Scatterwork Guest: Start your Meeting with a Virtual Icebreaker
Channel: Scatterwork
Date: 2015-09-21

Ice breakers are something that you would normally do in a collocation.

Today we're going to do that online in an online meeting, something quite different. Some of the things you'll see on the screen are cues for us to be able to have some fun together. We can see which locations we are from; we can see Macdara is in Switzerland. I also have a fortune cookie; everyone gets a fortune cookie, another item for us to discuss before we start the game. 

Once all participants are online (we can have up to 10 participants) we will go ahead and start the game. I just get a warning saying that people won't be able to start, if I start it.

The first element which we are going to do is something called the dream vacation,talk about her dream vacation together; that's the name of this particular ice-breaker and everyone has an opportunity to type in what their dream vacation will be. 

I've got mine pre-done. I'll go ahead, and type it in, as well as my friend will also type theirs in. Once I'm done typing, I hit continue - its waiting for everyone to do their responses.

On this screen we get to find out who's done which dream  vacation. Obviously with two people it doesn't make as much sense as if you had five or ten people on the screen. I'm going to go ahead make my guess and say that I like it and then I continue on to the next screen and I'm waiting for my friend - there we go.

As the moderator I get to choose to expand on my experience. In this particular instance I've always wanted to go to Tahiti. I want to experience the local culture, be able to do some scuba diving, just see as much as I can about the islands. I'm not much of a  beach dweller so I wouldn't spend too much time there.

Once I hit next it goes on to the next individual to expand on their experience. They would talk about how they wanted to go to the north pole before it melts and when that person is done they hit next and that goes in the same same way through all the participants. So Macdara,  go ahead and hit next. 

Then we get a summary of what's happening. We can see who's done what, who's got correct guesses.

There's been "likes" received. Once we get to this stage we're able to continue with our meeting more invigorated. We've been able to learn a little bit more about each other.

I've learned quite a bit about co-workers like this. I learned that I've got friends that are pilots that I never knew are pilots before; that were certified scuba divers I never realized that before so it's been an excellent experience for me.

I hope you enjoyed it thank you, Gerard Beaulieu of Virtualicebreakers.com.