Warm fizz. Illegible name badges. Awkward conversations. Can’t face another networking event? We don’t blame you. But we’re here to tell you: there is another way. One which results in genuine connections and useful conversation. From bringing friends together to creating a global events series such as ZISMeets, gathering well is an art in itself. And luckily, it’s one which anyone can learn.

“The way we gather matters,” writes Priya Parker in her best-selling book The Art Of Gathering. “Gathering – the conscious bringing together of people for a reason – shapes the way we think, feel and make sense of our world.” Whether it’s meetings, weddings, birthday parties, town halls, conferences, board meetings, class reunions, dinner parties or trade fairs, if these events aren’t created with care, they can feel like a waste of time, she points out. “They’re just uninspiring, underwhelming moments that fail to capture us, change us in any way, or connect us to one another.”

Priya believes that we all have the potential to gather well: we simply need to put thought, purpose and structure into our gatherings, rather than just following what’s been done before. “Gatherings crackle and flourish when real thought goes into them, when – often invisible – structure is baked into them, and when a host has the curiosity, willingness and generosity of spirit to try,” she says.

This art of gathering is more important than ever in the business environment too. As Senior Vice President, Events at Sparks, a global brand experience agency, Elena Nicolaidis, Class of 1999 (1994-99), is always seeking new ways to create memorable ‘surprise and delight’ moments at the high-profile events the company designs and produces – from an activation ata major sports tournament for Anheuser-Busch or a conference for Google to a pop-up holiday market for Eater.

Unsurprisingly, since the pandemic she’s seen demand rocket for these in-person gatherings. “Many brands have renewed their efforts to bring people together in a meaningful community setting. Younger generations, in particular, crave purposeful, personal experiences with brands and with each other. They want that sense of belonging and trust you get when you interact in person.”

Elena manages a team of around 200 people to bring these events to life. But, she says, anyone can make a gathering more meaningful if they understand who the audience is and what they need from the event. “We’ll often communicate with guests before the event, so we can shape their experience before they even get there – we call it the attendee journey. How are we engaging with them before, during and after the event, so they can capture what they learned or follow up with the connections they made, and do something meaningful with that?”

Many brands have renewed their efforts to bring people together in a meaningful community setting. Younger generations in particular crave personal experiences with brands and with each other

Designing environments is also key – which, again, comes from engaging deeply in who and what the event is for, says Elena. “We think a lot about the best way our audience is going to learnand engage, and many of our events have multiple different ways to do that, from interacting with a product physically, sitting one to one with an expert or listening to an inspiring speaker on stage.”

Google’s annual thought leadership event, Zeitgeist, which Elena’s team supports, is a good example of this. A curated group of trailblazers from across industries are brought together to interact with world-class speakers – and each other. “We create an intimate, retreat-like setting where they’re off their devices – listening, engaging and learning about how entrepreneurs, CEOs, storytellers, artists and scientists are shaping our world,” she says. “This fuels unexpected conversations and connections, during the pickleball tournament or at the surprise after-dinner private concert, for example, that are organised as part of the three-day event.”

Crickett Kasper is Director of Schools for the Council of Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), which brings professionals at schools and higher education institutions together to learn from each other and CASE’s own extensive research. She says that curating not just your event but also your attendees is key. “Priya Parker talks about being ‘exclusive’ – not for the sake of leaving people out, but making them feel included. If the right people are included, the right interactions happen.” And that goes back, once again, to knowing who your event is for, and what its purpose is. “If your purpose is to have big conversations, you need people in the room who are willing to take on those topics – and those who are willing to listen, because everyone in the room can’t speak at the same time.”

In fact, drilling down into exactly why you’re having an event and what you want to achieve can be the most difficult aspect of organising your gathering, she points out. “Because sometimes, even though it feels that your company or institution or group has a very clear direction and focus, getting everyone on the same page can be very hard. My first filter would always be: what are we trying to achieve? Then the invite list comes from that: do we want these people to be our champions? Or do we want them to improve our plan? Or both? Being clear about your intentions really matters.”

So how does creating a purposeful gathering work in practice? For the past few years, ZIS has been redefining how it brings together alumni and friends, inspired in part by Priya Parker’s book. “There is no point in us getting people together just to stand there with a glass of wine in their hand,” says Michaela Seeger, Director of Community Relations at ZIS. “Our community doesn’t need the school to do that for them. Instead, we thought hard about what would bring the greatest benefit to our community, what we can offer them that they aren’t getting elsewhere.”

That might mean bringing in an inspiring speaker connected to the ZIS community: people will come because they want to learn something, not just to see who else is there, says Michaela, and the format will also make it easier for participants to connect.

“If you are the only one from your graduating class, you can mingle afterwards and talk about what you have just learned, rather than standing in the corner not knowing what to do.”

Or it could mean adding more structure to the evening – which proved very successful during a ZISMeets event in New York last year. “We asked a few questions of attendees beforehand, such as the area they worked in and what they enjoyed doing. And then we clustered them according to the answers. For example, if you put everyone who works in finance together, that gives them something to talk about and is also a great networking opportunity.”

The school’s Community Dinners for parents and alumni, which have been running for a number of years, are also built on this philosophy of purposeful gathering. Attendees are asked to prepare a short response to a chosen topic – for example, “Talk about something that you learned at school which helped you become who you are today” – which they share at the dinner, with only one person allowed to speak at a time. “We are a school that thinks together. And these events enable us to do that – to gather thoughts and ideas,” says Michaela. Participants share stories that we can then use as a starting point to the next part of the conversation. It might turn out that most people found soft skills were a crucial part of their learning at school, so we can then ask: How do we foster soft skills going forward?’”

Online, one person gets to have the talking stick and everyone else reacts. But there’s something about face-to-face gathering that allows many things to happen at once

People want to meet each other – so harness that very human desire and make your gathering an event to remember, says Crickett. “When we’re connecting online, one person has the talking stick and others are reacting to that. But there’s something about face-to-face gathering that allows many things to happen at once. Having our own conversation, reacting to something we hear, crosstalk, a chorus of voices – there’s an energy to that, a different type of connection. I’m incredibly grateful that we have the technology to meet online. But in person, it’s so much more meaningful and impactful.”