Imagine a meeting that you leave full of energy. Encounters with colleagues and talks that just greatly inspire you! Unfortunately, these kinds of meetings rather seem an exception than a rule. There are some worrying figures out there that underline the ineffectiveness of most of our meeting behavior. According to research conducted by American software company Altlassian:

How to run an effective meeting: 4 essential ingredients!

… 91% of the average meeting goers daydream

… 31 meeting hours per month are considered unproductive

… 50% of the average meeting goers consider meetings a waste of time

Altlassian puts the cost of unnecessary meetings to US businesses, in terms of wasted salary hours, at $37 billion. In short, it seems your staff meetings are considered productivity killers.
We hear you thinking “Hold on, we can’t just stop having meetings then?”. Indeed, we can’t. Although, are you really sure? In most cases the answer indeed is no: we can’t stop hosting and attending meetings. We’ll therefore have to come up with different strategies. How to run a meeting that is an effective meeting on one hand and still a pleasant contact moment on the other hand? There isn’t a specific template to apply, but there are some pretty straightforward guidelines to follow. Start experimenting with a few of these ingredients and you’ll see your meetings change to the better!

**Define your goal:** An open door? Maybe, but in practice there aren’t many meetings that start with describing the goal of “why we’re here together”. As a meeting host, make sure to define your goal as concrete as possible and share this at the start of the meeting – or even better, enclose it with your meeting invitation. In it also describe the form of the meeting: is it a brainstorm, an informative session or do you want to have a debate?

**Meet online or offline:** Do you need to reserve a meeting room? What if the same meeting can be attended online via a conference call, Skype or a livestream? With help of Sendsteps, online attendees can vote on proposals or reply to questions during short presentations. If technology can be an alternative for your physical meeting, then think of the costs you can save in terms of time and travel!

**Who’s joining?:** Consider who is invited to your meeting. Select strategically and be aware of team member roles. Which colleagues have a large network? Who is a subject expert? Is there a good balance between introverts and extraverts? Our recent blog about “How to build trust in the workplace” might give you some more ideas.

**Pre-meeting survey:** Once your goals are clear, when you know who is joining and how your meeting takes place, then make sure to setup a short pre-meeting survey: this way you can collect expectations from all attendees. This will help you, in the days before your meeting, to further tailor the meeting to everyone’s information needs. For those with a [free] Sendsteps account – check out the Sendsteps Survey functionality and get started straight away.

Obviously, when there is more at stake, the more time you’d like to invest in preparing your meeting. And there’s more to prepare than you might have expected – and so, more to be successful at too!

1: Pre-meeting input: What to prepare in advance of the meeting?

A comfy space helps us to concentrate and to get inspired. So, let’s see what’s there to improve in your meeting room.
**The space:** To start with, a tidy space gives space in your head too. In a number of studies, plants also have shown their positive effect on the work floor. **According to US Professor Roger Ulrich:** “They attract attention without effort and evoke positive emotions that can respectively promote renewal of the capacity to concentrate and interrupt the stress process”.

Did you ever consider the factor ‘color’ upon answering the question of how to run a meeting? Well, you can go as far as adapting the color scheme in your meeting room. Scandinavian hotel chain Radisson SAS took the factor color very serious in designing their hotel meeting spaces: **“Each color has both a physical and mental influence on our wellbeing and general health”.** Bright colors make us want to engage stronger, nature colors express harmony and reliability and green in all its tones stands for innovation and optimism.

Finally be aware of what impact your seating plan has on the meeting. If as a host you want to make a decision at the end of the meeting, you might want to sit at the head of the table. However, if you rather like to have a brainstorm, then it makes more sense to have somebody else take a seat at the head of the table. Or to make use of a round table. Or like in many Japanese meetings: don’t have a table and chair at all and have a **standing meeting.** According to Forbes, this will even cut meeting time by 36%!

**The meeting space getaways:** If your own office simply isn’t the most inspiring place, or if you don’t have the space to host larger groups, then there’s hundreds of alternatives. In larger cities you see more and more smaller meeting spaces being offered, that have the vibe of a living room. In Amsterdam, **Singel 80** is a good example of a living room-style meeting space in an old canal house. Next to popular meeting centers like **Seats2meet.com** and **Spaces**, international hotel chains like **citizenM** and **The Student Hotel** also do a great job on offering creative and fun places to meetup. Go out of your office and leave the comfort zone!

2: Setting the meeting stage: How should you the ideal meeting space look like?

Now that you’ve prepared and organized both the content and the meeting venue, it is time for the actual meeting. Factor “time” is one of the most important influencers on the success of your meeting. That’s why we take a closer look on clever time management tricks:
**When to meet:** Pick the right moment of the week for your meeting. Mondays are often packed with “to-do’s” after the weekend and Fridays can be lower in energy. So, pick a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Attendees tend to lose focus after 45 minutes, so plan an hour and try to squeeze it into 45 minutes. Also, the moment of the day matters. Early morning meetings often loose time on people catching coffee, colleagues running late because of the traffic or colleagues not awake yet. Yet late in the morning people are most alert and therefore are a good moment to meet. However, don’t schedule it too close towards lunch time; The meeting might become unnecessary long because of colleagues wanting to use the lunchtime as extra meeting time. It remains to be seen how effective this extra time is and how strong the decisions will be.

