I would suggest perhaps contacting each person who contacted you via email or PM to ask whether they would like to opt into a private mailing list? I would definitely opt into such a mailing list. There’s a Less Wrong Parents mailing list, why not a Less Wrong Networking mailing list?
It’s hard to get momentum in any mailing list: It requires a good number of active participants. This is especially true in a group for networking, where connections scale as O(n^2). Even if the list were active, it would require all participants to monitor it for the rare occasions when they see a message that is relevant to them.
Here’s an idea: People could post on their LW profiles that they are willing to be contacted using the LW messaging system. They will state their readiness to be a mentor, or their willingness to get job offers, etc.
If these could be aggregated in a single page, e.g., on the wiki—preferably automatically—it would make things even easier.
This requires effort on each potential participant with questionable results esp. without an aggregation mechanism.
The key point seems to be the get as many people as possible into one small spot to reach a critical mass of potential connections. Then everybody could be confident to get any opportunities if there are any at all.
Thus I propose one central virtual networking meetup e.g. a large groupchat at a scheduled time in a chatroom with a fixed number of associated tinychats (e.g. one for each topics). Then announce the time and chatroom as loud as possible on LW and with enough time to book this in the calendar.
My original reasoning behind suggesting a mailing list was that it would remove the bottleneck of time-pressure which would be associated with a single massive group chat event. For example, the prior probability that I could make it to an arbitrarily scheduled group chat is around 2%, but I could respond to email at my leisure. The email could simply be step 1 of a process that would evolve into something else. Right now, JoshuaFox has basically the most useful piece of information to come out of this, which is a list of email addresses of Less Wrong users with interest in business networking … I am merely trying to find a way for that list to be made available in a way that all the participants find agreeable.
I would suggest perhaps contacting each person who contacted you via email or PM to ask whether they would like to opt into a private mailing list? I would definitely opt into such a mailing list. There’s a Less Wrong Parents mailing list, why not a Less Wrong Networking mailing list?
There is a LW parents mailing list? How do I get in?
EDIT: I guess I found it: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/less-wrong-parents
It’s hard to get momentum in any mailing list: It requires a good number of active participants. This is especially true in a group for networking, where connections scale as O(n^2). Even if the list were active, it would require all participants to monitor it for the rare occasions when they see a message that is relevant to them.
Here’s an idea: People could post on their LW profiles that they are willing to be contacted using the LW messaging system. They will state their readiness to be a mentor, or their willingness to get job offers, etc.
If these could be aggregated in a single page, e.g., on the wiki—preferably automatically—it would make things even easier.
This requires effort on each potential participant with questionable results esp. without an aggregation mechanism.
The key point seems to be the get as many people as possible into one small spot to reach a critical mass of potential connections. Then everybody could be confident to get any opportunities if there are any at all.
Thus I propose one central virtual networking meetup e.g. a large groupchat at a scheduled time in a chatroom with a fixed number of associated tinychats (e.g. one for each topics). Then announce the time and chatroom as loud as possible on LW and with enough time to book this in the calendar.
My original reasoning behind suggesting a mailing list was that it would remove the bottleneck of time-pressure which would be associated with a single massive group chat event. For example, the prior probability that I could make it to an arbitrarily scheduled group chat is around 2%, but I could respond to email at my leisure. The email could simply be step 1 of a process that would evolve into something else. Right now, JoshuaFox has basically the most useful piece of information to come out of this, which is a list of email addresses of Less Wrong users with interest in business networking … I am merely trying to find a way for that list to be made available in a way that all the participants find agreeable.