The Surprising Power of Two Hour Mid-week Cocktail Parties

<p dir="ltr">In 2019 My friend Philip invited me to a 2-hour cocktail party at his tiny apartment in the Lower East side. True to his word, the gathering, which was on a Tuesday night, started at 7 PM sharp, and at 9 PM he kicked us out onto Orchard Street to enjoy the rest of our night and/or to get to bed on time (since it was a weeknight, after all!)</p> <p dir="ltr">I met a whole bunch of awesome people, and if I’m honest, I thought Phil was super cool for bringing such a lovely group of people together. The food and drinks were nothing to write home about, but no one cared. Phil stopped the party two or three times to get us to circle up and introduce ourselves and respond to an icebreaker prompt. It was pretty fun.</p> <p dir="ltr">He mentioned during the party that he was following an early draft agenda, a recipe if you will, for such gatherings, that was being developed by his friend Nick Gray, who I knew of through other friends. Nick had started a company called Museum Hack that had blown up - in the good sense. They were leading creative tours in Museums around the city, so I guessed this guy Nick knew a thing or two about getting people together.</p> <p dir="ltr">Cut to 2022 when Nick Gray’s book “The Two Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with small gatherings” came out. Here it was, four years later! I was fascinated to talk to Nick because I thought “How much could there be to this? Isn’t it all in the title!?” How much could the form have evolved over 4 years of prototyping and testing?! </p> <p dir="ltr">I’ll tell you folks…this is a polished gem of a book.</p> <p dir="ltr">If you’ve followed my work, you know that I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to gathering/facilitation/conversation design. I love card decks about it, books, diagrams, narrative metaphors to fuel creative innovation in gathering science for skilled facilitators to bring diverse stakeholders together to tackle wicked problems. I have coached leaders on this skill, all over the world. I hosted many, many cohorts