I Don't Want to Meet You

I had a great time at yesterday's Open Coffee Club, where investors, entrepreneurs and wild cards (like myself) came together at AlphaLab for some quality face time. The catch? Although I met 3 or 4 new and interesting people, I spent most of the event talking to folks I already know.

Why do we do this?

Why do so many of us attend "face to face" events and then spend the bulk of the event talking to the same people we knew yesterday? Isn't the entire point of a social event to meet people you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to talk with?

And yet, when faced with the prospect of cold-contacting a complete stranger -- even at an event where everyone allegedly has multiple overlapping interests and is ostensibly there PRECISELY to make new contacts -- most of us who don't already have an elevator pitch burning up our tongues opt for the woobie of familiarity.

I think the reason why is 3-fold:

* The known payoff from talking with a friend is preferable to the unknown outcome of talking with a complete stranger. Especially at an event where you're not sure what everyone's area of expertise is, and you're afraid you won't be able to extricate yourself from a conversation with someone who offers no direct value (in your opinion).

* We have no idea what our true value is. So instead of trying to explain why we think we're valid to a complete stranger (who, we presume, is automatically judging us and comparing our net conversational worth against that of everyone else in the room), we'd rather talk with people whom we already know appreciate us in some capacity.

* We have no game plan. Sure, the concept of being surrounded by "interesting people" is alluring, but once we're in the situation, we immediately presume that everyone else who's there has a much more specific agenda. If WE don't, we wouldn't want to waste anyone's time (or our own), so we aim for the low-hanging fruit of familiarity instead.

All of this usually results in small clumps of conversations among people who obviously already know each other OR, in a variant, people of a similar age / gender / dress code, who gravitate together because they imagine that they must have something in common. And if you've come to such an event alone and aren't wearing a popularized "uniform," you're probably floating along the fringes, eating the free food and conspicuously pretending to check your text messages, so no one knows you're privately terrified of making contact.

If so, here are 5 tips for breaking up the monotony at your next "live" event:

* Pre-set one goal. Maybe you want to meet one prospective collaborator. Or bounce a vague idea off 5 people. Or collect 20 business cards. As long as you have a concrete goal, you can focus on accomplishing that first, and then any chatting among your friends won't feel so guilty.

* Talk to the loner. Immediately beeline for the nearest person who appears to be floating adrift and engage them directly. As you've probably noticed, small groups tend to be where the loners will eventually wash up anyway, so you might as well cut out the middleman and form your own small group right from the get-go.

* Bring people together. Chris Brogan is the master at this, usually because he's swamped with conversations and needs an elegant escape clause. Following his method, start by engaging someone you DON'T know. Find out their story, in a nutshell. Then rope in your nearest friend by asking the new person, "Have you met my friend [NAME] yet?" and physically deposit them in a conversation. This allows you to then step away without leaving the new person alone, which is probably how you found them.

* Make a scene. This is where talking with your friends actually comes in handy. Once a pack of you are talking about something, get contentious / absurd / offensive / funny, and raise your voices. Move around. Draw attention to yourselves. Because nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd -- especially one where a wallflower can expect to linger and observe without being drawn into the fray because the fray seems self-contained. But here's the catch: once you've attracted some spectators, then draw them directly into the spectacle. Ask them a question, use them as an accomplice in a recreation -- whatever it takes to incidentally break the ice and help them feel like they're now a part of the fray. (Because they are.)

* Refuse to leave until you're out of business cards. This means you're forcing yourself to meet new people until there are none left. It also means you probably want to arrive with fewer than 500 cards in your pocket, or you'll be making friends with the caterers and janitors, too. (Which, depending on your pre-set goals, may not be such a bad idea after all...)

NOTE: Dropping the cards in a stack near the coffee cups doesn't qualify as dispensing them. Man up, people.

This image of Woycheck trying unsuccessfully to frighten Jim Russell into fleeing was taken at a previous AlphaLab event by Michael Fulk.

Just When You Thought Starbucks WASN'T the Devil...

When we're not stumping for the indie cofffee shops in town, Ann and I occcasionally frequent the Starbucks in Squirrel Hill (Forbes & Shady). She likes the drinks, I like the atmosphere. One thing Starbucks tends to do well is create an inviting atmosphere that encourages a wandering mind, and the related inspirations that come with dark wood, cushy chairs and smooth jazz.

