I moved to Berkeley 3 months ago, and my social network is still crystallizing. I went to a large ACX meetup yesterday and obtained the individual contacts of people I liked. Those contacts are sitting at the top of my chat app, stressing me out a little. Halfway into the meetup, I realized what I should have done to improve my networking process significantly:
Plan a smaller (10-20 people?) event at my house for ~10 days out. Have the invite ready when I go to the big meetup. Hand out the invite link profligately.
I got the contact info of 4 people, but in fact I met closer to 10 that I would have been happy to invite to an event at my house. Having someone at my house over once is less costly than having their contact info – having someone’s contact info is a todo which requires me to consider whether and how to see them again.
If I had given them a Partiful invite link, these two things would have happened:
- They would show up in the future as a potential invitee for me on Partiful (which I’ve accepted is my contacts list for now – keeping my own document did not work)
- They would probably show up to my house for a group event where I could semi-passively explore our interpersonal chemistry further.
Going with a smaller event invite in hand should be my default plan every time I go to a large event near me. Saying so in a blog post is likelier to make me remember this in the future.