I’m terrible at looking at someone’s face and remembering their name. I admitted as much on the latest episode of The AI Social Playbook, and anyone who has stood next to me at a conference has seen it. Most of us cope the same way. We glance at the name badge, hope the lanyard hasn’t flipped around, and fake our way through the first thirty seconds.

At a conference with thousands of attendees, that’s the whole game. You can’t meet everyone, so the people you do meet are mostly an accident. Whoever happened to be in line with you, whoever sat at your table. You leave with a stack of new connections on LinkedIn and, a week later, can’t remember which of them you meant to follow up with.

Judi Fox showed me a better way on that episode, and it takes less than an hour of homework. She built what she calls a room for an event the night before we recorded. When she walked in, she already knew who she wanted to talk to, what they looked like, and what they did for a living.

The event was RVA Showcase Night in Richmond, Virginia. Before it happened, someone named Crystal had posted about it on LinkedIn. Judi looked at who had liked and commented on that post and recognized it for what it was: a list of people who cared enough about the event to raise their hand in public. Some of them would be in the room that night.

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