is coming, really- why should I show up????
  • Hey Chris,

    Great post.

    I completely agree with the idea of creating a "social game plan" for these events. I did this for Gnomedex last summer with the online tool that Chris and Ponzi provided. I didn't use all of the Q&A-type conversation starters ("who would you most like to have dinner with", etc). I just used available email addresses to introduce myself about a week ahead of time and it made a lot of difference by simply breaking the ice.

    -Shannon Ehlers
  • Chris,
    Great advice. There is a Web Innovations Group in Boston that uses Eventbrite (as may do). Anyway, registrants are listed with their URL's. Like you said, that way you can familiarize yourself before you attend.

    Regards

    jimmy
  • Great thought on how to really improve the community and interaction that goes on in live social events.

    Also, thanks for linking to Tom Summit's site. I'm about to graduate college, have been doing startup stuff so far, and have been looking for startup oriented jobs. His site is right down my alley :)
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