There’s something really nice about a city that makes room for people to meet each other.
BlogJXN recently stopped by Innovate Mississippi’s CONNECT: Networking for Entrepreneurs, a monthly gathering held on the first Thursday of each month, and left thinking: yep, this is exactly the kind of thing Jackson needs more of.
The idea is pretty simple. Bring entrepreneurs, business owners, creatives, community builders, and generally curious people into the same room and see what happens. Just good conversations, new connections and a space where people can actually get to know one another.
And honestly, we met some great people.
That’s probably our favorite part of events like CONNECT. It’s easy to talk about building a stronger entrepreneurial community, but actually creating opportunities for people to get in the same room is where that starts to happen. We really appreciate anyone putting in the work to make those spaces available, especially when they feel as welcoming as this one did.
Also, Fertile Ground is a pretty great place to do it
The event was held at Fertile Ground, which turned out to be a very good choice.
There were drinks, plenty of comfortable places to hang out, and an atmosphere that made it easy to stick around and keep talking instead of doing the classic networking move where everyone says hello and immediately disappears.
There is also a pinball machine.
Naturally, BlogJXN took advantage of this opportunity for very serious research purposes.
We can neither confirm nor deny that this was one of the highlights of the evening.
And if networking works up an appetite, Poppy Pies is right next door, which feels like another excellent Jackson life hack. Meet interesting people, have a drink, play some pinball, then go get a pie. We don’t make the rules.
Keep doing stuff like this, Jackson
CONNECT is a good reminder that community doesn’t always have to mean a huge conference or some meticulously planned networking extravaganza. Sometimes it’s just a room full of people who are willing to show up, talk to someone new and see where the conversation goes.
We’re glad Innovate Mississippi is making that room available.
So, to the folks behind CONNECT: keep it up. We had a great time, met some genuinely cool people and left feeling pretty encouraged about the people building things in and around Jackson.
And yes, we would absolutely recommend coming back next month.
We’ll be the ones at the pinball machine.
For research.
