Thirty of us have just finished playing an interactive ice-breaker at an in-person experience design training I am leading. Inevitably, someone says, “That was great, but how do you do that virtually?” In all honesty, until recently, I haven’t had a good answer to that question because I have been a self-proclaimed “in-person person” when it comes to events for the past 20 years.
Now, with the rise of a global pandemic and the proliferation of remote work, I can no longer excuse myself from this critical leadership skill of translating in-person programs into online experiences. The world has changed. At least for now and for the foreseeable future, virtual events have become the new normal.
Unfortunately, the virtual world tends to focus on the often-boring delivery of information and quite literally reduces us to two-dimensional beings. Viewed only through a screen, it can be easy to lose sight of our humanity, and to feel isolated and alone. But don’t give up hope just yet! You can absolutely optimize these platforms for meaningful connection as long as you are willing to make it a priority. I can tell you from having taken all my programs online, you can build a real community through these mediums that makes time in front of a screen totally worth it.
At most in-person events, attendees connect at a lunch break, while waiting in line for the restroom, or at a casual happy hour. We assume these moments of serendipity will be enough to check off the boxes for “networking” and “building community.” However, in a virtual context, there is no opportunity for connection by accident — we must design for connection on purpose.
Priya Parker, the author of the seminal book on experience design called The Art of Gathering, refers to this as “Don’t be a chill host.” It means that as the convener, you can’t just sit back and let things happen. You have a responsibility to intentionally guide attendees through the process of building trust and rapport, so they get the full benefit of attending your event.
To help our attendees achieve the goal of building authentic relationships, we have to include these opportunities in the main part of our program. We have to make connection a priority, and at times be willing to prioritize connection over content. Connection reminds us of our humanity. It invokes our empathy, understanding, and compassion, all of which are needed during these turbulent times. We need to create structured, facilitated opportunities for people to connect in meaningful ways, otherwise we risk that it may not happen at all.
Here are three ways you can make sure every one of your attendees has intentional opportunities to connect and leaves feeling like they are part of a community.
The beginning of an event sets the tone for everything to come, and you only have one chance to make a first impression. This is the moment to actively engage participants and get them sharing something significant with each other. If you miss this window, attendees will go into “passive observer” mode, and it will be harder to get them to speak up and share later.
Many event organizers and marketers spend the first few, precious minutes attempting to get logistics out of the way by making announcements or thanking sponsors, but resist the urge. This is your opportunity to start building a sense of community right off the bat.
There are two main opportunities to create connection toward the beginning of a virtual event.
Arrival
The process of arrival is those few awkward minutes when people are arriving on the call, before you have begun the main program. This “unofficial start,” as Marc Collard — the founder of online game database Playmeo — calls it, is still a powerful opportunity to create engagement and connection right away. Here are some suggestions to make the most of these initial moments together:
• Play music. Have music playing as people arrive to set the tone and create a soundtrack for the call. Here’s a short video tutorial to do this on Zoom like a pro.
• Share a prompt. Ask participants to answer an intro prompt in the chat, like where they are currently located and one thing they’re grateful for. Starting with gratitude can create positive momentum and instant bonds. (Research has shown that “gratitude has both immediate and enduring effects... When one person experiences gratitude, both members of a dyad experience greater connection over time.”)
• Narrate responses. As answers come into the chat, narrate the responses to acknowledge each contribution. This helps participants feel seen and heard, and also fills the space.
• Change screen names. Have participants change their screen name to something fun or creative, by adding a nickname (Jenny - Mama Elf), or their favorite color (Jenny - Teal), or their superpower (Jenny - Connection). This simple action suddenly creates more depth to each person on the line.
Opening Ice-Breaker
An ice-breaker is a facilitated opportunity for participants to connect with one another and get to know each other a bit better. You want to make sure this happens within the first 10 minutes of your event, to make sure that participants are engaged and have an opportunity to contribute their voice. If you’re intimidated at having to come up with some complex game that isn’t cheesy and played out, then rest assured it doesn’t have to be complicated or scary. This can be as simple as posing a question for people to discuss in small groups, and can be done in as little as five minutes.
• Use ice-breaker questions. Some questions that I find set a positive tone and are relatively easy to answer are:
• What are you celebrating in your life right now?
• What’s a highlight from your week? What’s a highlight from today?
• What’s something you’re looking forward to this month?
• What’s one of your favorite quotes/sayings/mottos?
