The exercise was used as one element in a short workshop on the subject of networking for a group of members on my local business network club.

I chose this exercise to open my session as all of the delegates were well known to each other – and I hoped that none had encountered any similar exercises which proved to be true!

Not having any postcards, I took colour photographs from a CD of clip art and printed them off before the event saving cut halves in pairs to ensure that I had no problems with the logistics before I started!

They tackled the task with some gusto and some very interesting information came to light.

Everyone agreed that the photo had indeed stimulated their discussions and proved to be a helpful aide to getting the conversation started. Knowing that some of the delegates were not too keen on making the first move in a ‘networking’ situation, I asked if they would like to try a ‘model’ to try. With unanimous agreement, we went through the Open- Steer- Close- Keep in contact process which was well received although to be fair it was better received by those with a difficulty in this area – they saw it as a very useful technique to utilise whereas the more experienced and or more confident delegates were less impressed.

As with all of the exercises, the discussion questions at the end prompted much useful additional material to the whole session.