**Manage speaking time:** Delegate a timekeeper who makes sure to stick to your agenda time slots. Announce him or her upfront, so that attendees are familiar with the person’s role. You can prevent individuals to “monopolize the conversation” not only by strong chairmanship, but also by making use of technology. Sendsteps allows you to quickly collect data during a meeting. For instance, by [letting attendees vote](/en/questions/upvoting/) through their smartphone versus live reflections of individual attendees. Once the results are on the screen, you can spend time on a general discussion about the outcome.

In the same way, you can also let attendees send in questions, that don’t necessarily need to be answered during the meeting; but you can filter the most important ones and answer the rest at a later stage. You might even want to appoint a “sidekick”, a team member that monitors all incoming messages through the Sendsteps [message filter](/en/blog/interactive-text-response/) and who interrupts once there is interesting content to share.

3: Time management tricks: How to cleverly deal with the factor time during your meeting?

**Create ownership:** Instead of creating your own work out of a meeting, make sure to assign activities towards individual attendees. This not only makes your work less, but you also easily create ownership over a project or activity. It also helps to distribute a short list of outcomes after your meeting. This is something else than minutes: more compact and to the point. Combine these notes with some of your poll- and evaluation results, and people will be eager to attend your next meeting. And, you’ve showed them how to run an effective meeting!

**Evaluate:** In your last agenda item, briefly make a round and ask attendees “what went well and what’s there to improve in the next meeting”? Alternatively, you can do the same by asking your attendees to fill out a short online questionnaire [e.g. via the Sendsteps Survey functionality]. When asking to evaluate within the same meeting, you’ll not only get more responses [‘your attendees all have something else to do tomorrow morning’], but also higher evaluation scores.

Once your well-prepared meeting has finished, you might want to follow up with a few last activities.

4: Post-meeting follow up: create ownership and activate team members

Imagine you have an effective meeting that you leave full of energy. Encounters with colleagues and talks that just greatly inspire you!

How to run an effective meeting | Sendsteps

In business, the word ‘trust’ can easily be perceived as a hallow term. It can be difficult to grasp the real meaning of it. Trust might not be easy to quantify, but everyone will agree that it is worth spending time and resources on. [British employee engagement specialist Susan Jacobs](https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanne-jacobs-a896a312/?ppe=1), known from the Jacobs Model, defined the following 8 drivers of trust on the work floor:

Infographic about trust in business meetings

How to build trust in the workplace by having better meetings

A sense of belonging: the feeling of an employee being part of a team

Voice and recognition: the possibility to speak up and have a say in decision making

Significance and position: the extent to which an employee feels valued

Equal treatment: the understanding that everyone is treated equally

Learn and experiment: the experience of being able to experiment, make mistakes and learn

Choice and autonomy: the empowerment to make individual choices for the organization

Security and certainty: the sense of being save due to confidence in the team

Purpose: the understanding of how an individual contributes to the whole

At Sendsteps we often relate to trust, since the audience interaction tool is used in settings where trust is such an important ingredient: during all kind of meetings. Think of team building exercises, strategic board room sessions or shareholder meetings. Clients often ask us questions on how to:

Creating Trust | How to organize business meetings?

Karen Stephenson’s theory on trust within office networks. Her theory helps us understand how trust steers information flows within an organization.


A second aspect is that of introvert and extravert team members and how both have different influences on the experience of trust within a team.

And finally, the stage for trust, namely the actual work floor, is of influence for creating a safe and positive atmosphere. We’ll discuss the so-called “open workspace”.

Before answering these questions, it helps to get a better understanding of the different roles and characteristics of your individual team members. What is their influence on trust within the team? Obviously, there are many ways of looking into this. At Sendsteps there are a few perspectives that we believe give an interesting view on trust within your team. We cover three aspects;

**Hubs:** The hubs are the social butterflies of your team. They know a lot of people, are talkative by nature and bring people together. Tell something to a hub and soon everyone will know.

**Gatekeepers:** The gatekeepers play an important role in passing on information to a next level or to block it. They can either use or abuse power.

**Pulse takers:** The pulse takers can be found on the edges of the network. They might not be the center of attention, yet they have sufficient overview, and enough relationships to get a good sense of the picture.

Karen Stephenson is an American professor and corporate anthropologist who does research into “the anatomy of networks”. Stephenson especially focusses on how information flows within a network. For instance, she helped U.S. Defense to identify the weak spots and key connections of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. But her research covers all kinds of networks: from family, to social, to office networks. With it she contributes to a better sense of community and even helps to monetize trust. In her theory, Stephenson defines [three roles](https://www.corpedgroup.com/pdf/three_important_roles.pdf) that are present within every team and that dictate how information flows [or not, with a lack of trust!]. Keep your own organization in mind, when reflecting on the following roles:

Creating Trust | The roles team members play

**Define the roles in your team:** Take a minute and think of your colleagues: who is a typical hub? Could John be a pulse taker? Let it be clear that these roles are informal and not necessarily related to function levels [e.g. a receptionist can be more of gatekeeper than a CFO].When exploring these roles within your team, it might not come as a surprise that most of the speaking time is consumed by hubs. Now think of all the pulse takers among your meeting attendees; actively engage them by asking them questions, or by letting them pitch ideas.

