About 80% of the “connection” value came from the following process:
Think of people I want to meet.
Search Swapcard to see if they’re attending EAG.
Message to suggest a meeting.
Most of the rest came from “bump into” effects, where seeing someone in a corridor reminds me that I’d like to speak to them, and so I do. And vice versa.
I imagine many people get a lot of value from the “off venue” parties—I skip those because I hate parties.
I’ve attended a couple of interest/skill-specific “speed dating” sessions over the years and found them fairly useless.
The main ways I see EAG as being optimised for connections are:
Ability: everyone is physically nearby, so it’s easier to meet in person.
Trigger: the purpose of the conference is to see people
Motivation: there’s a limited time window.
The actual conference venue is usually a bad place to speak. It’s noisy and if you’re in a public place, people often interrupt your conversations. I do ~all of my meetings outside the venue, usually walking nearby.
(I’m not sure why people attend talks at EAG—I just want to watch at 2x on the internet.)
Crazy thought: I wonder what would happen if you ran an EAG where the physical venue was just “Central London” and then people watch talks on the internet and arrange IRL meet ups.
If I can easily be in the same city as an EAG event I am pleased about that, because it’s raises the chance that someone I’d like to see in person is less than 25 miles away.
I sometimes remember to check if people I’d like to meet are around a few days before the conference starts. I wish I remembered to do that more consistently.
I also wish I could more easily find out who is attending, whether or not I am not attending. Sometimes that would make me decide to be in the relevant city, even though I am not attending.
Personally I find Twitter and email far more helpful than EAG for making new connections, and for meeting up with people I already know.
It’s not a close call—I’d estimate 2-10x better per hour of time spent trying to connect (including travel time).
Given that, I’ve more or less stopped going to EAGs.
I’ve been to at least 5 EAGs.
About 80% of the “connection” value came from the following process:
Think of people I want to meet.
Search Swapcard to see if they’re attending EAG.
Message to suggest a meeting.
Most of the rest came from “bump into” effects, where seeing someone in a corridor reminds me that I’d like to speak to them, and so I do. And vice versa.
I imagine many people get a lot of value from the “off venue” parties—I skip those because I hate parties.
I’ve attended a couple of interest/skill-specific “speed dating” sessions over the years and found them fairly useless.
The main ways I see EAG as being optimised for connections are:
Ability: everyone is physically nearby, so it’s easier to meet in person.
Trigger: the purpose of the conference is to see people
Motivation: there’s a limited time window.
The actual conference venue is usually a bad place to speak. It’s noisy and if you’re in a public place, people often interrupt your conversations. I do ~all of my meetings outside the venue, usually walking nearby.
(I’m not sure why people attend talks at EAG—I just want to watch at 2x on the internet.)
Crazy thought: I wonder what would happen if you ran an EAG where the physical venue was just “Central London” and then people watch talks on the internet and arrange IRL meet ups.
If I can easily be in the same city as an EAG event I am pleased about that, because it’s raises the chance that someone I’d like to see in person is less than 25 miles away.
I sometimes remember to check if people I’d like to meet are around a few days before the conference starts. I wish I remembered to do that more consistently.
I also wish I could more easily find out who is attending, whether or not I am not attending. Sometimes that would make me decide to be in the relevant city, even though I am not attending.