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November 29, 2007
Redefining the Business Networking Breakfast: Give Real-time Social Networking a Try
The S&S Restaurant in Cambridge, MA was the location for Breakfast with Jeff Pulver and his (Facebook) friends in Boston - “A Meshup of Social Media and Eggs” which took place on the morning of November 28th.
Bringing together a people who are part of my virtual social network from both twitter and Facebook and watching my virtual network transition into a physical face-to-face network was a pretty interesting experience.
The event was scheduled to run from 8:00 am to 10:00 am and at 11:00 am there were still a handful of people at the restaurant. Around 40 people came out for the event. To help with the networking, I provided name stickers and pens and asked the guests to include their Name, Company affiliation and include a “personal tag line.” While some people struggled to figure out their personal tag line, seeing it provided a great conversation starter for everyone attending the event.
I also provided smaller stickers to use for “Real-Time Social Tagging” and a stack of Post-It notes for people who wanted to post to each other’s Walls. An example of some of the social tags I was still wearing when I left the breakfast are included in the photos below.
For people who like to organize a “business breakfast”, I have found the social tagging/stickers to be a very good icebreaker and it makes it so much easier for someone to go up and talk to someone they never met before. And if you would like to host a similar event yourself, please look for a future blog post of mine - “How to Create and Run a Real-Time Social Networking” event.
Based on the feedback received, this was a successful event and something that I plan on doing again in Boston and in other cities around the world in the near future. There were a number of people who contributed to the event who I would like to thank including: Bryan Person and Scott Monty and the staff of Restaurant. And special thanks to all of my friends from Facebook and twitter from the greater Boston area who came out and helped make the event happen.
A number of my guests have shared their perspective about this event including:
Christopher Herot: Eggs and Social Media
Len Edgerly: Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (Podcast)
Doug Haslam: Social Media Face to Face is Ace (Seesmic posts) and Utterz ).
David Fisher: Jeff Pulver's Social Media Breakfast Boston November 2007 (Set) (Photos)
Maria Thurrell: How am I dealing with it? Trials, Tribulations and Advice
Scott Monty: Social Media Takeaways #5
Bryan Person: Jeff Pulver, breakfast, and social tagging = a smash hit
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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.
Tags: Boston, Cambridge, Facebook, Scott Monty, Maria Thurrell, David Fisher, ChrisBrogan, Doug Haslam, Len Edgerly, Christopher Herot, Bryan Person, Steve Garfield, Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on November 29, 2007 06:51 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
Jeff - This was a lot of fun. I had some great discussions around topics like:
branding
twitter/Snitter
twittermaps
FB
I also met some cool people like yourself, Critt, Chris B. & Chris H, Sandy, Laura and Tal. I also caught up with people I already knew (F2F or via Twitter) like Bryan, Michelle H. and Jim S.
Looking forward to round two!
Posted by: Aaron Strout at November 29, 2007 01:40 PM
And another conference genera is born.......
Posted by: Gregory Birch at November 29, 2007 09:35 AM
I wish I had been there. :)
Posted by: Ludwik Stawowy at November 29, 2007 07:32 AM