Speed up!

Wise Words: speed

In the UK, there’s a speed limit on the roads. There doesn’t seem to be one anywhere else.

Everything has to happen fast — ideally at top speed. If it doesn't, we automatically feel we're wasting our time — or missing out on something more important.

It’s one of the reasons why speed dating has become so popular. This is an event where singles have the chance to meet potential partners. The participants only have a couple of minutes to talk to each other before they decide if they click or not. It’s exciting and nerve-racking (so I’m told). Instead of wasting a whole night with one blind date, you get to evaluate several. At top speed.

The concept of speed dating has been copied and has moved out of romance and into the business world. There’s speed interviewing, speed networking and there’s evenspeed flatmating. Watch the video to see why this has become so popular in London recently.

I’ll be doing some professional speed networking of my own this weekend. I’m going to the Business English Special Interest Group’sannual  conference in Poznan, Poland. The coffee breaks are usually too short for more than a couple of five-minute conversations. It’s still a great opportunity to meet new people with similar teaching backgrounds and maybe even mutual business interests. It’s also a chance to get up to speed with any developments in the teaching community — and for me to bring teachers up to speed on developments at Business Spotlight.

Maybe I’ll see you there! In the meantime, learn some more expressions with speed in the exercise on the next page.