Have you ever been to a bad networking session? Maybe there was no structure, it was a free-for-all at the beginning of a conference. Maybe it was a disguised as a happy hour at a bar. Maybe you didn’t get the chance to talk to anyone, or worse yet got stuck talking to someone for way too long. Maybe you just talked about the weather and didn’t get to talk about your idea or what you needed or provide any insight or assistance to anybody. This workshop will be nothing like the bad networking sessions you’ve done in the past.
I’ve been working with the University of Wisconsin Office of Human Resource Development on innovating the networking session. It is like a facilitated workshop. It is part thinking about important questions, working on your “how you quickly communicate elevator speech,” part group introduction, and part one-on-one or one-on-two speed networking. In this jam session people leave with a more comfortable and activity filled experience. They get to share with the whole group, hear from everyone, and go deeper one on one with many new people. They actually get to connect and converse!
This session can stand on it’s own to kick off a conference or be a part of any other workshop when helping participants to connect with each other is highly valued. This is an innovative, highly engaging, interactive approach to networking. This is connection-making learning, where you will make connections, get ideas for your own projects, and offer ideas to others that can help them make progress on their own initiative.
Program Innovation is a topic area where the workshops help people to innovate by doing it. Workshops are designed to facilitate groups and institutions through the idea development process by systematically tackling a challenge relevant to you. This is a relevant topic area for organizations and groups within institutions. It is designed to help people improve how they work and have a high-impact.
Click here to see all programs in the Program Innovation topic area.
