I attended the London OpenCoffee Meetup last week, and found it to be a great event. Started by Saul Klein, entrepreneur, former Marketing VP at Skype, and author of the localglo.be blog, the Meetup was held at Starbucks on Regent Street. This meant that there was no chance that anyone one was going to suffer from low caffeine levels.
 
The great thing about this event is that there is absolutely no structure beyond who is coming and where it’s going to be held. It is a pure and simple networking event; people go there to make business connections, not to listen to speakers. It is probably the purist networking event I have been to in the sense that there was no agenda coming from the organisers, and no sponsors. The relaxed environment of a coffee shop is exceptionally conducive to meeting new people. While it may have been laid back, the discussions were very much business focused and I left having made a number of contacts that I will definitely be interacting with in the future.
 
I was pleased to see that it is a regular weekly event, and given the convenient location - a 10 minute walk from our Quirk office in Covent Garden, (10 minutes there only 5 minutes to walk back after a few double espressos) - I  will certainly attend again.
 
Speaking to previous atendees, (it has been running for a little over a month now), I learnt that each week sees different sets of people. Of course some people will attend multiple Meetups, so while you don't have time to speak to everyone there you should get an opportunity to meet those you missed at a future event.
 
My thanks to Saul for starting this event as well as to those that attended.