**Spend a team session on roles:** Why not spend a team session on defining these roles together with your team? It can be interesting to do so, because the knowledge of these three roles can be a strategic tool for controlling and building the communication within your team.With a clear team awareness about everyone’s role, you might find a new dynamic in your meetings and group interaction. Do gatekeepers speak up more easily? Can hubs count to 10 before replying? Make it a little challenge and see what happens. Experimenting is the first step towards innovation!

**Rethink your internal and external communication activities;** communicating change traditionally is executed by the communication professionals within your team [hubs]. But in some occasions, there might be other colleagues in the office network that have a much stronger, strategic position within the network [pulse takers for instance]. Can you think of someone else to do the next communication job?

Karen Stephenson claims that innovative companies have a large sense of trust. There are many connections between the individual team members.

### 3 tips to make clever use of different team roles:

So what to do with this information in regard to your office meetings?

**Don’t rush:** Take time for your meeting, but stick to the point. Rather spread a longer meeting over two dates, rather than quickly skimming over agenda items in order to fit them in.

**Introduce think breaks:** Let attendees have a think-break, so that everyone can process information before answering;

**Limit group work:** “Stop the madness for constant group work” [as Susan Cain puts it] – quality can also come from solo time and activities. There isn’t always a “need to discuss in pairs”!

**Facilitate follow up:** Organize a clear follow up; what will be discussed, will be further investigated and processed? Introverts, especially, appreciate their input being taken seriously.

The next trust aspect we’d like to explore is the difference between extravert and introvert team members. Whereas extraverts can often be found in the role of “hub”, introverts are typical “pulse takers”. Let’s zoom in on our introvert employees – one out of two or three of our colleagues!
Introversion is easily mistaken by shyness. But be aware, “introversion is more about how you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation”, says Susan Cain [an American writer, speaker and former Wall Street lawyer]. Introverts are quietly listening and reflecting. They need time to answer. They like substance over chitchat. They’re often overlooked during a meeting or even on a broader scale; when a new management position needs to be fulfilled. Yet, introverts create brilliant work, are thoughtful leaders and only speak during meetings when things are overthought. But, also here; trust is essential in the communication between both groups. Extraverts trusting the work of introverts and vice versa.

### 4 tips to engage extravert and introverts during meetings:
When organizing a meeting, keep in mind both type of employees and create a setting where both experience trust;

Creating Trust | Introvert and extravert employees

**Spread seats for different roles:** Seat your hubs in the middle, then your gatekeepers and let the relatively more quiet spaces belong to the pulsetakers.

**Create your quiet spaces:** A place to focus, to maybe even re-charge; ready for more and better interaction! Solitude is a crucial ingredient for productivity.

**Go out!** Studies show that business trips boast creativity, social cohesion and interaction in the team.

Did you know that 70% of all U.S. offices use open workspaces? Since the mid 2000’s the concept was introduced by many Silicon Valley companies. There are many advantages to having an open workspace. The most important being stronger collaboration. Yet, there are also critical remarks to be made.
In 2005 Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear from the University of Sydney conducted extensive research into differences in employee experiences between those working in an open workspace and those working in private offices. They compared 303 offices. Noise, disruption and sound privacy were the most frequent mentioned negative experiences in open workspaces. At the same time, the ease of interaction was valued most. Interestingly, that aspect was not experienced differently by private office workers.

In short and according to the researchers, the open workspaces are not necessarily the engines of collaboration. For extravert hubs it might work better than it does for introvert pulsetakers. Don’t forget also that the currency of friendship is sharing confidence. Funny enough, this is less easy to achieve in an open workspace. So, it seems there’s no one-size fits all and it comes down to finding what works best for your team.

### 4 tips to engage with your team in different office spaces

When you want to foster interaction in your team then an open workspace seems like the logical step. Yet, when keeping in mind all the different roles we discussed [introverts, extraverts, hubs, gatekeepers and pulsetakers], you’ll need to do some clever thinking of your floor plan so that everyone feels comfortable and experiences the trust to share or to work quietly;

Creating Trust | Open or closed workspaces?

Discuss statements [agree/disagree] in which the word “I” is used. E.g. “I believe our team communication style is effective”. Give your introvert team members a think break, let your gatekeepers speak up.

Facilitate anonymous feedback to get to the core. Sometimes it doesn’t matter who says what, but the fact that an issue is addressed by itself is positive. Don’t ask “who said that?”, but ask “who likes to elaborate on this issue”? Maybe initiate such a talk during a team field trip – in a relaxed setting.

In very strategic meetings it is helpful to know that anonymous is anonymous. Sendsteps technology is ISO compliant and used by Fortune500 companies because of its data security settings.

When there’s trust in the workplace, there’s trust to connect. Space for positive team member relationships from where innovative ideas are born. Keep in mind your team’s DNA and in what kind of setting they feel most trusted. Foster a culture where it is good to ask questions and keep it personal. To make it a bit more concrete:

Conclusion | Meetings with trust

In short, cultivate an atmosphere where employees’ questions come from a desire to grow and learn. As employer, you can create a perfect setting with proper insight in factors that build trust and with the intention to grow and innovate as a team. Meetings that express trust!

In business, the word ‘trust’ can easily be perceived as a hallow term. It can be difficult to grasp the real meaning of it.

