Category: Article

What’s happening now (March and April 2020) is that Coronavirus and online meetings and events are impacting us. Specifically, on our clients’ use of our options.

People choose our online team building options for many reasons. Historically, we’ve seen people choose our activities because:

• their travel budgets have been restricted (read “slashed”!)
• they want to add some fun to their online meetings
• they realize that our options deliver more relevant learning for geographically-spread groups
• and just because our options offer virtual teams great fun

Switching to online tools

But now there’s a new reason. Because of Coronavirus #covid19, people are cancelling their physical meetings and replacing them with online meetings. People are using tools such as WebEx, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams and other online meeting technologies. They are running their meetings entirely virtually. And those that want to include an element of fun and challenge are turning to us.

Our Recent Online Team Building Experience

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen a surge of people purchasing and running our online options.  They are cancelling their in-person events. Many clients are running our MiniScavenge and MiniTreasure activities in particular. They are adding some team building to their hastily reconfigured meetings. And they are proving to be a huge success.

Coronavirus and Online Meeting and Events – Into the Future

There will always be a place for geographically-spread team members getting together in person. But we wouldn’t be surprised if some of our the new converts to online meetings stick with them. Having been forced to do so, they may now choose to run more online meetings in the future. If so, it will be in part due to the their achievements during the meetings. And, we’d like to think, in part due to the enthusiasm generated from using our online team building options.

Want to Know More?

We’ll gladly talk you through how we can help you run a great online meeting in place of your in-person event.  See our contact details here.

Below is a little more detail on each of the two most popular options for newly remote teams.

Virtual team building activities such as VirtuWall allow team working across even the furthest apart of time zones

Virtual teams offer many advantages to organizations. They can offer “follow the sun” access and support to what you do. They can take advantage of a global pool of talent.

They appeal to many people who appreciate the flexibility such working can bring. And others are attributed to virtual teams as well. But they also have some disadvantages when compared to their co-located counterparts.

Disadvantages of virtual vs co-located teams

By far the 2 largest disadvantages in order that people quote to us are:

1. Lack of sufficient interaction to build relationships
2. Time zone differences

Interestingly, in distant 3rd and 4th places are “language” and “cultural barriers”. These can be important but they are not the key issues in developing and leading successful virtual teams. Far more crucial is the opportunity for people to connect with one another. This is despite the challenge of both geographical and time zone separations.

For Managers and Leaders

If you are a manager or leader of a virtual team, there are many resources available to you. You can use articles such as Harvard Business Review’s “Getting Virtual Teams Right” as a good starting point. You can track down and book on a focused training session. Good examples are Learning Tree International’s “Leading and Managing Virtual Teams” and Management Centre Europe’s “Leading Virtual Teams” courses. They can prepare you and point you in the right direction.

But – and it’s a big but – they are focused on you and not your team itself. Their focus is on making you do all the hard work. If you had a co-located team you could organize some team building. But getting everyone in a virtual team together – perhaps from across the globe – is a logistical nightmare. And probably financially a no-go.

Enter Global Team Building

This is where we come in. We have virtual team building activities that run online. For virtual teams, of course. No one has to go anywhere other than to a web page.

Our portfolio of 4 great options (MiniScavenge, MiniTreasure, Space Rescue and VirtuWall) cover all the bases. So whether you are looking for something fun to break the ice for your virtual team or some detailed and focuses to improve team processes, we have it covered. We can even customize them to make them fit your team and your requirements even better.

Please contact us to chat with us about what we can offer you. We’ll gladly then follow that up with a demonstration of whichever activities interest you the most.

Distributed team building activities that are fun and help teams improve are hard to find – but advertising helps people find us

One of the challenges that we face is letting people know that we exist! We believe we are the only company in the world that offers professional team building activities for virtual teams. While that’s great for us in many ways, it is also a problem. If people don’t know such a thing is possible, why would they go look for it?

Our Current Marketing Approach

Our site is naturally rich in terms that people might use if they are looking for the service we provide. So we’re likely to rank highly if they do look. However, we have long supplemented this with search engine “pay per click” advertising. And we’re delighted that the combination of organic search positions and paid advertising has been very successful for us.

The World is Changing

People are now turning more and more to video to find things of interest to them. Interestingly, we have always had animated introductions to each of our activities. Indeed, you can see those at the top of each of our MiniScavenge, MiniTreasure, Space Rescue and VirtuWall pages. It’s time to supplement any organic video searches through these animations with a paid video ad. And the great news is that YouTube has just accepted our first. As you’ll see, we’ve decided to promote MiniScavenge in the first instance.

You can watch our YouTube ad here.

For Those with No Interest in Distributed Team Building Activities

If you use YouTube, you’ll sometimes see a video ad before playing a selected video. You only need to watch the first 5 seconds, though, and then you can “skip” the ad. How? By clicking on a “Skip Ad” link towards the bottom right hand corner of the video.

Our first ad acknowledges the skip button and helps people who have no interest in our options. It moves our rotating globe from a key initial focus to where the “Skip Ad” link will be.

So, the beginning makes far more sense for those seeing it as an ad! If you click on the link above, you’ll only see the video and not the skip link. Hopefully, you’ll like how we have tried to help those who are not interested.

For Those with Interest

If the ad intrigues you at least a little and want to learn more about MiniScavenge – or any of our activities for virtual teams – please contact us.

Remote team building activities such as MiniScavenge use technology to link team members to focus on team spirit and team effectiveness

Remote teams are notoriously difficult to lead. Without regular face-to-face meetings, it’s a struggle to develop a sense of identity. Collaborative team working is challenging when people are not in the same location. When people are not even in the same time zone, it’s harder still.

If team members are spread across continents in particular, cultural barriers add to the problems even more.

Technology plays a part

Teams with remote members use technology to communicate and facilitate team working. Yet this software mostly focuses on transactions. Even those that add social media into the mix (such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Trello etc.) focus more on team tasks than team spirit and processes.

Remote team building activities use technology to link team members as well.  But for a different purpose. Instead of tasks, they focus on:

1. Spirit – to help teams develop a sense of identity
2. Effectiveness – to help teams overcome their geographic, time zone and cultural barriers
3. Optionally, knowledge – to make an activity more directly relevant from a corporate perspective

Enter Global Team Building

For any or all of these, that’s where we come in.

Our remote team activities are fun to participate in. Yet they also focus on what remote teams need to be effective in their day-to-day work. Which make them both fun and developmental.

We have 4 different activities. 3 of these are “off the shelf” options. Yet all 3 (MiniScavenge, MiniTreasure, and Space Rescue) can also be tailored. This allows you to include elements that are specific and relevant to your group and organization.

The 4th (VirtuWall) is designed to be tailored.  It offers a great platform to deliver something unique and corporate.

Please contact us to arrange a demonstration of one or more of our options.  Or to chat with us about what we can offer you.