Bruce Whittman carried part of his resume in his pocket as he walked into the Wyndham hotel at the Research Triangle Park. He owns a production company and was hoping to network at this new kind of event.

"Because of this recession ... it's more important to meet people," Whittman said. It's more important to connect with people than it was five years ago."

That resume in his pocket was on his cell phone. He loaded some of his commercials and training videos on it and was hoping to show his work to at least two dozen people by night's end. One by one people got up and moved across the table from Whittman as LinkingRaleighNC.com put on its first "speed networking event."

"Each round's going to run about five minutes," said Greg Hyer, of the site. "People will take about 2 minutes and 20 seconds, make a pitch and answer any questions they may have."

Hyer said it's a derivative of the speed dating concept.

"Sometimes networking events are just too social," Hyer said. "They may get stuck in a conversation for longer than what they really want to be: sometimes 10, 15 minutes; sometimes the entire night."

He said most people here are employed; many sales professionals or small business owners. There were also a couple jobseekers in the crowd, too.

"You figure you can meet a lot of people real quickly," Whittman said. "Then you find out real fast whether you can help each other or not help each other."

Watch the NBC 17 News story to see how speed networking works.

Click here to find out more about LinkingRaleighNC.com.