How to built trust in the workplace | Sendsteps

Interactive workspaces, what do they look like? And what does it take to realize them? Clients who once used Sendsteps during a one-off event experienced the power of interaction. Many of them decided to proceed with the use of Sendsteps: in-house and via year license of the software. Our Customer Success Manager interviewed 4 professionals who represent diverse industries and who all use Sendsteps within their company. Meet Fedde, Karlijn [VodafoneZiggo], António [BCG] and Ferry [KLM] and hear how they create interactive workspaces: with passion and success!

Interactive workspaces

… cut travel costs by facilitating online participation

… get to the core by allowing anonymous participation

… increase response rates on questions, surveys

… safe time by handy stored data on individual and group level

… create content to be used for new actions

Basically every gathering of stakeholders or employees gives an opportunity for interaction. And with it an opportunity to create value. A vision that is shared and carried by all three interviewed companies. It offers great chances to:

Why are these interactive workspaces value engagement?

There’s many forms to think of in which you can apply audience interaction. VodafoneZiggo uses Sendsteps to facilitate interaction during employee meetings, whereas BCG collects valuable data during client sessions. Other meetings to which you can apply audience engagement are:

How these interactive workspaces apply engagement?

Each meeting requires its own approach if it concerns the type and timing of these questions and how to deal with the outcome of the questions. The better prepared, the more valuable the outcome of your interactive session will be.

How do Interactive workspaces look like? And what does it take to realize them? Clients who used Sendsteps during an event experienced the interaction.

Interactive workspaces | Sendsteps

To most of us presenting on itself is already a challenge. Some get pleasure out of it, but most people are happy when it is over. **So why even involve the audience?** Doesn’t it only make it more difficult for the presenter to manage the story line?

Obvious thoughts, but experience often shows the contrary. Once you let the audience participate in your story, **dynamics will start to work for you**, instead of against you;

Upvoting Feature

**Keep focus:** When going back and forth between speaker and audience, the focus is less on you as speaker. Every now and then this comfortably takes away the pressure. Giving you time to zoom out a little, to decide where to speed up or where to give more attention to. Just make sure you have a script to follow and you won’t lose track.

**Foster engagement:** The audience will feel more involved. They can reflect on what you’ve just said and compare it with their own practice. They can give you and other attendees suggestions or ask you to further explain. When you feel it is time to move on, then remember that you’re in charge at all times!

**Create excitement:** Your story will come to life. Since often as a presenter you’re the expert, you’ll find that hardly none of the audience’s questions will catch you off guard. Trust it. They will actually fuel your story, because you suddenly remember this good example!

**Clearly there’s a moment for everything during presenting.** In most cases a monologue is very useful to kick off with. It gives attendees a clear understanding, they can get used to you as speaker and it gives time to form some first thoughts. Yet, after a few minutes questions will pop into people’s heads…

By using [audience response tool Sendsteps](/en/audience-response-system/) you can let the audience send in comments or questions from the very first moment. This doesn’t mean you have to deal with all of them. Nor deal with them instantly. Your audience can follow all the live comments through the response website on their smartphone. They can give “likes” to questions and comments that appeal most to them. [This is called “upvoting”](/en/questions/upvoting/). Either pause in the middle and deal with a few remarks or save them till the very end. The comments ranked highest are there for you to answer.

Normally [Q&A sessions](/en/questions/qa/) are only short. But this is based on the 1.0 approach whereby the presenter asks “Are there any questions?”. Most attendees don’t dare to speak up. However [!], with the use of the tool you’ll find that attendees send in many more comments. Be clever and schedule more Q&A time and don’t be afraid this will cut down your presentation time: consider it as an essential part! A thumb rule? For each 10 minute presentation – 5 minute Q&A!

When to ‘bring in the audience’?

**Prepare scenario’s**: Being an expert in your topic, you know when attendees can sense possible friction. Or when stakes start to conflict. When thinking from the audience’s perspective, you can already prepare on how to tackle certain concerns or critics.

**Play a joker:** No matter if you’re the CEO or a junior professional, when you receive a difficult question it is perfectly ok to “park it”. Acknowledge the concern or question, let the attendee know you don’t have the answer now, and immediately proceed in informing on how you will follow up. E.g. “That’s a very good question. I understand it bothers you. I find it challenging to answer that question right now, but I’ll get back to it in next month’s newsletter”.

Let’s grab the bull by the horns. Many presenters don’t involve the audience as they can be afraid for unexpected questions.

**Still, what happens when criticism or negativity remains unaddressed?**

Criticasters: How to deal with unexpected comments?

At the end of the day you’ll have to get your message across. You simply can’t answer all the questions of an audience. With Sendsteps you store the raised questions and by using the upvoting option you can easily filter through the questions with most likes. From here you can decide on how to follow up:

Post-event: How to follow up with unanswered comments?

**Write a blog:** In a blog you can address all questions that haven’t been answered during the presentation. Or at least find the common theme and elaborate on that. The blog can be mentioned in a post-event mailing or can be disclosed on an organization’s website.

**Live backstage:** During larger events you can consider a back office where speakers go to after their presentation. An interviewer can then ask those questions that are still unanswered. The backstage interview can be livestreamed on the event website. This allows a remote audience to also attend the event and it generates nice footage for after an event.


**Record a vlog:** In a vlog you can do the same as in a blog. Simply record your answers on video and with it give it a personal touch. Video often scores well and it is great content to spice up the traditional post-event mailing!

**E-mail attendees:** Or simply follow up personally. If you’ve allowed attendees to send in questions identified [a setting in your Sendsteps Dashboard], then you can e-mail them with a personal reaction. Time consuming? Yes, but often with a big impact!

