Schmoozing: nontraditional networking

At business events he attends across Long Island Philip Capell is known as Dr. Schmooze. He always liked to schmooze, but now he has gone into the schmoozing business, and he has added a dot-com to it.

Capell, 46, of Woodbury, is the creator of a new website, GoSchmooze.com, which links up business people who want to have breakfast or lunch to talk about ideas, how to make their businesses better, possible partnerships, or whatever.

Capell, an attorney and founder and president of Woodbury-based Piermont Wealth Management, an independent financial advisory firm, stresses that this is not a dating site. It's for serious business folks who want to meet in groups of four for an hour's meal.

"The hope and expectation is that they're doing business together, that they're adding revenue on both sides," said Capell.

The site went live in November and was a freebie until February. It just started charging $14.99 a month for membership. Capell says 100-plus breakfasts and lunches have taken place so far.

Users log on and see a drop-down menu showing a calender and locations of restaurants that have agreed to participate. They choose a restaurant and which meal they prefer.

Users, Capell says, will not be hooked up with people in the same industry and not with anyone they have schmoozed with in the last 30 days.

Thursday, Alan Wax, a public-relations executive and former Newsday reporter, Marissa Daidone, an elder-law attorney in Jericho, and Matthew Stern, owner of Commack-based CIO Source, which provides businesses with part-time chief information officers, were lunching at the Four Food Studio restaurant in Melville. It was a first for each.

Daidone said she had been to events held by Long Island business organizations, but "you see the same people all the time." This, she said, offered a chance to get to know people better in a small group.