After today, I believe I'll be choosing a new Starbucks outpost.

Why? One word: baristas.

There were two girls working at this location (actually three, but one seemed to be out of the loop most of the time), and they had nary a positive word to say about anything. Normally I can handle a healthy dose of cynicism -- hello, mirror -- but only when it's directed at people's own woebegone lives, or politics, or theology, or anything else worth bitching about.

Not at the customers.

Ladies, here's an open letter: I know your job sucks. You know your job sucks. It's a job; by definition, it almost always sucks.

What I, one of many customers, does not need to hear while sitting in your establishment is what you snidely have to say about nearly every other customer who walks out the door. I'm well aware that people can be ignorant; I worked in retail for too many years myself. But insulting people based upon mental illness, race, nationality, speech impediments, or forgetting to turn your goddamn chairs around when they leave does nothing to endear you to me as benevolent arbiters of multicultural celebration.

It makes you look small-minded and ignorant, and reminds me that I can probably find more tolerance, better conversation and a mocha that doesn't taste like chalk at the independent cafe down the street.

Dark wood and smooth jazz be damned.

Juno's Cafe (or: Why Are You Doing What You're Doing?)

I had two meetings downtown yesterday, and with some time to kill in-between, I wanted a cafe with free wi-fi. (Sure, there's free wi-fi if you're outside, but who wants to work outside on a laptop when it's 90 degrees out?)

My friend Rachel suggested Juno's, a new cafe she'd noticed while driving down 6th and Penn, with a "free wi-fi" sign in the window.

The good news? Juno's does, indeed, have wi-fi. (And good coffee, friendly service and a great pseduo-Euro decor.)

The bad news? No power outlets.

The owner confessed she hadn't thought about that because she doesn't have a laptop and never needs to look for outlets as a result.

Here's the irony: downtown Pittsburgh's cafe options are limited to Starbucks and... um, that's it. Juno's is one of the only (if not THE only) independent cafe in the Golden Triangle (not counting coffee carts in office lobbies). And the owner freely admits she's there to provide an alternative to Starbucks...

... so why not research WHAT, exactly, that alternative includes?

Clearly, they're on the right track. They have traditional cafe food, including a new panini machine (for which I was the guinea pig), which helps them differentiate themselves from Starbucks. They have a more intimate layout, and plenty of space to move freely, which should attract college students and freelancers looking for a place to relax and work.

But HOW can they work without outlets?

(Postscript: they're adding outlets soon, because they realize this is a larger issue than they'd initially considered.)

Is there a successful business model that YOU'RE looking to disrupt? WHY do you want to be a disruptor? Are you SURE you understand WHAT elements of that model are worth disrupting -- and HOW?

Cafe Witness Moment

Returning to the roots of this blog for a moment -- back when it was a glimpse into the coffee culture of Pittsburgh, rather than a treatise on new media...

I walked to the Tazza D'Oro cafe tonight, only to realize it was the meeting place for the latest of their (seemingly irregularly-) scheduled "women's nights," for which the place is closed to non-club members (like me).

So, instead of working from home, I hopped in my car and zipped down to Crazy Mocha in the South Side Works. The trip took half an hour. Along the way, I passed a Starbucks (no free wireless), a Coffee Tree Roasters (no free wireless), a Kiva Han (janky free wireless that doesn't always work) and ANOTHER Crazy Mocha (which allows smoking), all to come here.

My point is not to prove my loyalty to Crazy Mocha (though I do like this joint).

My point is: is it so hard to give away a free wireless signal? Think of the business these cafes are missing out on from 100 other people like me, who would rather drive out of their way for the free wireless (and the good coffee, and the comfortable scenery, and the pleasant community, and the friendly baristas) than pay to login.

John Moore touched on this in his "What Must Starbucks Do?" ChangeThis manifesto, which tackles the larger problem of what Starbucks must do to become relevant again. The lessons there are fairly specific to the Starbucks challenge, but the need to reinvent yourself applies to all of us sooner or later.

And why do most of us need to reinvent ourselves? Because we're out of touch with what our customers / clients / audiences want.

In this day of instant uber-communication, isn't that inexcusable?