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We have built all of Seats2meet.com around it, more than 80% of the visitors of a S2M location experience it, we wrote a book about it, and even built an AI driven tool for it, and it is what makes us move because we believe that it makes us a better person; we are talking about Serendipity✨, an unexpected and relevant meeting.
But how do you make sure you are open to those unexpected events? Here are five tips to help you.
Tip 1: Show yourself 💃🏽
Show yourself! Sharing your knowledge, interests and talents
is our number one tip. That is why you as a user at S2M don’t pay for your coworking seat (which makes us the only worldwide), but you do pay with social capital, that is; your knowledge, interests and talents.
By telling your story and sharing it with the people around you, serendipity happens, people think with you. Show yourself in your S2M Profile. Update your knowledge tags every now and then and write a bio that tells a bit more about yourself, and if you’re at it, add a nice photo so you can be found! In this way your matches can find you!
SHOW YOURSELF! SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE, INTERESTS AND TALENTS IS THE NUMBER ONE RULE.
Do you want to share your story? Spread it in the S2M Online Magazine and through the network, full of tips, inspiring stories and interviews with thought leaders worldwide. You can send your article to beatriz@seats2meet.com or if you would like to share it straight from your blog download our plugin.
Tip 2: Ask questions 🤷🏼♀️
Asking questions saves your time and ensures innovations! You do not have to reinvent the wheel. By asking questions you can test assumptions, get help on subjects you might not know that much about, and you do not have to solve everything yourself. I often experience it, for example as a “dummy” in the programming world, I get better results in my assignments when asking the network for help.
By submitting your question to a network full of diversity and different interests, knowledge and talents, there is a big chance that someone can help you out, no matter the problem. Ask a question via your S2M Passport and it will be sent via an AI driven algorithm to relevant people, where serendipity is given a helping hand in the right direction.
Tip 3: Break the habit ✨
Get away from your daily routine, meet different people from different cultures, people working in different fields, people with different interests and talents. This not only leads to a more open mind (one of the most important ingredients of Serendipity), but also to less assumptions and more innovations.
Work in different places or in where the dynamics change every day. With more than 200 locations worldwide there are more than enough different places for you to adventure and change things up a bit. One day you work in a school, the next in someone’s living room and then in a huge corporate’s headquarters. Or maybe at one of the traditional Seats2meet’s key locations in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Den bosch, Amersfoort, and Utrecht (Meetingplaza, SIF & Seats2meet Utrecht CS). If you work in a different S2M location every weekday it will take ten months to cover them all!
VIEW ALL LOCATIONS WORLDWIDE 🏡
Tip 4: Help others 🚀
By helping others you show where your knowledge and interests lie. You can show what you are good at and what you are passionated about. Did you receive a question from the ecosystem? This offers opportunities for a new assignment, friendship, or a job. In a research made by the Erasmus University of Rotterdam we found out that 1 out of 6 users of Seats2meet.com gets a new job, paid assignment or even founded a company with someone they met via S2M. By helping others you also find out what gives you energy. You can help others and discover for yourself you are actually very good and very happy about it 😄.
Tip 5: Don’t plan (too much)
As you may have noticed, we at Seats2meet.com work in a “cha-ordal” way. This has many advantages (of course sometimes disadvantages, but mostly advantages).
By not making a year-long plan or blocking all schedules you become flexible and as a result we create a lot of impact in a small team. We make full use of our network and because of this we often find ourselves in serendipitous moments that surprise us time and time again. Also by not planning, our eyes remains open (ingredient number one for serendipity ✨) for innovations, improvements and innovations.
✨Tip 6✨ (extra tip): Facilitate serendipity
Do you want to facilitate serendipity? You can! Open your space for others and walk side by side with serendipity everyday. By connecting your location to the S2M Network users can be matched to your location via the S2M Passport, they can work and meet you and you get new knowledge and inspiration in-house, win-win-win!
