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<h1>10 Reasons Why I Can't Have Coffee With You</h1>
<time class="published" datetime="2013-03-04T22:32:22-08:00">March
4, 2013 10:32pm PST</time>
<p><strong>I get at least 5 E-mails for coffee a day (coffee also
being a stand-in for lunch, dinner, breakfast, coffee, drinks,
Skype, speaking at a conference or chatting on the phone).</strong>
I call this the <strong>Let's have coffee problem</strong>. An
invidual is only one person, and one can't meet with everyone.
This is an attempt at examining the core issues involved in this
problem.</p>
<h3 id="the-let-s-have-coffee-problem">The 'Let's Have Coffee'
Problem</h3>
<h4 id="calculating-the-hidden-costs-of-a-coffee-appointment">Calculating
the Hidden Costs of a Coffee Appointment</h4>
<p>One coffee appointment is not actually 30-60 minutes long. The
coffee appointment is actually made up of a number of hidden
timesinks, outlined as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>45 min to 1 hour for the actual duration of the coffeetime</li>
<li>15-30 minutes of transport time (assuming an average meeting
is 15 minutes away from your default location. </li>
<li>30 minutes to an hour over 1 day to 2 months to actually nail
down the coffee appointment time between two people. </li>
<li>15-30 minutes of uncertainty per appointment. Someone may
arrive early or late. Someone may need to cancel. </li>
<li>15-30 minutes writing up information gathered during the
coffee meeting, writing intros or following up with the new
contact. </li>
<li>The entire process over again if someone is late or cancels. </li>
</ul>
<h4
id="1-coffee-meeting-2-hours-30-min-over-an-average-of-1-2-weeks">1
coffee meeting: 2 hours 30 min over an average of 1-2 weeks</h4>
<p>Muliply this by 5 and you can begin to see that merley scheduling
and transporting oneself to coffee appointments alone would result
in an average of over 10 hours per day.</p>
<p>That's <strong>70 hours a week</strong> if I took all coffee
requests. I would have no time for anything else, especially
digesting and writing up any information I received during said
coffee appointments.</p>
<p>If a coffee meeting is successful, the parties might request an
additional meeting. This would add a multiplier onto the initial
coffee appointment with each person. Assuming 3/5ths of coffee
appointments warranted future meetings and additional social
maintenance, the demands on me for future appointments would
outweigh the span of my lifetime.</p>
<p>The problem is that I feel rude to decline coffee requests. I'd
like to have the time. There's nothing more enjoyable for me than
to meet new and interesting people and help them work on what they
need help with. It's not susutainable. A single individual is not
scalable.</p>
<h3 id="what-do-coffee-meetings-accomplish">What Do Coffee Meetings
Accomplish?</h3>
<p>If this is a business-related coffee meeting, the person
requesting the coffee meeting is usually looking for advice,
introductions/connections, picking one's brain (although this
always sounds to be like picking one's nose), or just getting to
know someone.</p>
<p>The most successful meetings have resulted in me introducing the
coffee requester to the person they <strong>actually</strong>
wanted to meet in the first place. Why not bring all of those
people together in the same room? Why not invite them all to
dinner or a private/public networking event? Why not collide
communities together?</p>
<p>I realized my most successful networking with people was when I
rented a studio in Chinatown, Portland. I had events every few
weeks at the tiny studio and invited people in my network. Dozens
of people met each other through having a place to meet, and I
didn't have to do much but introduce them! A lot of them went on
to build interesting and successful projects.</p>
<h3 id="coffee-appointments-don-t-scale">Coffee Appointments Don't
Scale</h3>
<p>The one-to-many (maybe one-too-many) social situation is a
curious one to optimize. As a simple human, I don't scale very
well. An event allows people to scale socially, so having many
people meet in one place for an hour or two vs. one meeting at a
time allows for a feasible meeting opportunity. I'm also just one
person. I have limited knowledge that's easily used up. The more
people involved in a social setting, the more easily I can connect
people to each other, not myself.</p>
<h3 id="conferences-and-networking-events-do">Conferences and
Networking Events Do</h3>
<p>My general solution to all of this is simply to visit conferences
or hold networking events where I can meet many people at once,
and then give a speech at the conference. Giving a speech is the
easiest way to meet everyone in a room.</p>
<p>In essence, I never have free time until I am at a social tech
event. At social events my purpose is clearly defined as one of
socialization. I often conserve a lot of energy for these events
because they're a more efficient use of energy.</p>
<h3 id="ways-to-politely-decline-a-coffee-appointment">Ways to
Politely Decline a Coffee Appointment</h3>
<h4 id="1-invite-the-individual-to-a-group-dinner">1. Invite the
individual to a group dinner</h4>
<p>You can collect interest people over time and invite them to
smaller dinners that happen every few weeks. Brewster Kahale has a
standing dinner at his house every week for the past 16 years.
