I and approx. 1023 of my closest friends (no, seriously I estimated this) will be attending #WebInno25 on Mon. March 1st at the Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge.
Such a crowd is both good (the person you really want to meet is probably there) and bad (you don’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of finding him/her).
Here are some tips for increasing your networking efficiency at the event.
1. Wear a branded T-shirt. If your a hopeless business dweeb who just couldn’t be seen without your a shirt and tie…. wear the T-shirt over the shirt and tie. I’ve seen this done before, quite effectively.
2. Don’t bunch up. If you’re coming as a team, wear T-shirts *and* split the team up. It stands to reason, that if your team clusters in the corner, no one will know your there.
3. Prearrange. Contact the person you want to meet *before* the event. Now I realize this is a totally radical idea and I don’t know whether you noticed but the Eventbrite registration page has contact information for most attendees. So drop that person an email, DM or “mention” them on Twitter. Prearrange a meeting point. Some of my favorite meeting points at WebInno are 1) the bar… don’t know exactly where it will be but I do know there will be one 2) near the registration table… once again, I don’t know where it will be but it will be there and finally 3) near one of the “side dish” presenters that you are really interested in.
Get there early and stand by the SideDish just after they have gotten everything setup. Volunteer to be their first guinea pig for their pitch. This allows you to hear their pitch while they are still fresh. By the end of the night the SideDish will have given their pitch 63 times and are so fed up they willing to chuck this whole startup thing and get a gig coding Cobal HR apps for the DMV.
4. Human Signpost If you’re into serious promotion mode, hire, rent or borrow a human sign that can act as an “attractor,” “filter” and/or “redirector.” Have the human sign post (person wearing the oversized branded T-Shirt) stand in a high flow area. He/she can redirect interested parties to the appropriate members of your team that can be scattered throughout the event in branded or unbranded outfits.
5. Be your Icon (and have your Icon be you). If you want to do some serious networking at this or any other event, it helps if people are able to recognize you. So for a couple of days prior to the event, lose that cute avatar. Lose the grade school photo. Women, lose those “real estate agent” glam photos. Guys, ditch that great shot of you with you Red Sox hat and sun glasses.
7. Business Cards. Do I even have to explain this one.
That’s all for now folks. Hope to see you at #Webinno25. I will be one of the folks wearing a BarCampBoston T-Shirt and/or a FounderDating Boston T-shirt #FDBOS. For this event, I’ve decided to leave the feather Boa at home.
There’s also something to be said for walking around with “penguin arms.” It seems to have brought some attention my way at the March Web Inno!