What an excellent evening! Our Speed Networking evening, organised on behalf of the Federation of Small Businesses, drew in around a dozen inividual and a coupe of pairs with a disparate range of products to sell, and a wide variety of requirements to meet - some by using other's products and services.

Seated at either side of what was (in theory) a single long table, each person moved one seat left every five minutes thus meeting every other person they passed. And when they went back down the other side of the table, we had engineered it so that they met the people they had missed on the way up.

Six meetings, then 5 5-minute presentations on aspects of individual's interests and businesses, and a further six meetings ... everyone felt that the two hours was excellently spend and went away with at least one (and in most cases several) excellent new contacts.

---

It worked in Melksham ... and it would would in Matlock, Mexborough, Mitcham, Moreton and Mumbles too. So let me share my algorithms / organisation scripts.

1. To set up a sheet to hand to each delegate as he / she arrives:

Delagate Number:

2. To set up a sheet to place at each seat around the table (seats 1, 3, 5, 7, down one side, opposite them seats 2, 4, 6, 8 etc):

Delagate Number:
Total delegates attending:

(We need to know the total number of delegates to adjust the algorithm for an odd or an even number of attendees. With an odd number, one "speeder" sits out each time, and with an even number, one remains in a particular chair all evening to provide the "offset" on the way back and ensure that different people are met)

3. To provide the organiser's matrix:

Total Delegates:

"Speed networking in Melksham on behalf of the FSB"

Other Speed Networking articles

Advertising, setup, planning

The event itself and planning sheets

Background, pictures

Direct link to seat script

Direct link to Matrix script

Update - 22nd June 2007 We're now fully booked for Thursday, 28th June, but will run another event in the Autumn (Tuesday 16th October 2007) for another group of up to 20 Melksham businesses. It won't be the same old faces each time either, as we'll only be taking a maximum of 5 "repeat" bookings, and (for events further in the future) no-one three times in sucession

(written 2007-04-21 08:17:31)

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A contrast in room rates and facilities
HTML - example of a simple web page
It can take more that one plus one to get two.
Private Java Course - A customer's pictures
Speed Networking - a great evening and how we arranged it
Two by One by Wiltshire
Pointers in C
As I came back from Tesco
Object Oriented Model - a summary of changes from PHP4 to PHP5
Course, right place, right time