Conferences are fast and furious affairs, days are full of presentations, panels and impromptu hallway meetings, while evenings are chock full of food, booze and questionable behavior (it is South Beach after all). I’m a big fan of pre-event networking. Today I started my list of people I want to spend time with. After 10 minutes, I have 35 on the list, and these are just the people I’ll greet with a hug. There are probably another 30 people I want to meet for the first time, including readers of the blog, clients from all over the country, some whom I’ve never met. I haven’t even thought about who I want to connect with on the social networking side. Last year iDate did a pre-event with Pringo networks. Unfortunately, iDate will not have an online pre-conference networking event for Miami.
I think it’s a great idea and valuable to connect with people before the show. I’m working with Userplane to add a chat here, one day late next week I can turn it on for a few hours and anyone who wants to join in and chat will be able to do so. I hope you’ll be able to poke your head in for a bit, introduce yourself and network with peers, set up meetings, get to know who’s going to be at the show.
