
How to Work the Room  - Celcius
http://gigaom.com/2007/06/24/how-to-work-the-room/
======
bravura
Social strategy for being a host: Introduce EVERYONE to EVERYONE.

If you met someone five minutes ago, introduce them to the person you met
three minutes ago. If someone ask: "How do you know Bob?" you answer "I just
met him."

You're not lying. You're not pumping anyone's ego. You are merely exchanging
people's names and, if you know them quite well, a sentence or two about why
they're awesome.

Everyone likes an introduction.

It's a very simple way to come across as a good host.

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mixmax
I did improvisational theater for a few years, and it has helped me immensely
over the years. It taught me four things:

1) coming up with funny/interesting/smart things to converse about with just
about anyone

2) Learning about posture, bodylanguage, eyemovement, etc. 90% of a
conversation is nonverbal.

3) Loosen up

4) Being secure in front of people.

I would recommend it to anyone. It's a great learning experience, and hey it's
fun!

~~~
brentr
Stand-up comedy works well also. It helped me to get over my fear of speaking
to large groups.

~~~
philwelch
Do you have to be funny for this to work? ;)

~~~
brentr
It sure helps.

EDIT: Do you know what secondhand embarrassment is? Go to an open mic and you
are sure to experience it. I've seen some people who thought they were
hilarious and were actually a train wreck.

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jf
This is a good article. It reminds me of a talk I saw at SHDH by a guy named
Shannon Clark.

My main take-away from his talk was that "networking is about giving", meaning
that when you are networking you shouldn't be thinking "how can this person
help me?" but "how can I help this person?" - this advice is simple but has
had a profound impact on how I approach networking.

I think that this blog post covers a large subset of what I remember of
Shannon's talk: [http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/networking-
advi...](http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/networking-advice-
useful-business-cards-and-other-tips/)

------
edw519
Love the contents, hate the title.

Better would have been, "How to Behave Like a Normal Human Being Who Cares
About Others, Likes to Have Fun, and Wants to Remain Receptive to Any Benefits
That May Come His Way."

But I guess, "How to Work the Room" is sexier.

~~~
Chocobean
In all honesty, what's wrong with the phrase "work the room"? Is this a phrase
that is misapplied to the subject matter? Does this phrase bring up bad
connotations? Is this phrase not descriptive enough or too specific for what
the person is talking about?

As a non-native speaker, "Working the room" seems like a good abbreviation of
"how to behave...". Is there another, shorter, more descriptive phrase you
were thinking of?

~~~
edw519
Analyzing, designing, cranking out 8,000 lines of code, testing, and deploying
by Tuesday is work.

Spending good time with nice people at an event isn't.

~~~
tdavis
It is work if you're like me and instantly hate most of those people, have no
interest in listening to their boring conversations, and would rather be doing
anything else ;)

"good time" and "nice people" are not phrases I'd use to describe networking
events. More important phrases to me are, "free food" and "open bar".

~~~
edw519
how sad

~~~
trapper
Are you saying that you like talking to people who you have nothing in common
with?

~~~
eru
It needs some effort to connect, but you can learn from a lot of people.

(And even if you just brush up your social skills, that can be helpful.)

