Upon arriving at Remote Lounge on the Bowery for the recent Ryze.org
networking event, I greeted Andrew Kraft, the head of the New York
Tribe, paid my $5, got a name tag and descended into the depths of the
basement bar to spend the next 2 hours mingling and schmoozing. For the
most part it was a group of people I did not know. Many old networking
buddies had been signing my Ryze guestbook in the week leading up to
the event and popping out of the woodwork to add me as a "friend" on
their personal page. I expected to see many of these old friends at the
event and was slightly disappointed when I did not. I then remembered
that I was here to make new contacts and not to mingle with old friends
(although a little of both is always enjoyable!).
Ryze is an online business networking tool which actually makes sense.
You wonder why nobody thought of a website like this 3-5 years ago.
Everyone who signs up is asked what they "have" and what they can
"give". There are also inquiries about your industry, your interests,
your hometown, and you can upload photos onto your page. Everyone has a
virtual guestbook where other people can write you short, public
messages. If you want, you can also send a private message but it's
been my experience that many people use the public method of
communicating at first to reconnect. It's also quite easy to add people
as a "friend" or "contact" (although I haven't figured out the
difference ramification for adding people as one or the other on this
site).
The first person I ran into at the bar was Jason DeLuca, cousin of
bad-boy, Michael DeLuca of New Line Cinemas. Jason and I discussed his
work with Rockstar Games, and my former employment at a company in the
videogame industry. I next introduced myself to sales executive,
Michael Spitz, and connected with PR lady, Dara Tyson. I bumped into
David Nadel whom I had met at this summer's FAN networking event and
asked him to make me some marketing tchotckes for the holiday season. I
introduced myself to Vineet "Vinnie" Joshi who promotes graduate school
parties at hip clubs around town. I thought I recognized Rebecca
Pridmore with her beautiful, long red hair, but she and I could not
figure if we had, indeed, met before and, if so, where. Jen Leibhart
was sitting with David Flores in front of the cameras which are all over
the Remote Lounge, videotaping and broadcasting all the "goings-on" in
the club (and sometimes posting photos on their website of same so be
careful!). Jen pointed to an on-camera couple who were incorporating
their own version of dirty dancing against the bar for the benefit of
the cameras (and the rest of the bar patrons). David and I discussed
his work at the Wall Street Journal Online and the pros and cons of
moderated chat rooms on that site. Sitting across from us was a
father-daughter networking duo, Amos and Elizabeth Sattelee. Elizabeth
was a new college grad and dad was trying to instill in her the
importance of networking. (Smart!) I introduced myself to
sportswriter, Michael Griffin and then made my way back to the bar to
speak with Matt Sapero and Chung Ng. The smoke overtook me and I
ventured out into the night and took a cab to Rise at the Ritz-Carlton,
Battery Park City to breathe the fresh harbor night air from the 14th
floor bar balcony bar.