@Ulrich_the_Elder@mastodon.social @ktemkin I don't feel like anyone has really cracked the networking aspect of remote interactions. Online presentations are functional as good or better than in person, but casual meetups that are a significant function of in person gathering just don't happen the same way.
Perhaps a person wanting to address the resistance to remote gatherings should study how casual interactions happen before and after presentations and suggest how a remote gathering might supply a functional equivalent.
@antares @Ulrich_the_Elder @ktemkin regarding making remote events more useful for networking, maybe we need like an Omegle type of mechanism (non lewd though). Just randomly pair people
Or maybe even let people choose hashtags and pair with a bias towards matching ones
That might help, but I don't think it is a full solution.
My observation is that the most important property of good networking events is the casual mingle. The ability to join, expand, break off and most importantly leave interactions without offense. This low social barrier is, in my observation, critical in having the right set of people find each other.
There is also the casual introduction that a formal small group setting doesn't allow. "I don't really know very much about [topic], but I was at at talk with [person on the other side of room] who seemed really into it. Let me introduce you."
I think it would be an interesting exercise to video a social mixer at one of these professional conferences and determine just how random causal encounters actually are. I suspect that they are actually quite structured on a macro level.
@Ulrich_the_Elder@mastodon.social @ktemkin
