Last week I was part of a panel discussion for TiE on the New York startup scene. I was invited to talk about my experience as both a TechStars Alumnus and founder of Red Rover and AlumniChoose.

Before the event officially started, everyone was casually networking around the room. At one point a lady popped into my conversation and introduced herself and asked what I did. As soon as I finished describing AlumniChoose, she tapped the shoulder of someone nearby and said we needed to talk to each other. As soon as she brought the two of us together in a handshake, she walked away without saying anything. Then a few moments later, she tapped another person I was talking with and pulled him, mid-sentence, away from our conversation and into another one. I continued to watch her work her “magic” around the room and she kept repeating the same system over and over.

In Dance Floor Theory, we teach student leaders to be spatulas of the dance floor. In other words, we teach them to be facilitators of relationships and to focus less on the event and more on the introductions that happen from the event. In doing that, we want them to connect people together around shared interests. Then, once that relationship is started, move on to another group and make more connections. By the end of the night, everyone should, in theory, know everyone else, which makes for a great, long-lasting, dance party. Hence the picture above.

In theory, that’s what the lady last week was doing, but it rubbed me the wrong way, and here’s why…

• Genuine Interest – When she asked me what I did, I thought she was genuinely interested in what I did, but in reality, she was just trying to figure out who she could connect me to as fast as possible. It felt cold, which is the opposite of a relationship. Had she asked me a couple follow up questions, it would have felt much better.

• Right Timing – Knowing when to pull someone into and out of conversations is a bit of an art. But one good rule to follow is don’t pull someone out of a conversation mid-sentence, unless they want you to. This lady not only pulled someone out of a conversation mid-sentence, but it was within a few minutes of having her just introduced us together. We were just warming up our conversation, and she cut it off. A relationship takes time to build roots.

• Make It Natural - Once you see how a magic trick is done, the magic is gone. DFT is magical when done right, but like a magic trick, if you reveal to the audience how you are doing it, it’s no longer natural and feels forced. The lady last week made her ‘introduction game’ so obvious, that I then doubted the value of the introductions she was actually trying to make happen. She was going for quantity over quality and in doing so, her magic trick was reveled.

I suspect the lady thought she was being smooth and helping connect everyone to everyone else in the room. Overall, she probably was being more helpful than harmful, because most won’t even think to make introductions like she was. But the real art is in the practice of making it seem like you aren’t even trying and that you genuinely want to connect two people together because they actually should connect, not becuase you want to make your dance floor better.

While hanging out in Central Park, I watched a large group of people picnicking in a grassy area nearby. Without attempting to stare too much, I’d glance back to the group every five minutes. Each time I looked back, everyone had switched places. It was one big social waltz where everyone mingled with everyone.

Thinking back on events I’ve either hosted or attended, the best ones involved some kind of social waltz where no conversation dragged on too long and everyone mingled and connected with everyone.

Sometimes a social waltz happens organically, but more often, it’s up to the host (you) to make the social waltz happen.

In Dance Floor Theory, step two in turning a bad dance into a good dance is to introduce people to each other. DFT alumni should recognize this step as the “uh have you met uh” moment in the training.

As the host of an event, you get to make the social waltz happen. At first it might be tough, but over time it builds and eventually the dance should continue on without you.

KLM leveraged Social Media to creatively engage their traveling customers with a pattern interrupt of happiness. Imagine if your campus had a Social Media Prize Patrol that would track students down via public tweets and deliver them a pattern interrupt of happiness. (video)

To learn more about Blender Events, click here.
To learn more about our Dance Floor Theory Leadership Training, click here.

After seven years of helping colleges create their own events on a campus-by-campus basis, we thought it was time to step up the game. This year we’re bringing together 10,000s of student leaders and student groups from all over the world to participate in one single event on one single day. Introducing the 1st Annual Collegiate International Free Hugs Day happening on 11-10-11.

After a successful response of private invites who’ve already signed up, it’s time to publicly open the RSVP doors to any school and/or student group who’s ready to take on the challenge with 10,000s of peers from around the world.

Through a smart phone Free Hugs app, you’ll be able to see the total number of hugs given throughout the day. Can we reach 500,000? 1,000,000?

RSVP your school and/or group and be a part of the historic 1st Annual Collegiate International Free Hugs Day!

Like Joseph Campbell’s famous Hero’s Journey philosophy, we like to divide college students into 5 different stages of engagement based on the Engagement Pyramid below…

Each stage is defined by a different set of characteristics of an individual. Fully engaged individuals display a different set of characteristics than apathetic/uninvolved individuals. Thus, the way we interact with individuals in each stage should be different. A “5″ doesn’t want to be treated like a “Neutral.” And treating a “Neutral” like a “5″ might be too much too soon and thus demotivating.

