I’ve been thinking a lot about social the past few days, and naturally from that I began to think of social meetups. We have tweetups, beerups, refreshes and all sorts of other things, and out of all the ones I’ve been to, I’ve noticed a central problem with them all. They’re not very social. Sure you’ll see tons of people talking to each other, and a great time being had by what seems like all, but there’s a fundamental flaw with them.
I’ll preface this with saying that I’m just as at fault as everyone else with this, so don’t think I’m on a soapbox; but we all seem to hang in cliques at all of these meetups. We go with the people we know, and then, that’s it. We don’t socialize. We don’t REALLY go and meet-up with new people. I’ve heard stories of people going to events that are supposed to be fun and social, but ended up hating the time they had, because no one was really being social, instead they were just with their friends, in a corner. This isn’t the 8th grade dance people, let’s not be wallflowers!
When I hear tweetup, I picture people with the same interests meeting together at a place and talking. Let’s say I go to one of these meetups that I saw someone I follow on twitter mention. It usually is very hard for me to get a solid conversation going, as most of the time, everyone is just hanging with the peeps (tweeps?) they already know.
So from now on I propose a few challenges for all you tweetup attendees:
- Gain/Meet a new person that you dont know.
- Join in a conversation with people you dont know.
- BE SOCIAL.
So whether it be the next refresh fort lauderdale, pizza tweetup, chevy pizza crawl, or whatever. Lets all try and embrace the social space, and actually be social.
I’m game. Are you?
I am *very* guilty of this. For a while, I felt like there were no new faces. And now that there really are a whole fresh crop full of shiny newbies, it’s time we all heed your advice.
Sometimes I find myself just “tired” of the whole networking thing. If that’s the case, I shouldn’t even attend these to see my already-established friends – leave room for the newbies who may have ended up on a waiting list!
So, when I’m attending a social event, from now on, I plan to meet at least one new face and get in on some conversation that I didn’t start.
Thanks for writing this – we all need little friendly reminders from time to time!
This is great! Yes, I miss the days of old school tweetups that were just for the purposes of socializing. I always make an effort to sit down with or talk to a new person when I go to these things. But you’re absolutely right … it’s very easy to migrate to one’s comfort zone. Thank you for writing this. It needed mentioning.