• Do the ice-breaker exercise Backstage Pass. If you want to dedicate a bit more time, one of my favorite connection exercises to kick off a virtual event is called Backstage Pass. In this activity, I put participants in small breakout groups of two or three and ask them to give each other short tours of the space they are currently in. This isn’t a way to show off, but as an invitation to share their humanity by giving each other a glimpse into their world beyond what we initially see on the screen. I encourage people to share something that might be personal, meaningful, or vulnerable like their fuzzy slippers, a pile of laundry in the corner, or that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read. I love this activity because it’s one that we can’t do at the office or at a conference. It actually only works in a virtual environment. (Video tutorials for games like this and 50 more can be found in the Play On Purpose online library.)
You don’t need to spend a lot of time facilitating connection, as long as you do it often. It’s more important to have multiple touchpoints so it’s a consistent thread that ties your event together. These activities can take as little as five minutes, and can be a profound way to connect attendees and drive your message forward.
Ideal times to facilitate connection (in addition to the beginning of your event) are:
• Right after a speaker/panel/presentation: Have participants share their main takeaway from the presentation in the chat or in small breakout groups. This acts both as a debrief of the content and a moment of connection between participants.
• After a break or a meal: Lead an ice-breaker with your group to get attendees present, focused, and primed for the next segment of content.
• Right before you close: Send attendees off into the world feeling connected to a new community. Have them share what they learned from this experience, or one action they will take tomorrow.
In a study on interpersonal closeness that birthed the famous article 36 questions that will make you fall in love with anyone, the researchers found that, “One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.” Trust is something that is earned over time, so it’s important to start slowly and build incrementally to greater levels of personal sharing as we go.
At the beginning of your event, you can start with some simple questions like, “What brought you here?” or “What are you hoping to get from this experience?” As your event progresses, ask questions to invite deeper layers of self-disclosure. One way to do this is to include questions that cross over from the professional context to the personal, like “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?” or “What’s something on your bucket list and why is it important to you?”
One tried-and-true way of helping participants dig a bit deeper is to pair people up and ask them to use the prompt “If you really knew me, you’d know…” It invites us to skip the initial layers of small talk, and to share something significant beneath the surface. I usually share some personal examples first, as modeling vulnerability gives your participants permission to do the same. I might offer a few examples like, “If you really knew me you’d know I grew up feeling lonely as an only child in New York City,” or “If you really knew me you’d know that I get nervous in a room full of strangers.”
Now it’s your turn…
If you are someone who is usually behind the scenes, it can be scary to come to the front of the virtual room and lead a connection exercise. Thankfully, there are resources that can support you in this endeavor:
• Hire a professional facilitator. There are many wonderful people who do this for a living and can bring a whole new energy to your online event. I have played this role many times, and having a pro at your disposal can put your mind at ease.
• Have a tech platform do it for you. This free Icebreaker platform pulls from a database of over 300 questions to help you get the conversation started, and you can select the appropriate level of intensity for your group. This other Icebreaker platform automatically matches your participants in one-on-one video chats based on a set of questions that you can select or create yourself.
• Choose one team-building activity or ice-breaker to learn and lead yourself. There are lots of great online resources that will help you create connection. Here’s a collection of more than 50 team-building exercises with online video tutorials designed to help you engage groups with confidence.
• Get training to design experiences that connect. I will be leading virtual Scaling Intimacy trainings in June and August, where you will learn how to strategically weave connection into the fabric of your events.
I can tell you that from my 20 years of designing and delivering events to tens of thousands of people around the world — from the yoga world to the corporate world — creating intimacy at scale is totally possible. It's possible regardless of how big your group is, how little time you have, or if your attendees are complete strangers. It’s possible regardless of your format or platform, as long as you make it a priority and design with that intention. It’s what attendees crave the most and receive the least. Connection is the key that unlocks a group’s greatest potential and highest capabilities, and that key is in your hands. Your attendees will thank you for it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein is passionate about creating transformational human-to-human experiences that prioritize connection over content. She offers in-depth trainings in her experience design methodology called Scaling Intimacy, and has consulted on events and programs for leading edge companies like Airbnb, Google, Dropbox, and Genentech. She is the founder and director of The Culture Conference, and the co-founder of AcroYoga, which has become a global movement with millions of practitioners around the world. In her twenty year career, she has taught tens of thousands of people in over twenty countries, and feels most alive when leading live events. A collection of her best team building games and exercises can be found in the Play On Purpose video library, designed to help facilitators engage and connect groups with confidence. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Inc., Fast Company, Forbes, and Tim Ferriss's book Tools of Titans.
