A related problem I’ve experienced is that it’s hard for a 2-person conversation to spontaneously grow, because of the problem of “I want to go up and say hi, but what if I’m interrupting a booked 1:1?”
We had these at EAG SF, EAGxBerlin, EAG DC and EAGxRotterdam :) I think they often aren’t obvious enough, so you’d be forgiven for missing them. It was obvious and very popular at EAGxRotterdam :)
Hmm, that feels much more annoying to me—I personally think 1-1s tend to be a much better use of conference time, and being restricted from scheduling them at certain times in the app sounds irritating (and the kind of thing that gets me to bail on Swapcard and use Calendly). For me a space is good, because if someone no shows, or I have a break and want low-intensity chat, I can go there.
Making it impossible to book 1:1s sounds annoying, but since a lot of people like to schedule a break from 1:1s for themselves and would enjoy hanging out with other people during that gap, a somewhat arbitrary “Schelling break time” could help them coordinate.
They had this at EAGx Rotterdam and it was very nice. The area was marked off with a sign and you could walk around there joining conversations when you weren’t in a meeting.
A related problem I’ve experienced is that it’s hard for a 2-person conversation to spontaneously grow, because of the problem of “I want to go up and say hi, but what if I’m interrupting a booked 1:1?”
Plus one to this! It would be great to eg have a designated “no planned 1-1s here” area where it is socially acceptable to just approach people
We had these at EAG SF, EAGxBerlin, EAG DC and EAGxRotterdam :) I think they often aren’t obvious enough, so you’d be forgiven for missing them. It was obvious and very popular at EAGxRotterdam :)
I was at EAG SF and didn’t notice!
Could be time as well: EAGx Prague had dedicated time where it was not possible to book 1:1s on SwapCard, and I think it worked well.
Hmm, that feels much more annoying to me—I personally think 1-1s tend to be a much better use of conference time, and being restricted from scheduling them at certain times in the app sounds irritating (and the kind of thing that gets me to bail on Swapcard and use Calendly). For me a space is good, because if someone no shows, or I have a break and want low-intensity chat, I can go there.
Making it impossible to book 1:1s sounds annoying, but since a lot of people like to schedule a break from 1:1s for themselves and would enjoy hanging out with other people during that gap, a somewhat arbitrary “Schelling break time” could help them coordinate.
They had this at EAGx Rotterdam and it was very nice. The area was marked off with a sign and you could walk around there joining conversations when you weren’t in a meeting.
I like this idea!