Different people each time, and he has a massive network this way.</p>
<p>I've been looking to organize dinners with people in the future,
because there's a lot of coffee appointments and it often takes
longer to schedule a coffee meeting than it does to actually spend
the time talking at coffee! The dinners bring together interesting
people that should be meeting each other anyway.</p>
<p>Chances are if we met up, I'd be trying to get you to meet half
of them anyway, resulting in another set of coffee scheduling!
Mind if I add your name to the list of invites to the next dinner
events? They will be in a small room with a curated set of awesome
people who think and do exciting things. Would love to have you
there! Just let me know, and I'll invite you to the next one!</p>
<h4 id="2-bcc-party">2. BCC Party!</h4>
<p>Invite a bunch of people to a private event where none of
themknow they exist.</p>
<p>Where did the idea for a BCC party come from? The story I heard
is that it came from some folks at Google. The invite was pretty
simple - the three hosts sent out an email blast to all their
friends, putting everyone in the BCC line. They called their mixer
a BCC Party.</p>
<p>I went to a great one in Portland recently that included about
50% awesome people I knew but didn't have the time to catch up
with on a regular basis, and 50% people I had never met before but
were vetted by the group that put it together.</p>
<h4 id="3-invite-the-individual-to-a-public-networking-event">3.
Invite the individual to a public networking event.</h4>
<p>Know of an event they'd like, or one you'll be going to in the
future? Invite them! It makes it easierto get the conversation
set.</p>
<h4 id="4-see-if-you-ll-be-in-the-sample-place-in-the-future">4. See
if you'll be in the sample place in the future</h4>
<p>SXSW, XOXO and other places may have people you know already.
Dopplr was the best way to see when other people would be
travelling to the same place in the future.</p>
<h4 id="5-organize-an-industry-networking-event">5. Organize an
Industry Networking Event</h4>
<p>If you don't have one, organize one! Use a public bar and having
a standing meeting every week. Portland's widly successful Beer
and Blog event started this way. It grew from four people on
laptops to over 150 people a week at it's apex. I was introduced
to my co-founder there, and it's where I directed anyone to go
when I got the coffee emails.</p>
<h4 id="6-forward-the-person-to-someone-else">6. Forward the person
to someone else</h4>
<p>This isn't always the best idea, as half the emails I get come
from people who don't have time for coffee so forward someone onto
coffee for me.</p>
<h4 id="7-give-them-your-phone-number-and-tell-them-to-call-you">7.
Give them your phone number and tell them to call you</h4>
<p>Chances are they won't, but if they do you can always limit the
call to 15 min and get right down to the point. Sometimes you'll
end up surprisded and talk for hours. Either way it doesn't
involve scheduling, driving or viking, picking a place to meet,
waiting if someone is late, ect.</p>
<h4 id="8-go-on-a-hike-or-walk-with-them">8. Go on a hike or walk
with them</h4>
<p>Take walking meetings</p>
<h4
id="9-schedule-all-of-them-in-the-same-day-and-have-people-sign-up-on-a-google-spreadsheet">9.
Schedule all of them in the same day and have people sign up on a
Google Spreadsheet</h4>
<h4 id="10-don-t-reject-the-idea-of-coffee-altogether">10. Don't
reject the idea of coffee altogether</h4>
<p>There are some times when coffee is good. Sometimes coffee is
great. You just want to make sure you save the coffee meetings for
the really epic people. People that are reffered to you from
strong, close connections. You can always have coffee as a
followup if you find out through another method that they're
amazing! Often coffee people want advice or support, or want a
connection. Sometimes you're just in the way of that connection.
Why not find out quickly what they want and give it to them? This
doesn't count for epic disucssions about interesting things, or
meeting of the minds.</p>
<h3 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h3>
<p>If you send me an email and I don't respond, I greatly apologize.
Hopefuly this is enough of an explanation of my behavious and
physical limitations as a human being.</p>
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