We put a podcast booth in a room full of strangers. They talked.

Networking events have a format. You stand in a circle, hold a warm drink, and ask a stranger what they do. They tell you. You forget it before they finish the sentence. Then you both check your phones.

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The Bangkok Startup Association knows this. They bill their Disruptors night as an anti-networking event, and they asked us to help make the conversations real, with something to show for the night afterwards.

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So we set up our mobile podcast booth at Flamenco. Microphones, chairs, cameras rolling. Then we handed guests a list of questions and stepped back. They interviewed each other.

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A microphone changes how people talk. Hand someone a question card and point a camera at them, and the small talk stops. The questions give people permission to ask something real. The recording gives them a reason to answer properly.

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The numbers: the top clip from the night reached 25,000 views. That is five times what the BSA's posts normally get. The clips were made by the guests, about the guests, which may explain why the guests shared them.

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The part I like most never showed up in the analytics. Guests who met at the microphones went on to work together, and with the BSA. That is the stated purpose of every networking event ever held. This one got there by removing the networking.

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We have now run this set-up at a startup night and an awards gala. Same kit, different rooms. If you run events and your content plan is a photographer and a hashtag, there is a better use of the floor space.