No matter if you’re using “upvoting” or not, it is helpful to have a [professional sidekick](/en/professional-event-services/) onsite, in the audience. Somebody who represents the voice of the audience. The person either selects incoming messages himself, or he uses the ranking of the audience with it. The point is to have someone to put the questions into a perspective, to give a short summary of what has been shared and with it add to a lively presentation and event. This sidekick operates individually and next to a presenter and/or moderator. Someone supporting the process of audience interaction. Entertaining and valuable at the same time.

In short, involve the audience. Trust the flow that will come with it. Experience the added value for all stakeholders of an event. Set it up cleverly and let it work, not against you, but for you!

Tip: The use of a sidekick

Involve your audience in your presentation by making it interactive. Use Sendsteps tp add interactive questions like the Upvoting Question.

_How many people in Holland suffer from dementia?
What’s the name of the oldest person currently living?
What will you do when you parents cannot live independently anymore?_

Imagine yourself. You just took a seat in the conference venue and these questions are fired at you. It helps to know that the conference is about elderly care.

Man giving a presentation about elderly care

A new generation of elderly care

As a matter of fact, “A New Generation Elderly [Care]” is Holland’s largest conference for elderly and professionals from the elderly care. This event attracts more than 1000 attendees, hosts 80 speakers and covers different subjects during several plenary- and sub sessions. By kicking off with these intriguing questions, the audience was immediately hooked onto the conference subject.

## How “audience profiling” benefits both speaker and audience

One of the goals of the organizers was to come up with an interactive event program. Not for the sake of it, but to zoom in on attendees their experiences and knowledge. As such, speakers were able to relate to what the audience indicated to be important. Next to that they could as well relate to the audience their knowledge level. Now, with 1000 attendees it isn’t easy to let everyone speak up. However, with the above questions [and few more], the event could kick off with drawing a clear audience profile.

## A powerful event kick-off

Upon the start of the conference, straight after the welcome of the moderator Robbert Huijsman, a number of so-called profiling questions was asked to the audience [a few as formulated at the beginning of this article]. The audience could reply and vote through the Sendsteps audience response system. The dialogue with the audience was supported by a [professional sidekick [Robert Daverschot](https://robertdaverschot.nl/) who dealt with the live audience feedback [received via Sendsteps on his iPad] and who also took care of the audience polling during short intermezzos throughout the day. The moderator and his sidekick kicked off by asking the audience a short set of questions that combined the ingredients ‘knowledge’, ‘personal’ and ‘entertainment’.

“**Knowledge**” to get to know a bit more about what attendees already know or not. On asking, “how many people suffer from dementia in Holland?’, 53% of the attendees were right by choosing answer option “D] 2500.000-300.000”. The chairman then explained that the exact right answer was 270.000. He also gave the audience a little more background information and he mentioned as well the source of the information.

**“Personal”** to find out how attendees are personally involved in the matter. On asking, “what will you do when your parents cannot live independently anymore?”, 31% answered that the parents would be taken care of in an elderly home. 26% answered they would be taken care of in a private care center. With these and more statistics, the more serious side of the conference subject was underlined, whereby the data had an impact in the sense that it would influence onward discussions here and there, throughout the day.

**“Entertainment”** to have a laugh and to create a relaxed vibe. On asking “who is the oldest person still living on earth?”, 59% answered correctly. That is, answer Nabi Tajiama from Japan” with 117 years of age. Earlier that morning the moderator and sidekick figured out who was the oldest person in the audience. When they returned back to her, the attendee [83] had to laugh saying that “she felt young again”!

So how to come up with profiling questions for your next audience? It’s simple. Decide what you would like to know from your crowd. In such a way that the results on the presentation screens are relevant for the attendees, for your speakers and for the organization;

How you can profile your next audience?

For the audience it is nice to know with whom you are surrounded with for the rest of the event day – to know what to discuss over lunch, or what better not to touch upon. Just as the disclosed results are interesting for the crowd, it also helps your speakers. They now know how fast they can explain something and what to skip in their storyline. Finally, the organization can grab a conference as a chance for a market research; which information will help us further in our product development or the setup of our services? Now is the chance to get a better understanding!
Use your kick off cleverly, and start from the very first minute to involve your audience. Formulate interesting questions, use them at the kick off or spread them throughout the day and get the vibe going. Time well spent, and which pays off throughout the rest of your conference program! So, what would you like to know from your audience?

During an event we're used to sit back and relax. But what if we could first answer a few questions? It helps to know what the event is about.

A new generation of elderly care | Sendsteps

It’s one of these subjects that isn’t always easy to talk about: loneliness. Yet, in many countries and many cities, it is a growing problem. Also in different cities in The Netherlands. One of them, the city of Assen, organized a special meeting with both citizens and professionals representing different sectors [e.g. healthcare, education, churches, municipal authorities etc.]. About 75 people attended an interactive session, that resulted in concrete actions.

How to tackle loneliness in the city?

