I’ve decided to issue a challenge to myself.
Tonight is the kickoff party for Mpact’s program for summer interns. Every year we run programs for a couple hundred corporate interns who are in town for the summer. We take them out to sporting events, parties, networking events, etc. and help them put down roots in Memphis, so that they’ll consider coming back here to live and work full-time after they graduate. This year the kickoff party is at Autozone Park at a Redbirds game, with a reception upstairs the hour before.
So here’s my challenge to myself: I would like to meet, get to know, and really connect with as many of these interns as possible. However, this year I plan to do it without asking any of the following questions:
– Where do you work/what do you do there?
– Where are you from?
– Where do you go to college?
– What’s your major?
Those are the questions everyone asks and they’re BORING! So I’m going to force myself to think outside of the box. It’s going to be hard to avoid these questions, because they’re almost like an auto-pilot response at this type of “young professionals” event. But, I want to come up with more creative ways to really connect with people.
Sigh… I bet most of the people show up in business or business casual attire since it’s a “young professionals” event. Not me! It’s 90 degrees outside and that sounds like T-shirt and shorts weather (or tube top weather if you’re a female). At least the T-shirt will be an Mpact T-shirt.
Wow… this is going to be tough. I just realized that the interns will be asking me what I do, and it’s going to be awfully hard not to slip into the conditioned response of “how about you, what do you do?” I better go think on this a little bit before I head over there. I’ll let you know what happens.