Speed Dating for Business

People undertake a fun, formalized structure for the purpose of boosting their professional network, finding new business and finding the skills and wisdom they need to improve their businesses and careers.

Work tasks it's probably best for: Jobhunting, gighunting (project-hunting for freelancers), finding useful connections within your company, keeping your finger on the pulse of your industry and other industries that will effect yours soon, generalized business networking.

Long description: The session is broken into three parts: a quick introduction period (Phase 1); A speed-dating period (Phase 2) when people repeatedly pair up, trade business cards, introduce one another and state what each can offer and is looking for, then pair up with new partners; and an unstructured mingling period (Phase 3) with coffee and/or cocktails – in Phase 3 each participant can follow up with the people who felt like the most promising “best fits.”

[Moderator guidelines]

    Pre-session preparation: Remind everyone to bring business cards.  Experiment with different group compositions.  Consider the audience: A diverse group from different industries and occupations who don’t usually meet one another might yield serendipitous benefits, and a lot of fun and creativity too, because this breaks people out of their usual cliques.  On the other hand, bringing together people from within the same company or building can be productive; silos tend to form within many large organizations, in the information economy those silos can seriously undermine an organization’s viability in the marketplace and this format can temporarily shrink those walls and connect previously unexplored connections within the organization, like exercising previously dormant synapses in a brain.

        Use an audio tone or other clear signal at the end of each pair chat session, and really enforce that time limit so that everyone gets a chance to meet.

   *Potential improvements to experiment with:

        –Try having each participant introduce herself/himself for one minute to the group just after the introduction, INSTEAD of introducing him/herself repeatedly, at the start of each pair chat. Would this save time in the end?  (I assume it wouldn’t because people would forget most of the introductions and so people would have to re-introduce themselves at the start of each chat anyway.  But this should be tested.)

    Materials necessary (beyond basic kit and these moderator and participant documents): Highly recommended: A set of comfortable tables for two, enough to accommodate everyone.  A prize for the participant voted best.  Optional: Music and some sort of refreshments can help productively break the state and transition between phases.

    Session timeline:

        (:10) Phase 1: Introduction: Participants assemble. Welcome, moderator describes what will happen.

        (:50 for 10 people, :5 per pair chat)  Phase 2: People pair up and each pair chats for 5 minutes. We suggest that each person spends 1 minute introducing herself/himself and describes the main things they’re looking for (advice? an employee? a job? a partner? investors? etc.) and have to offer. Use the remaining 3 minutes chatting in more detail about how you might help one another.

                – One person in each pair moves to the next table to create new pairs.

                – Phase 2 repeated til all potential pairs have met

        (:15) Phase 3: Participants vote anonymously (via our software or papers in a hat) on who was most the most helpful partner.  The participant voted most helpful gets a prize.  (And perhaps a badge or reputation points that appear on their BreakoutOS account?) 

        (:15) Phase 4: Open mingling/chatting period, to give people a chance to follow up with their most promising contacts from the exercise.

Special note: Please adapt the script according to your session’s participants and their goals, and please note any surprises or lessons learned that we might apply to future sessions.

[Participant guidelines]

Welcome!   The point here is to network.  That is: to grow your professional network, to find sharp people who can provide the skills, knowledge and connections you need to succeed, and to boost your reputation by connecting others with people who can help them.  

You’ll get the most out of this if you can greet the people you meet here with business card and a one-minute spoken summary of:

- the most useful and relevant things you have to offer – What are your strongest skills? What other resources do you have access to?  Think of what you bring to the table that probably makes you stand out from the other people here

- the most important things you want to get out of this - advice? an employee? a job? a partner? a mentor? customers? investors? etc.

- bring a pen and paper, and jot down brief notes about the people you meet. That will help you remember them later

Here's an overview of what will happen:

    (:10) Phase 1: Introduction. 

    (:50, :5 per pair chat)  Phase 2: People pair up and each pair chats for 5 minutes.

        – After :10, one person in each pair moves to the next table to create new pairs.

        – This is  repeated til all potential pairs have met

    (:15) Phase 3: Participants vote anonymously on who was most the most helpful partner. The winner gets a prize.

    (:15) Phase 4: Open mingling/chatting period, to give you a chance to follow up with your most promising contacts from the exercise.

[Moderator Script, for 10 participants]