The meeting was chaired by a moderator, supported by a sidekick and fueled with a social gerontologist. The last person is a professional specialised in the process of “getting older” and in her case also specialised in loneliness prevention programs. Here’s how the meeting was setup:

### Confront
Before the audience would dive into the issue, they were first asked how the theme of loneliness resonated with their own experience. The organization believed that when doing so, people would be somewhat confronted, which would help to increase engagement around the subject. People were asked to discuss the following question in pairs:

**«I know one or more people in the city that are lonely»**,
followed by:
**«Past month I’ve felt lonely myself»**

Although the organization was aware of the sensitive nature of the question, it also believed that attendees would be mature enough to decide what to share and what not. Besides, the voting was anonymous and resulted in 60% indicating that would know people that are lonely and 11% [!] indicating that they themselves felt lonely last month.

An interactive session on loneliness prevention

### Educate
With an audience that was now triggered by the results and that had briefly spoken with each other, it was time to put the theme into a strong context. Social Gerontologist **Willie Oldengarm** spoke about different loneliness prevention programs throughout the country and the do’s and don’ts that come with it.

 Throughout her lively 30-minute presentation, she was every now and then interrupted by a sidekick. **She collected all incoming questions that attendees could send in through Sendsteps.** The sidekick would interrupt and ask clarifying questions and share interesting comments to which the speaker would then elaborate on, or whereby the moderator sought further interaction with the audience. 

I miss a collective approach on loneliness prevention within the city

Regularly visiting lonely people, will solve feeling lonely, or

I ask lonely people what they would wish themselves, or

### Break
After an hour, people would spend a little break to digest all the information, talking further before heading back to the room for the last part of the session.

### Interaction
Based on shared personal experiences, knowledge gained and social connections established, it was now a good timing to discuss the situation in the city itself. This was a talk based on statements [that attendees could vote on again], like e.g.:

With every statement the attendees could vote, then they’d briefly talk in small groups and then a plenary discussion followed. The expert speaker and the sidekick interrupted every now and then, adding valuable remarks to the discussion.

A more coherent loneliness prevention approach could be designed

New connections were made between professional organizations

Finally the audience would send in best practices. “What, in your experience, has worked well with regards to loneliness prevention?” A number of solutions would appear on the screen: coffee mornings, language courses, buddy projects etc. The moderator would invite attendees to live elaborate on the responses, resulting in a great sharing of knowledge and experiences. Some people didn’t know about each other’s initiatives and decided on the spot to join forces from then on.


In the final part of the meeting, all attendees would fill out a short questionnaire through Sendsteps. Attendees could indicate if they’d be interested in forming think groups and to volunteer in loneliness prevention projects. **With a high response rate:**

Best practices and solutions

It’s one of these subjects that isn’t always easy to talk about: loneliness. Yet, in many countries and many cities, it is a growing problem.

The stage doesn’t only belong to the speaker, but also to the audience. The audience isn’t any longer spectators only, they are also contributors. And this explains the importance of audience activities during presentation. Neuroscientists at Harvard found that talking about ourselves gives similar satisfying signals as money and food give us. Games to play, activities whereby attendees share personal experiences; it all contributes to an interactive experience. Not only that, when we’re able to foster the exchange of experiences and knowledge, then we also develop ourselves as individuals and organizations. So let’s zoom in on a number of audience participation ideas:

Illustration of a woman walking over the finish line

7 Audience Activities & Games to Play During Presentation

Depending on the theme of your presentation, how formal or informal the setting is and how much time you have, there are several ideas out there to apply during your next presentation. Ask yourself during your preparation to what extend you still like to spend time on your PowerPoint, or whether you’d rather prepare for strong engagement activities?

## Presentation Games
Presentation games are designed to motivate an audience to stay engaged with the speaker by inserting meaningful and fun additions to the presentation. 



Audience participation ideas

Who wanted to become a doctor when you were little? 

Who prefers a city trip over a beach holiday?

### Cross the Line

“Cross the line” is a format known from “Challenge Day” whereby attendees are asked to stand, based on their answer (yes/no) on a question, either left or right from the room. With it differences are made visible and in the end sensible too. As such it can be one of the engagement games that have a big impact; either in a fun way or in a serious way. It will evoke laughter, recognition, surprise and a tear every now and then.

Ideas for questions are:


There are many audience activities to think of when it comes to letting your audience speak up. In these three activities you’ll find back elements that will make your session personal allowing everyone to share their thoughts.

### Fishbowl Discussion
In a fishbowl discussion there are two groups. One forms an outer circle and one group is seated in the middle. Only those located in the middle are allowed to talk. In the inner circle there’s always a free seat available. If someone from the outer circle likes to join, then the free seat is his/hers and somebody else should make space. You’ll therefore find that everyone’s contribution is very conscious and therefore often valuable. Everyone realizes that time spend in the inner circle is valuable: questions and contributions are to the point and well-thought over. 

Presentation Activities

### Bring it On

Ask your attendees in advance to bring a small personal item. During your session you let everyone (with a small group) elaborate on why the item is important to them. Alternatively you can do the same by asking your audience to bring a song along. This is a perfect activity to facilitate personal introductions within a group (e.g. upon the start of a new course).

### The Talking Stick
 The talking stick is an old Native American custom of talking. Upon the start of this activity, everyone should agree that whoever has the talking stick, is allowed to talk without interruption. It’s similar to the Fishbowl Discussion, but with the talking stick it’s not a group, but an individual talking. The talking stick can be any item, as long as it is neutral and not related to anyone in the group. Each time somebody is done talking, the talking stick should be put back in the midst of the group (and should not be handed over to somebody). It maybe sounds simple, but in practice this is a powerful method of creating deep communication and understanding.

