I’d love for EA Global events to become more conducive to small group conversations. Right now they feel heavily focused on 1:1s. I’d love for it to be easier to book a conversation or find a place to sit with 2-4 people I have a common interest with.
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.
In Swapcard, the app used for EAG(x) events, it is possible to schedule meeting times with more than one person (up to eight, using the same method as scheduling a 1-on-1). I would really like to see this feature used more regularly, but I suspect few know it exists.
Huh, I’m curious what people use this for? To me, scheduling a 1-1 is enough of a coordination problem, scheduling it for many more feels like a big headache (at least, if the people have packed schedules)
I’ve used this feature exactly once, to meet a group of friends who were all in DC last summer but spread out afterward. Swapcard also has a group chat feature, where we actually coordinated the timing. Scheduling the group meeting on Swapcard was just to book the time so that other attendees wouldn’t try to book meetings with us then.
We’ve been experimenting with a few things here, and the solution I’m most optimistic about is spaces marked “no 1-1 meetings”. Some of these spaces are also for spontaneous/casual conversations too, but that’s often where group conversations happen.
This worked particularly well at EAGxRotterdam—the space was right next to the food. stations, it was well-lit and had comfy sofas. It was almost always full! I think EAG DC did this too.
I believe Swapcard are rolling out a feature to book group meetings, but I haven’t tested it out or seen it used much yet.
One thing that sort of did this for me at EAGxBerlin, which I wonder if we could have some kind of infrastructure for, was hosting “unofficial office hours” where I put my name on a piece of paper and sat in a specific place for two hours, and talked with people who came past. (I was also able to tell people in Swapcard that we could talk during that time as well as or instead of in a 1:1.)
I could imagine unconference-y or “host your own conversation table” infrastructure for this as well (instead of or in addition to “unoffical office hours with X”).
Maybe put whiteboards in meeting areas so people can write e.g. “Small group discussion—Wild animal welfare. Feel free to join!” on the board and other people can see it and just join.
I’d love for EA Global events to become more conducive to small group conversations. Right now they feel heavily focused on 1:1s. I’d love for it to be easier to book a conversation or find a place to sit with 2-4 people I have a common interest with.
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!
My most productive conversations at EAG were small group conversations like you describe, not 1-1s and talks.
A note regarding this:
In Swapcard, the app used for EAG(x) events, it is possible to schedule meeting times with more than one person (up to eight, using the same method as scheduling a 1-on-1). I would really like to see this feature used more regularly, but I suspect few know it exists.
Huh, I’m curious what people use this for? To me, scheduling a 1-1 is enough of a coordination problem, scheduling it for many more feels like a big headache (at least, if the people have packed schedules)
I’ve used this feature exactly once, to meet a group of friends who were all in DC last summer but spread out afterward. Swapcard also has a group chat feature, where we actually coordinated the timing. Scheduling the group meeting on Swapcard was just to book the time so that other attendees wouldn’t try to book meetings with us then.
I would love this too!
We’ve been experimenting with a few things here, and the solution I’m most optimistic about is spaces marked “no 1-1 meetings”. Some of these spaces are also for spontaneous/casual conversations too, but that’s often where group conversations happen.
This worked particularly well at EAGxRotterdam—the space was right next to the food. stations, it was well-lit and had comfy sofas. It was almost always full! I think EAG DC did this too.
I believe Swapcard are rolling out a feature to book group meetings, but I haven’t tested it out or seen it used much yet.
One thing that sort of did this for me at EAGxBerlin, which I wonder if we could have some kind of infrastructure for, was hosting “unofficial office hours” where I put my name on a piece of paper and sat in a specific place for two hours, and talked with people who came past. (I was also able to tell people in Swapcard that we could talk during that time as well as or instead of in a 1:1.)
I could imagine unconference-y or “host your own conversation table” infrastructure for this as well (instead of or in addition to “unoffical office hours with X”).
Maybe put whiteboards in meeting areas so people can write e.g. “Small group discussion—Wild animal welfare. Feel free to join!” on the board and other people can see it and just join.