How many is too little, or too many, when it comes to a (networking) event?
The answer is, it depends.
I've been to more football matches in the last 2.5 years than in the past two decades...maybe longer. Most of these matches have been following a certain North London premier league team around with the odd England game thrown in - you've guessed it there's a story to tell about networking here.
Let's say that I'd been a very active member of Property Connect Networking for the better part of a decade - and from the pandemic period, I actually got involved in the operations of said group. I may well have had a good idea as to who everyone was - possibly even said hello to everyone at the welcome desk, but how many conversations is it possible to have with over 100 people?
Dunbar's number is a theory about how many people we can cognitively relate to and have relationships with. I like to apply this to networking also. In context here, you can have 00s, even 000s of people on your social media - but it is impossible to maintain a relationship with all of substance.
This said networking group expanded and I was involved in the launches - when we launched the Essex group, I attended an event with 5 attendees. All of whom, including me, were already members of the main group but because we had the whole afternoon together, deeper conversations took place on a more personal level. I found common ground with someone who is an avid football game goer, and when it turned out that I was a fan of the same team....an invitation to a game followed.
As I said earlier, I've been to matches now multiple times with the same, now friend. The photo in this post is us at the England vs Finland match at Wembley in September 2024 - I got to take my nephew to his first ever England game (and for a while, that may make me the coolest aunt in the world) all because a conversation happened at a small event that was a spin off of a big event.
Time to have another conversation?
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