The alternative is to commandeer the useless hour or two by throwing a dinner of your own.

I like to do this at least once during most conferences. Before the event, I'll scout out a nice nearby restaurant and send out preinvites to a private dinner that I'll host alongside the scheduled affair. You can do this ad hoc during the day or you can send out official invites beforehand. One way I've had big success is sending a fax to the hotel (most conferences have one host hotel where most VIPs will be staying) that the individuals get when they arrive the night before the conference asking them to join a group for dinner or drinks that night. Think about it: no secretaries to screen the message. Likely those people have no plans when they arrive, and even if they do, you will already stand out when you ultimately meet them during the conference, and I assure you they will be grateful for your having thought of them. If the keynote address is being given by someone particularly interesting, I'll turn my own affair into preor post-dinner drinks.

Often, creating your own forum is the best way to assure that people you're looking to meet will be in the same place at the same time. Ideally, you'd like to invite a stable of speakers to your dinner, which will provide a star-studded draw to your little event. Remember, even an unknown becomes a mini-star after their talk at an event.

I do this each year at Renaissance Weekend, an annual New Year's weekend gathering for politicians, businesspeople, and other professionals. I send out a funny invite asking a few people if they'd like to play hooky from an official dinner and go to a nice restaurant elsewhere. At Renaissance Weekend, they even have a night designed for going off on your own to do just this. This works best at long three-day conferences. As with college, everyone likes to get off campus. If the conference is in your hometown, be bold enough to invite people to your home for a real treat, as I have always done with the Los Angeles-based Milken Global Conference. This conference is one of the best in the United States for both content and guests. Each year I hold a dinner party at my house the day before the event is set to begin. People generally arrive in town a day early anyway, and a fun, intimate dinner party is always preferable to eating hotel food alone.

Dinner is not the only way to organize a conference within a conference. Long conferences are often filled with social outings—golf, tours, and visits to historic sites. Too often, such events are just plain terrible. Have you ever gone to a museum in a crowd of 400 people? You feel like a herded cow.

There's no reason why you can't take the lead in developing your own personal tour or visit to an out-of-the-way place that convention organizers might not have thought about. An old colleague from Starwood used to do this at winter conferences. An avid skier, he'd research the best skiing in the area—usually some out-of-the-way slopes that no one had taken the time to discover. He'd have no problem attracting a few other skiers who were jazzed about the prospect of some fresh powder.

The more active you become in playing "host" of your own conference within a conference, the better you'll be at helping other people make connections, making you a center of influence. When you meet people at your dinner party or event, don't simply introduce yourself; introduce the folks you meet to other people. If your new acquaintances don't quickly take up the conversation, offer a fact about one guest to another. "Sergio was in charge of Coke's global branding efforts in their heyday. Aren't you looking to refurbish your company's brand, David? You couldn't find a better sounding board than Sergio."

Draft Off a Big Kahuna

If you get to know the most popular man or woman at the conference—the one who knows everyone—you'll be able to hang with them as they circle through the most important people at the conference. Conference organizers, speakers, and namebrand CEOs and professionals attending the event are all worthy kahunas.

Check the convention program for the names of luminaries and key figures. Make those the sessions you attend. Arrive early at events where they'll be speaking. Stand near key entrances or registration tables. Be ready to introduce yourself, or stay behind for a quick chance to meet them.

You must remember to talk with speakers before they've hit the stage. Often, that anonymous schlub slurping yogurt at the breakfast table will take on the aura of a celebrity after he's spoken on stage. Find them before they've gained celebrity status, and you have a better chance to connect. Or ask the conference organizer (who has become your buddy anyway) to point them out if you don't know what they look like.

Be an Information Hub

Once you've created an opportunity to meet new people, establish yourself as an "information hub"—a key role of any good networker. How? Go beyond just memorizing the conference's brochure. Identify information the people around you would like to know, and come prepared. This might include information about trade gossip, the best local restaurants, private parties, etc. Pass key information along, or let others know how they can obtain it. This role does not end with the networking event, of course. As an information resource, you're someone always worth knowing.

Master the Deep Bump

The bump is the main weapon in your conference commando arsenal. Reduced to its essence, it is the two minutes you're given with someone you're "bumping into" whom you are looking to meet. Your goal should be to leave the encounter with an invitation to reconnect at a later time.

The bump, like other practices, is nuanced. The perfect bump is one that feels both fast and meaningful at the same time. I call this ideal a "deep bump."

Deep bumps are an effort to quickly make contact, establish enough of a connection to secure the next meeting, and move on. You've just paid a boatload of money to be at this conference (unless you're a speaker, when it's usually free!), and you want to meet as many people as you can in the time that you have. You're not looking to make a best friend. You are looking, however, to make enough of a connection to secure a follow-up.

Creating a connection between any two people necessitates a certain level of intimacy. In two minutes, you need to look deeply into the other person's eyes and heart, listen intently, ask questions that go beyond just business, and reveal a little about yourself in a way that introduces some vulnerability (yes, vulnerability; it's contagious!) into the interaction. All these things come together to create a genuine connection.

Not possible, you exclaim. Ah, but I've seen it done and I do it. The deep bump is not just theoretical mumbo jumbo.

There are some people who need just seconds, rather than minutes, to pull off a deep bump. Former President Bill Clinton, for instance, is the master. I've watched him up close as he works a line of well-wishers and fans (and sometimes, strident opponents). With each person, President Clinton will reach out to shake his or her hand. Most of the time, he'll use two hands or clasp a person's elbow to create instantaneous warmth. He'll make direct eye contact and, in that fleeting moment, ask a personal question or two. I don't know how many times I've heard different people from the same event comment about how incredible it was to be the sole focus of the man's attention. And that's even the Republicans.

The profoundness of that connection doesn't come from the President's desire to impart his opinion or riff on policy. His goal is at once very simple and powerful. The President wants you to like him (so in his own now-famous words, he "feels" what you feel). When he shows in those brief moments that he likes and cares about you, the human response is to reciprocate. He is finely tuned in to the radio station that we each listen to, WIIFM, also known as What's In It for Me? I never once heard Clinton ask for a vote or talk about himself when engaged in these quick, casual encounters. His questions always revolved around what the other person was thinking, what was troubling them.