2 Reasons that why Social mixers are not the best way to network

Whether you’re an introvert who’s mortified by the idea of social mixers, or an extrovert who finds them boring, you’ll be relieved to know that skipping them altogether is probably your best option.

There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, when you’re attending social mixers, you’re likely to spend most of the time talking to people you already know.

In 2009, two business professors at Columbia University, Paul Ingram and Michael Morris, conducted a study to examine interactions at social mixers.

They fitted students and business executives at the university with recording devices and tracked conversations that occurred during evening drinks on campus.

Fascinatingly, they found that although 95 percent of the participants in the event classified themselves as "highly motivated" to meet new people, they actually spent at least 50 percent of their time conversing with old acquaintances.

Secondly, even if you do decide to approach new people, the tendency is to head toward people who are similar to you. They’re probably also in the same network already, and so are hardly going to help you branch out into new ones.

The message here is that social events are not the way to go. People actually bond more easily through shared activities. That’s the way to network!

Behavioral scientist Jon Levy has put this thinking into practice. He regularly organizes dinner parties for movers and shakers.

But Levy’s dinner parties are hardly run of the mill. When guests arrive at his New York home, they are split up into teams and then prepare the evening meal together. The guests may not disclose their identities or their occupations and, consequently, social hierarchies are eliminated.

Once dinner is served, the guests play games during which they guess the identity of each diner in turn.

Levy’s dinner parties have been a huge success – and not just on the night in question. His guests have gone on to collaboratively create start-ups and TV series!