I've stopped trying to start conversations with strangers. When I considered it a 'live option' I didn't think that I was getting enough conversations out the effort I was allocating. I imagine it would be a better option for people who were not as shy to begin with.

The reason that speed dating is attractive to me is that I don't think that I could get many more conversations started in a speed dating environment because it would be expected that I would once I was in it. Yeah, that's good to keep in mind. I would expect that a lot of it wouldn't transfer, but even if a small amount did it seems like it would be worth the investment for me.