## Presentation Exercises
Next to games and other activities, these exercises also contribute to a lively presentation!

### Knowledge Quiz

Before and straight after your presentation you can quiz your audience about your topic through Sendsteps.ai. With Sendsteps.ai, you can create interactive presentations with ease. Whether your topic is solar energy, hotel management, or 20th century art, the [AI presentation maker](/en/ai/) allows you to formulate engaging multiple-choice questions and quizzes for your audience. Your audience can respond directly on their smartphones, and you can track who answered what and even announce a winner. With Sendsteps.ai, you can generate your quiz within minutes and engage your audience in a new and exciting way.

### Set the Agenda
In your event program, you can leave part of the program blank. In it you eventually let your audience decide what to discuss. Upon the start of your session you let your audience form small groups. Give them a relevant question and use the output (which they can send in via Sendsteps) for a plenary discussion during your blank program item. From the output you can formulate statements that can result in a lively ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ debate. Or alternatively invite adhoc a speaker to elaborate on the output. If you’re able to be this flexible, you’ll amaze your crowd with tailoring exclusively to their needs!

Audience activities help you engage them during presentations. Discover activities your audience will love.

7 Audience activities to play during a presentation | Sendsteps

Team building activities are essential for companies. When your employees are feeling connected and know each other on an emotional level, they will be more motivated to do good work, and they’ll be more willing to go above and beyond when it comes to solving problems or coming up with creative solutions to everyday business issues. Nowadays a lot of employees work remotely, luckily there are plenty of team building activities that can be done virtually. We’ve put together this guide of 5 minute team building activities that can also be done virtually! If you have a virtual office or remote employees, these activities are perfect for you. 

The 9 Easiest 5-minute Team Building Activities

Browse through the following 5-minute team building activities and decide for yourself what would work best for your team and for the phase that your team finds itself in. The following activities can be executed with both fresh new teams or those teams that already work with each other for years. In short, pick your favorite! 


A selection of 5-minute games for (virtual) meetings

### Through another pair of eyes 

Instead of having everybody introduce themselves, let the neighboring team member introduce the other. First let everyone introduce themselves in pairs. Then make a quick round in which everyone is introduced to the group by somebody else. This quick team building exercise is perfect to get to know other team members in a new team.  

### Two truths, one lie

Everyone tells three stories. Two stories are the truth, one story is a lie. The audience has to figure out which story is the truth. Sendsteps' [multiple choice questions](/en/questions/multiple-choice/) allow you to see in real time who guessed correctly! The winner is the one who gets the most answers right. 

Quick team building activities 

### Compliment carrousel 

Put one or few team members in the midst of the (virtual) room. Standing with closed eyes. Now let the other team members pass by them one time and make them whisper a short compliment in their ears. This is an easy team building activity for smaller groups and experience shows that receiving a compliment through a whisper, without knowing whom the compliment is coming from, can have a deep, touching impact.  


### Exciting sponge 

Exciting Sponge is a fun and easy virtual team building exercise. To play, everyone grabs an object from within arm’s length, then tells a story about it. The idea of the game is to exaggerate what makes that object amazing. And for bonus points try making up ridiculous details! The more unbelievable it sounds, the better. 

Virtual team building ideas

### Things 

At the beginning of the game everyone adds multiple topics to a common pool. The most important part is that each topic must start with the word “things” (for example: things that are on my bucket list). One person is the host, and reads off a single prompt. The other team members anonymously submit their answers. This can be done via a live word cloud. The host reads the submitted answers out loud, and then each team member gets a chance to guess who said what. You can add a point system and let players win prizes.  


### Pitch the idea of your colleague 

In corporate life we’re often used to give our own pitches. From a team building perspective it becomes more interesting if employees pitch each other’s ideas. This is also a fun virtual team building idea. Pick any of the more strategic meetings with your staff. Give a 1 time quick and clear instruction, already pre-meeting or at the very start of the meeting, and then let attendees interview each other about their idea for work (e.g. how to improve efficiency, which activities to set up in the coming year etc.).  

5 minute games for meetings

### Describe and draw

Now here’s one of the simple but great problem solving activities. Hand a sheet with on it a triangle, a circle and a rectangle. Ask one of the attendees to sit with their back towards the rest of the group. Now let individual attendees make a drawing based on what they are told to draw. The person describing the drawing cannot indicate the name of the shape and has to find creative other wording to get the message across. You’ll find that in the end everyone comes up with different scenarios. Have a short de-briefing and learn how everyone receives messages differently. What does it tell you about the communication within your team? This fun team building game can also be done virtually! 

Problem solving team building activities and scenarios

### Five finger showdown 
This virtual team building activity is perfect to use as ice breaker. Each team member holds up their hand. The host lists specific and unusual life experiences. When a team member has the mentioned experience he/she can put a finger down. The player that puts all fingers down first wins.  

### Ice breaker questions 
Asking ice breaker questions is another quick team building activity that allows you to get to know your team members better. These ice breaker questions can be asked via a [live word cloud](/en/questions/wordcloud/). Need some inspiration for ice breaker questions? Have a look at our ice breaker template!

Need a 5-minute ice breaker?

When you’re working with a team, it’s important to build relationships and trust. Sendsteps is the perfect tool for (virtual) team building activities. With interactive features like Word Clouds, Quizzes, Multiple choice questions and more you can engage your team in fun activities that will help them get to know each other better. 

