Local chambers of commerce and other networking groups usually set aside a block of time during regular monthly meetings to allow members to introduce themselves and tell others what they do. While these round robin sessions allow members to give their 30-second commercials and get known, they don't do a lot to get members to interact with one another. In addition, after a few meetings, regulars are likely to tune each other out, since they've already heard each others' intros many times.

To keep round robin intros from being dull, try something different. At a recent meeting of the Greater Middle Country Chamber of Commerce, for instance, members introduced each other instead of introducing themselves during the round robin.

The activity, which was suggested by board member Debra Timms, who is a CPA with Kessler & Liscia PC in Selden, NY, worked like this:

As people arrived for the meeting, they were asked to find someone they didn't know and interview that person, gathering enough information to introduce the person to the group during the round robin. To make the interviews easy, members were given a piece of paper that contained the interview questions and spaces to write the answers.

The result? Everyone enjoyed the networking and had fun introducing the people they had just met. An added benefit: new members quickly got to know at least one other person at the event.

More: 7 Unusual, Uncommon and Unexpected Networking Secrets

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