Whether you have just launched a startup or are looking to explore new opportunities, networking events are known to significantly contribute to the success of any business venture. In fact the corporate world today can be seen emphasizing heavily on not just attending such events but also organizing the same for their employees and business.
Beneficial as they may sound but most networking events today, have a formal tone to them and thus most of the times these orchestrated events prove to be total drag and full of awkward moments. Hence, the onus of creatively organizing networking events lies on the event organizing industry itself. By experimenting with new themes and concepts networking events can truly serve their purpose and still be a lot of fun.
We caught up with industry experts who shared their opinions on emerging themes and concepts of networking events.
“I think that the new themes of such networking events must be based on current news and happenings around our ecosystem, frequently the most preferred among new concepts are digital and technological in nature”-says Sanjeev Kataria, Business Head, Go live. He further states that since there are a lot of networking events taking place today, it has become a necessity to be unique and still be relevant to the audience. New concepts such as crowd sourcing ideas, unconferencing, user-generated content etc have been talked about a lot but are yet to be implemented. Also other concepts of adopting unique locations, providing a completely different environment and seating is expected to create a lot of interest amongst delegates.
Rajesh Varma, Director of CRI Events Pvt. Ltd comments “For me speed dating is a new concept for networking events, making people with different skill sets meet by setting them on communicative interactions, making junior subordinates mingle with seniors and by making people who have never worked together spend time with each other through communicative dates.”
Sandeep Soi of EMC Events Pvt Ltd however has a different view. He feels in our country particularly the clients are hesitant to experiment with new themes for networking events. “Huge expenditure is involved in this genre of event too and hence most of the times clients prefer to stick with monotonous themes rather than venturing out. We as event agencies are the catalyst of change but at the end of the day you need to deliver on the exact brief delivered by the client. For now the themes are pretty much the same but how we proceed with the event ensures its success” comments Sandeep Soi.
When asked upon how do you comfort and engage the attendees at networking events Rajesh Varma adds-“Pre event socializing on mobile applications and other social platforms takes away the discomfort and collaboration is the buzzword which on its own takes away the discomfort.”
“For me team building and ice breaking activities within smaller groups, case studies, getting to know each other games are the most successful concepts that have been tested and proven to deliver magnificent results”-completes Sanjeev Kataria.
