The typical solo coffee shop experience involves you ordering something with a fancy name, them messing up the spelling of your name on a cup, and then finding a seat by yourself to get lost in something to read or listen to. While many people find no issue with repeating this process of isolation, others might view coffee shops as a mini community center with the opportunity to meet someone new.
Recently, Tom visited Birch Coffee in NYC, where he experienced first hand how a simple idea within the coffee shop environment can act as a Blender Event for the community and connect people together through an “Ignition Initiative.”
While checking out, Tom noticed a section on the counter that, instead of trying to up-sell him on a cookie, was inviting him to start a conversation with a stranger by taking a conversation starter question and placing it on his table during his stay at Birch.
Birch’s conversation starter prompts are a genius Blender Event for two reasons…
- By having a question to start a conversation, it’s easier to get the conversation started on a deeper level.
- By placing the question on the table, it’s a public proclamation that you are open to talking to someone, which makes it a lot less awkward for a stranger to then approach you.
Birch’s Blender Event could easily be implemented just the same within a school’s cafeteria as a “New Connections” table.
From Dance Floor Theory™, the two main goals of a Blender Event is to connect people together and increase the number of relationships within your community. Having a “New Connections” table in your cafeteria would certainly do that!
To get started, follow these steps:
- Designate one table in your cafeteria, near the front, and put a vertical sign labeling it as the “New Connections” table.
- Print and laminate a set of questions and place them near the table or checkout area.
- To build momentum, have your campus leaders take turns sitting at the table, with a question, so others get the idea.
- Share pictures of the questions and the table online to continue building the momentum.
With a little effort, your New Connections table will foster a stronger community through new relationships, because no one will forget the day that someone asked them about the genre of their life’s movie.