Once we’ve recognized an individual’s stage, then the next step is to move them gradually up the Engagement Pyramid step-by-step. In our Dance Floor Theory program, we call this X+1. “X” being the stage an individual currently is in and “+1″ being the next step that is challenging enough for that indivdual, but not too challenging (e.g. +3) which might be demotivating. If you think of it like a video game, video games do an amazing job of knowing your current level and knowing what the next motivating challenge is for you. That’s the same thing as X+1.

The hardest step on the Engagement Pyramid is moving someone from a “Neutral” to a “1.” Where a “Neutral” is someone who doesn’t care and is indifferent to anything you do and a “1″ is someone who actually pays attention and is curious. Once someone is a “1,” it’s much easier to continue to move them towards a “5.”

Ask most educators and they will tell you student apathy is huge on college campuses. Campuses are filled with “Neutrals,” however most of the activities we do on campuses are geared towards “1″ through “5″ people because they are the ones who will pay attention to our flyers, emails, and Facebook invites and take the extra effort to actually show up to an event. But what about the larger percentage of our campus that are “Neutrals?” What can we do to engagement them, to give them their X+1 moment, and to move them from a “Neutral” to a “1?”

Enter Free Hugs…

Well actually, Free Hugs is just one example of thousands of examples of events we call Blender Events. Blender Events serve two purposes…

1. Cause people to have a pattern interrupt throughout their day. Or as we say in Dance Floor Theory, get people to go from “Meh” to “Hmmm.”
2. Build peer-to-peer relationships by mixing people together with near-peers. Near-peers are people who are models of success that are just a stage or two ahead. In the Engagement Pyramid, a near-peer to an “X” would be a “1.”

Every time we host a Blender Event on campus and cause a “Neutral” to have a pattern interrupt in their day, or get them to go  from “Meh” to “Hmmm,” or connect them with a “1,” then we are supplying them with an X+1 Moment. The more X+1 Moments they have, the harder it will be for them to stay a “Neutral” as they will start to display characteristics of a “1″ whether they want to or not. And once they are a “1,” then we can work on getting them to become a “2.”

So there you have it, That’s the ‘why’ behind Free Hugs. As you may have noticed, it has very little to do with the actual Free Hugs event and more to do with the introductions/connections/relationships that happen from the Free Hugs event.

They made these shirts specially for the training since they saw me do Dance Floor Theory a year ago at Alvernia.

Three quick stories, one important point.

Story #1:
Last week, before my soccer match, I watched a little league softball game on the field next to us. Surrounding the field was a collection of parents multitasking between the game, their blackberries, and babysitting their, even younger, offspring. One parent in particular was having a hard time keeping her little one under control. Her kid kept racing up and down the sidelines while mimicking a train. He put his hand in the air, pumped his fist, and as he passed us let out a loud, “Choo Choo!” Then 30 seconds later he’d come steamrolling back. The kid clearly had extra energy and needed to let it out. The parent, and most parents would agree, didn’t try and stop him from running, instead she calming kept looking a few yards ahead to clear away any dangers that might be in his way. The little kid was motivated to run, so instead of trying to stop him, the parent took on the role of laying tracks for him to keep running.

Story #2:
My brother and I were playing Frisbee Golf and he lodged his frisbee square in the middle of a mud pit. I quickly looked around for a large stick and without much thinking took two steps into the mud pit, reached out my arm, and started to retrieve his frisbee for him. With my foot half covered in mud, my brother said, “never get in the way of a motivated individual.”

Story #3:
At this year’s ACPA conference in Philadelphia, the conference organizers hosted a special social media strategy session with several individuals to talk about how they could better leverage social media for the ACPA community. Throughout the session it was clear that someone needed to step up and lead the charge. Looking around the room, there were many capable individuals, but the question was who was the most motivated and ready? Kathy Petras raised her hand and agreed to lead the group. Since then,  she has been a wonderful leader, and had we had enough data to work with, probably could have predicted so because Kathy was already a trending leader in the community. She was a newer associate that recently took on a leadership position in another committee as well as led an ed session for the first time this year. If we were to tally up her actions, we would’ve seen she was a trending leader and was hunting for her next level of growth. In this case, leading the social media adoption committee was a perfect fit for her.

Point:
Every community can be broken up into varying levels of engagement. Based on a specific member’s engagement level, they want to be treated in different ways. A fully involved leader wants to be treated in a totally different way than someone lurking on the edge of the wall. An individual’s engagement level is constantly shifting though, with a hope of always trending towards more involvement. It’s up to the leaders of the community to thus recognize the individual engagement level of each member, and also to recognize how an individual is trending. Find out who the Kathy is of your community that is trending towards being a leader, then lay down tracks for her to continue to be great, because the worst thing a leader can do is get in the way of a motivated train.