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Coffee with Strangers

From an interview with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley in the New York Times.

As the company has grown, I can sometimes start to feel disconnected, and I’ll decide to randomly meet with one person a day, and we’ll go out for a half-hour coffee. You do that for six weeks or so, and then all the channels of communication are open again. People feel like they can come and talk to me. I learn about the things that are troubling them or challenging them, or questions they might have. I always ask them for feedback, too. “Is there anything that I can do better to make your job easier? Is there anything I can do to make the company better?”

I’m a huge fan of networking over coffee - it’s simple and low pressure. I don’t do it often enough, though. Every day for even just 15 minutes sounds pretty reasonable to me!