University Times

Name tags attached and note paper in hand, eight eager members of the University community sat face to face in parallel rows and awaited the start of what organizers say may be among the world’s first speed-networking opportunities aimed at connecting like-minded researchers.

Modeled after the popular speed dating concept in which participants rotate through a number of chairs in order to meet a variety of potential partners in a short period of time, the April 6 event, “Speed Networking: Meet Your Research Partner,” sought to pair faculty and graduate students who have compatible research interests. Open to both Pitt and Carnegie Mellon faculty and students, the session drew participants from several engineering disciplines, pharmaceutical science, Pitt’s College of General Studies (CGS), library science and information sciences.

“Information science crosses many disciplines, so we naturally do this in our research,” said School of Information Sciences (SIS) spokeswoman Kelly Shaffer, of the mix.

Fortified with perhaps a bit too much lemonade and cookies, when the signal was given to begin, one participant broke the ice with a tongue-in-cheek, “So, what’s your sign?” and the conversations ignited, quickly turning to more appropriate businesslike questions and descriptions of individual academic interests.

Organizers soon found the planned two-minute limit per conversation was not enough for the talkative duos. “We can barely introduce ourselves in two minutes,” protested Beth Minnigh, a senior lecturer in pharmaceutical sciences. By popular demand, the allotted time to converse was expanded to five, then to eight minutes per pair, then 12, with no lull in the chatter. Contact information and business cards were exchanged and some initial connections were made.

SIS alumna Sara Masters found the variety of the gathering’s participants beneficial. “People have so many different facets,” she said.

Minnigh, who came to Pitt a year ago, welcomed the opportunity for upper-campus and lower-campus researchers to overcome their geographic separation and converse, but said she thought the speed-networking concept might work better if the fields were narrowed. “Do telecom and drug analysis go together? Maybe not.” Still, she acknowledged that making the event area-specific might hinder potential cross-disciplinary collaborations that could spring up.

Minnigh said as a University newcomer she found the event helpful. “I got a couple of vital pieces of information [such as where to get equipment repaired]. It was worth the hour just in that.”

Participants’ reasons for attending were as varied as their fields of study.

Cindy Niznik, a program assistant in CGS, said she found the event valuable. “I did meet someone interested in talking to our dean,” she said.

Niznik came in search of collaborators for the University’s new distance education program Pitt Online, looking specifically for people interested in developing courses or adapting their face-to-face courses to the on-line format. “A lot of participants are Ph.D. students; we need Ph.D.s to teach,” she said.

SIS doctoral student Kip Currier came to pick the brains of researchers. “As someone who is being trained in research, and what goes into research… I thought I could learn from them.” In addition to talking about his own study of how Charles Darwin categorized information, Currier wanted to hear from researchers about the kinds of data software they use, their sources of funding and their methods of approaching research, to name a few.

“I was struck by the novelty of the concept,” said Currier, who added he was glad he had attended. “I think this whole speed networking has a lot of applications to a lot of other things than just dating.”

The brainchild of students in SIS professor Susan Alman’s graduate-level Marketing and PR for Libraries class, the event was among multiple projects planned to recognize National Library Week, “but not to be so stodgy about it all,” Alman said. Others in the class created a humorous four-minute film (available at http://youtube.com/watch?v=ItCIHAksjf4) in which a nerdy geek turns into a rock-and-roll virtuoso, thanks to his local library.

The speed networking event, according to the class’s research, is a true novelty, not only at Pitt. “Apparently this has been done only once before, in England,” said Alman.

The jury is still out on whether any budding research relationships will develop and birth new ideas based on the contacts made at the event. But, judging by the success of the initial session, more are planned. “We’re definitely going to do it again,” said Alman, adding that the event is likely to be integrated into the school’s annual i-fest next fall.

—Kimberly K. Barlow