Alan LevineYou enter a large ballroom or conference venue, full of groups of people having interesting conversations. Many people you know, quite a few you do not. Do you expect to be part of every conversations from start to finish? Do you mill about seeing where you can drop in? Do you rely on people later to tell you what you heard?
Dan Blickensderfer@cogdog Full disclosure: After milling about I go back to the hotel room and fire up Twitter. Except for that one valuable time I sat in a rocking chair with Chuck Pearson and @Readywriting. #OpenEd16
Christina Hendricks@Dan_Blick @cogdog @Readywriting @cogdog I mill about for a little while with a drink and search desperately for people I know while trying not to sip too quickly that one free drink I get. Then I talk to a couple of people I know and they leave and I look desperately around again and see no one I know so like Dan I go to my comfy corner of social media.
Kate@clhendricksbc @Dan_Blick @cogdog @Readywriting I stand like a secret service agent frowning implacably at the crowd till my free drink is done, and then I flee with indecent haste. I am absolutely the most rubbish at this.
@mahabali knows that this is why the assumption of conference networking as a social bonus makes me wary. For introverts it really often isn't. I have a capacity for it measurable in minutes.
Maha Bali مها بالي@katebowles @cogdog @Dan_Blick @clhendricksbc @Readywriting
I had been wanting to ask u, Kate, for advice on how u manage intimacy in crowds. Maybe it is because u generally prefer small off-spotlight social interaction it comes naturally to you?
Thing with me is, I really crave what I called "DMing in person" when I had private time w @Jessifer here in Cairo while others were in sessions. That kind of time is what I seek in conferences. Not the public networking aspect (tho that is ok too)
I had been wanting to ask u, Kate, for advice on how u manage intimacy in crowds. Maybe it is because u generally prefer small off-spotlight social interaction it comes naturally to you?
Thing with me is, I really crave what I called "DMing in person" when I had private time w @Jessifer here in Cairo while others were in sessions. That kind of time is what I seek in conferences. Not the public networking aspect (tho that is ok too)
@mahabali @cogdog @Dan_Blick @clhendricksbc @Jessifer @Readywriting So back to this question of intimacy in crowds, the way I manage anything is more or less the same: I step back and listen, because I really don't think intimacy and crowds can be multitasked well (at least not by me). I skip all sorts of things.
I let the crowd be, and as far as possible just talk to one person at a time. I think I try not to fall for the urgency of the occasion.
So here's a moment from my day. It's a hot and windy afternoon, the campus is nearly empty, and thanks to Alec Couros I'm spinning the globe of radio.garden and just marvelling at the world.
Try it. It tells me I'm listening to a radio station playing in Oban, Scotland at 4.07 in the winter dark.
@katebowles @cogdog @Dan_Blick @clhendricksbc @Jessifer @Readywriting
Listen
Talk to one person at a time
Don't let the urgency of the occasion pull me.
That is a good list of things I don't do well naturally, but can work on :)
Also need to find nooks at conferences to do the one-on-ones uninterrupted
@katebowles @cogdog @Dan_Blick @clhendricksbc @Jessifer @Readywriting
Skipping things is maybe one of the things that being perpetually virtual made me capable of doing f2f. It feels rude, f2f, to skip things. But life is short and we need to make the most of our limited time. Some things will be skipped because some people are worth more than those things
Daniel Lynds@katebowles @mahabali @cogdog @Dan_Blick @clhendricksbc @Jessifer @Readywriting
Walking into/through a room I always listen first to what's in the background. How loud is the crowd? Is there music? Who are the loud talkers? What are they talking about? Why?
Then its the "familiar" people. Do I know anyone? If I know them, do they give me a "look" so as to invite me over to chat? Do they know I only have so much social in me before I retreat to my own little corner/stage?
cc @sundilu