Have you ever tried to host Speed Networking on Zoom and failed miserably?
Zoom is great for setting up and holding video conferences easily and quickly. It requires little to no technical knowledge.
So, why speed networking on Zoom is a mess? It is very complicated to set up a digital Speed Networking event.
Although the anotomy of a Speed Networking session is always the same, it is not easily achieved with Zoom.
A typical Speed Networking event involves each participant communicating once with each other, giving each attendee a chance to network — usually in a closed group.
Anotomy of a Speed Networking event
- Closed group of participants
- Each participant interacts once with each other
- The time per round is limited
- 1-on-1 chats only
- After each round the participant changes his partner
- The event is limited in time
What are the possible solutions for Speed Networking with zoom?
Speed Networking on Zoom Meetings
Every single participant receives pre-defined invitations to individual meetings. Just the thought of the manual effort to create separate meetings for each pairing combination in advance and send it to the attendees is immense.
Speed Networking on Zoom Breakout Rooms
The use case for Zoom Breakout Rooms is actually for group work in a large meeting. As an example: Participants of a workshop have met and now groups are to be formed to solve individual topics through teamwork. This is a classic use case for Zoom Breakout Rooms.
Zoom Breakout Rooms is not activated by default. This means that a solid knowledge of Zoom and its Breakout Rooms functionality is required to use it.
These solutions are very error-prone, as the success and memory of the Speed Networking Event depends on the technical competence of the participants and the moderator.
In addition to all of that, Speed Networking with Zoom Breakout Rooms does not automatically switch pairs of conversations.
How to fix Speed Networking with Zoom?
An intuitive and easy to use solution to host a Speed Networking session on Zoom should be as simple as possible. Ideally it should look like this:
- The moderator defines date and time of the speed networking event.
- At the same time he indicates how long a round lasts.
- If the duration of the event is limited in time, the moderator also specifies this.
- The host forwards the event invitation to all desired participants
- The event starts and all participants are automatically matched.
Done. Nothing more.
With this big picture in mind, we designed our digital and virtual Speed Networking platform “Plus2”.
Organizing a digital Speed Networking event is easier than ever before.
Much better: virtual Speed Networking with Plus2 is as close to real life Speed Networking as nothing else before.
Attendees can even exchange business cards during their 1-on-1 chats. The requestor is supposed to accept the request. Just like in real life.
Zoom can even continue to be used as an event platform — the actual digital Speed Networking event is simply kept at Plus2.
Summarized:
Speed Networking via Zoom is very difficult to implement. It requires either a lot of manual work or participants in Zoom Breakout Rooms jumping room to room without making mistakes.
Plus2 offers digital Speed Networking. Global. Remote. Virtual.
