A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation at Boston College on how to use video to drive employee engagement. (I’ll be sharing the presentation on RHR soon)

At the event, Jill Braceland of MITRE talked about something pretty cool that they do there: Speed Networking.

Speed Networking is exactly what it sounds like – speed dating for the business world!

Here’s a video of Jill explaining it in her own words:

Here’s how it works:

1. Set up two rows of chairs, with the chairs facing each other.
2. Have everyone sit in a chair.
3. Ring a bell. People have 5 minutes to chat.
4. Ring the bell again. Everyone moves one chair to their right.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until everyone has met everyone.

They actually ran a demo at the event. It was pretty cool.

There’s a tendency for people to stay close to people they already know or first met at networking events. Speed Networking forces you out of your comfort zone and helps get conversations started.

What it’s not good for is actually have discussions. I’d recommend building in a one-minute buffer for people to swap contact info. During the demo we did, you immediately moved over a seat, and there were a few people who’s info I didn’t have time to grab.

Still, a really cool idea that you may want to try at your organization!