10 Ideas for Creating New Connections
- “Dinner from around the world” club – invite 5 people you know (who don’t know each other) from different countries to dinner, each person has to bring a dish from their home country.
- “Degrees of connectivity” – choose a country at random from a world atlas; choose a city at random from that country. The aim is to get connected to someone who lives in that city. Ask someone you know if they could connect you with someone who might be able to help etc. Capture and publish all new connections made.
- Build a website where people can post their networking requests (i.e. who they would like to get in touch with and why), and other people can come along and see if they can help out. You can earn points/credibility by creating connections, or lose credibility by only asking for help and not helping others.
- “Speed networking” – organize event at a bar, anyone can sign up, you get 2-3 minutes to introduce yourself and then move on to the next person.
- “Business card raffle” – find a location to collect business cards (can even just be bit of paper with contact details) i.e. coffee shop. When enough cards have been collected, pair people up randomly who then have to meet over coffee. Make sure rules are clear for people who leave their cards.
- “Virtual business card raffle” – for a group of interested people i.e., a LinkedIn or other group, pair them up randomly and the pairs have to contact each other and learn more about each other by email / skype / phone etc.
- “Pay it forward coffee” – offer to pay for coffee for the first person who responds to a post / blog / tweet etc. Meet up and get to know them. They pay you back by doing the same thing etc. Capture all new connections made on a simple website (could be quite cool visually).
- “Pop-up networking” – in fairly central public area, create pop-up event around lunchtime where anyone can drop by to meet other people. Consider having a specific theme to help target to right individuals i.e., tech, sports, bloggers etc.
- Create a website / Linkedin / Facebook group for your area where people can publish the biggest challenge they are currently trying to solve (professional, personal project, life goal etc.). Others can come along and contact if they think they can help.
- Build an app that lets people capture their route to work and/or other routes they frequently take; publish anonymized route maps; let other people place geo-tagged requests for knowledge, skills etc.