Keep them coming...you guys have some great ideas. Thank you!
Dear Julie,
what we sometimes do - and I'm not sure, if it helps you here; but maybe it's an inspiration - is that we ask people to place themselves in the room around a specific center, i.e. geographically (where were you born? where do you live?)
this is often done as introduction and the people see each others, where they are located in the room. It might also work out, if you let them place themselves in a kind of portfolio (Business - education and local and internalinal as two axis) or how they are interested in things and so on.
I'm not sure, if this helps you but maybe you get a new idea, what might work.
If you do somethign like that, please let me know, how it worked.
Best regards
Thomas
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The technique below I've used with 20-30 people so not sure how it will scale; it may spark your thinking.
Quick Way to Map Who is in the Room
http://www.ndcollaborative.com/blog/item/networking-map
This is a nice one to complement other person to person introductions. You put up big pieces of white paper with the questions you want to connect people on. People add in topics and put their name next to it. Others add their name to existing topics or add new ones. These stay on the wall & people can keep adding and referring back to it to find others they'd like to connect with.
Beth
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Hi, everybody! I agree that name tags can actually help with networking throughout an event. With more professional clients or events, they’ll likely want pre-printed name tags. If you have a lot of people signing in at the same time, pre-printed helps speed the process up a bit. Plus you can make sure the name tags are legible (large first name, smaller last name), add the person’s organization, add your logo, etc.
One thing we’ve done at most NCDD conferences is to offer a whole slew of different badge ribbons that people can attach to their name tags. Many people want to add their “sponsor,” “presenter,” “member,” etc. ribbons — but some really have fun with it and add a whole bunch of ribbons. We always order fun ones like “Philosopher,” “Runs With Scissors,” etc. And we’ll get special ones made for programs we’re running that particular year, like a “Youth Dialogue” program, and to help people know when someone is a “New Member” or “First Time Attendee” so they can help show them some ropes. They’re good conversation starters (“What session are you presenting?”) as well as giving quick glimpses at some things people want to know immediately.
I wanted to share that link because this little detail has always worked well for us. But in terms of Julie’s original question about alternative ways to do introductions, we’re always looking for new ideas for high-energy, effective introductions as well, so I’m very interested in these ideas that are being shared!
One activity I like for the beginning of an event is a “birds of a feather” style networking session. It’s a “light” version of Open Space. Attendees can identify what topics they’d like to meet others with shared interest around (dialogue in the classroom, trans-partisan dialogue, working with local government, etc.) and then meet for a while, not so much to dig into the topic, but to meet each other and hear what people are working on. Doing this early in the event increases the likelihood they’ll have more time to connect further later on.
At one of our conferences, we had attendees pre-identify the topics they’d be most interested in connecting with others around, had one of our graphic recorders create a gorgeous map (attached) of where each conversation would take place in the room, and had conference attendees decide where they wanted to sit when they arrived at the conference based on those topics. The tables were identified with signs with the topic name on them as well, of course. And we left some tables with blank signs so they could identify additional topics as needed in real time.
This isn’t exactly what Julie was asking for (identifying accomplishments and mapping them), but I wanted to share it anyway! :) I’m very interested to hear people’s ideas about mapping accomplishments or areas of work.
Two more quick things…
1. In case it’s helpful, my friend and colleague Tree Bressen wrote a great paper outlining different processes that can be used to design transformational conferences. It’s downloadable at
http://ncdd.org/rc/item/4093. It’s great to use for inspiration and new ideas.
2. On Tuesday the 29th, NCDD’s next confab call (interactive conference call) is on how to design effective, high energy closing sessions — especially for larger events. You’re all welcome to join us if you’re interested. Tim Merry from AoH is one of four NCDD members who will be serving as conversation starters on the call. Lisa Heft is another you may be familiar with; she’s known for using Open Space and other AoH-friendly methodologies. More info is up at
http://ncdd.org/15436 on that confab. But I wonder if a call on networking strategies for events would be another good confab topic to do soon. We always do a lot of different activities to promote networking at NCDD conferences (structured as well as non-structured networking opportunities), but I always feel like people want even more networking. Let me know if you’d be interested in seeing this kind of topic for one of the calls, or perhaps serving as one of the conversation starters if you have a lot of experience in this realm.