First Linked Lunch: LinkedIn's Offline Event
Last Tuesday, February 6, a historic event took place in the LinkedIn community in Granada. Four entrepreneurs and friends managed to turn a dream into the greatest of successes: filling the auditorium of the Parque de las Ciencias with enthusiastic locals and guests from this social network.
Event Organization
The Linked Lunch, the event’s name, mixed training, fun, and of course, networking. Although it started half an hour late due to a farmers’ strike, it then went smoothly. The afternoon was divided into two 2-hour blocks with another hour for networking.
First Block
The first block was opened by Josef Ajram, who told us how he has been building his personal brand and what is most valuable: time. Then, other top LinkedIn voices from Granada like Ángela from SIDN and Javier López from Hispacolex shared their stories. In this block, Juan Meriodo also gave us a masterclass on how to repurpose generated content to achieve more visibility.
Networking
The networking was a party, well, the whole event was, but it was special here. DJ, performances, and very active sponsor stands. Of course, there were coffees, juices, waters, and sweets.
Second Block
The second block started on time, and we had as a guest speaker Ángeles Carsi, an expert on LinkedIn, who told us how to create a valuable profile. Regarding the top voices, it was Javier Tallón’s turn (my classmate, by the way), who, as a nerd and cybersecurity expert, shared how passion should guide our way. Aadel from Omibú taught us the importance of failure in achieving success. Lastly, Ignacio Castillo highlighted the importance of exploring the planet to realize the importance of time.
Conclusion
For being the first event, it was great, and it will surely become a benchmark event. They said goodbye to Granada until next year, but before that, it will be celebrated in other cities, starting with Málaga. As for areas of improvement, I see several things: I think that giving it that party touch was great, however, there should be spaces or limit the volume so that fluid conversations can happen. Another important point is the fact that questions could not be asked. I think you should be able to use the LinkedIn network itself for this: collecting questions, voting, and finally selecting 3 and presenting them.
And the most important issue to improve, in my opinion, is the networking, which I see as a key piece of the event. What I observed is that most people only talked to people they already knew… in person previously (or that was my impression). Dynamics or games for interaction, or setting up appointments before the event, could be interesting. Lastly, I want to mention that the best sponsorship was SIDN’s, who brought the comedian Cristian, and it was really awesome. I am looking forward to the new edition and commenting that LinkedIn has (for now) nothing to do with the event. It is the work of Adrián, Pedro, Ángela, and Fran. Congratulations!