I will be conducting a meeting in December with both virtual (Webex) and in-person participants. I'm looking for ideas on ice breakers or other activities that would work for both audiences. One idea I had is to put up a map tool (like frappr.com) and have each participant map their location. This could be pre-work since all participants might not have laptops. Any other ideas?

I prefer for icebreakers to relate to the material. What is the topic of this event?

It will be a quarterly team meeting for our change/comm/training team for a multi-year project I am on. Topics will mostly be around team building and working across functions (change talking to comm, etc.).

Videos might be a suggestion for you, for 2 reasons. First, many training videos are now available online as well as DVD. Second, there's an increasing number of brief "icebreaker" meeting openers.

You might try a general distributor like www.trainingabc.com.

-Kirk
Engaging Training LLC

Patrick,
This ice breaker works well with attendees of 7 or more and you may have heard of it. I've used an ice breaker where I give a few members of the class a sheet of paper. I have them close their eyes with the paper in hand and follow my instructions without comment. In quick succession I tell them to fold the paper in half and after they've done that, to fold the paper in half a second time. I would then ask them to tear off the top right corner followed by tearing off the bottom left corner. The last thing I would have them do is fold the paper in half and try to tear a circle in the middle of the sheet.

At this point I have them open their eyes and unfold their paper. Invariably, you will see some papers that are identical and others that are different.

The question posed to the group is "If my instructions were clearly understood by all, why are there different outcomes." I usually get responses like "You didn't allow for feedback", "We had no idea of what you wanted." And I add this caveat, "There is nothing so simple it can't be misunderstood."

I've use this when facilitating leadership training and interpersonal communications instruction with a former employer. I hope this is helpful.