From Philip O'Neil, Australia, 26th September 2005

I just thought I'd respond to your definition of speed networking as the way I run speed networking is different to other groups, and I think that it may end up becoming a very popular form of speed networking.

Typically speed networking originated from copying speed dating, with two lines of people where everyone sits opposite somebody else for a period of time and then the line moves and people pair up to meet a new person for the next few minutes and continue this process for 50 to 90 minutes.

My form of speed networking involves groups of people. Rather than meet one person at a time, my events may let people meet three people at a time or other numbers of people each time, depending on the event. I set up card systems so that an event will be run using numbered tables with everyone having a card telling them where to sit for each round of the speed networking event. This allows those involved to sit at consecutive tables of four people (including themself), meeting three new contacts per round.

People prefer my form of speed networking because it's faster, it's less tiring for those who don't like talking, and it's less confronting. It's also appreciated for its benefits in combining speed networking with competitive games such as the Speed Networking Quiz Night I ran last month.

I'm not the only person who's running speed networking in groups. I'm in Australia and I've found UK and US websites talking about it. I run the website www.peoplemixing.com and use the term speed mixing to differentiate speed networking in groups from speed networking in pairs. I use this term due to the fact that everyone is moving in different directions, creating a blender feel when people are swapping tables in the events I run.

I'm only doing this part-time, so I'm making slow progress, but I find that there's a significant percentage of people who I talk to who prefer the sound of speed networking in groups than speed networking in pairs, so I wouldn't be surprised if the group format slowly becomes more popular for speed networking. Dating requires more intimacy, so it may become a common alternative form of speed dating, but the benefits won't be as significant as with networking.

I've received very positive feedback on the two events that I've run, and I expect that this will grow as I run more events and find other people to run events.

Thanks for reading my comments.

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