Interactive software for team building activities

Are you looking for 5-minute team building activities? We’ve lined up 9 fun games to play with your colleagues or students.

The 9 Easiest 5-minute Team Building Activities | Sendsteps

Albert Einstein might have summarized it in the best way: “Play is the highest form of research”. Office games create an informal atmosphere which helps to create trust at the workplace, boost morale and foster engagement among your staff. The more trust is present in a team, the more innovation will take root. However, in our daily operation we often forget to play. More than ever we need to think differently as our reality is changing with a rapid speed. Time to bring in crazy ideas and to challenge our perspective on many topics.

**So, how now to incorporate some play and fun challenges into your work?**

Fun office games for employees

**Guess who**: Write down names on cards of famous people. Let employees pick a card randomly. Takes 30-second turns on interviewing the person that has a name. Answers can only contain “yes” or “no”. The one that has most names guessed correctly is the w

**Escape room**: Get out of the trusted office environment and challenge your team with visiting an escape room. There’s many types out there as escape rooms become increasingly more popular.

**Pingpong**: Prevent an after lunch dip and play a game of pingpong. The pingpong table will become a nice spot to socialize and over time a metaphor for fun in the office.

**Circle of Questions**: Formulate a list of unexpected questions. Let every attendee pick one question to address to their neighbour. Like: “What’s the best memory of your grandmother”, or “What do you find the world’s most beautiful place”?

**Truth and lies**: Let everyone come up with a truth and two lies. The rest of the group has to decide which of the three situations told is the truth.

**Post-It Note Adventure**: Hide an object indoors and let post-its throughout the office give clues on where to search next for the hidden object. And of course: make sure to think of fun prizes!

**Tidy the place**: As silly as it may sound, but cleaning and tidying together will create a crisp work environment and is an easy socializing activity.

**Volunteer for a day**: Some companies provide one day a year off to together work on a voluntary project. Do good for society and in the meantime bond with your work peers!

**A movie, a story**: What is your favorite movie and what does it say about you? Pick an online video trailer, show it and briefly share your thoughts with the movie.

**Personality tests**: There are hundreds of personality tests out on the web. From light to serious. Pick a test that fits best and discuss the outcomes with your team.

This blog will give you and your coworkers concrete ideas to spice up your office fridays: from a quick 1-minute competition, word games to play from behind your desk to an indoor activity for all employees. Some games have a serious character, some of them are pure play. Pick one of them and see for yourself what works best in your office setting.
**Can you already feel the innovation boiling?**

## Fun Games

Happier people work harder. So let’s get started!

### Top 10 fun games to play in the office when bored

At Sendsteps we’ve selected a top 10 fun games to play in office. When bored on fridays then your coworkers will always be in for:

### Interactive team building fun games for meetings

**Want to break the routine in your weekly office meetings?** Let coworkers conduct a 5 minute interview with each other about their last week’s project (on itself already a valuable team building exercise in still a corporate vibe). When done, let everyone give a 1-minute pitch with.

A simple, yet more serious intervention. Want to stick to more fun games to play? Simple and indoor? Then you might want to check our blog on [5-minute team building activities](/en/blog/the-9-easiest-5-minute-team-building-activities/) and other interactive fun games!

### Quick & small fun games, 1 minute games

**Games in office don’t always need to take long.** There’s many small fun activities that only take 1 minute of your time. Imagine when you can have a laugh for a minute in all of your meetings throughout the week! One of these quick fun office games is to appoint someone in office who picks a fun yet inspirational quote that represents the theme of team building. Your team member has to prepare this in advance and the team can take turns per week. Either start or end your meeting with the quote and then boast that the indoors company vibe!


### Indoor fun office games

**Being in a corporate environment doesn’t mean adults can’t have fun!** So time to bring in a classic. Maybe one of the most famous activities in the category group games – the helium stick!
Get yourself a helium stick, or otherwise a thin and light rod. Let the attendees stand up, face each other, stretch their arms and point out the index fingers. Now put the stick on their fingers and instruct them to bring the stick together to the ground. Sounds easy? Just wait and see!

### Fun office competition games

Want to add some little team competition onto the office work floor? **Then try this intellectual exercise:**
Make two teams. One team defines a well-known phenomenon, person or object. For instance “pyramids”, “Mandela” or “the golden age”. Then define 5 words that relate to this pick. E.g. in the case of Mandela: “Robben Island”, “Apartheid”, “South Africa”, “ANC” and “Nobel Prize”. Now the other team gets to know the topic and has to mention within a set time all of the keywords.


### Fun team office games

Competitive coworkers might not add to the vibe at the office. It’s a different cup of tea when you’re about to play a game with them. At work “listening” is a skill that cannot be practised enough. **One of the activities fostering this skill, is back-to-back drawing:**
Divide your team in pairs. Let everyone sit back to back. One partner has an illustration, the other partner has pen/pencil and paper to draw. From here the partner with the illustration has to tell the other partner on how to draw the illustration. This requires not only careful explanation, but also clear questioning from the other person who is drawing the picture.


### Fun group activity games

Why stay in the office? Leaving the workplace and finding yourself with your coworkers in unexpected non-corporate places, can easily sparkle new energy and ideas! Browse the web for just 10 minutes and see the big offer of great outdoor activities.

Surprise your office staff and go kayaking on a river, build a hut in the forest or plan a horse-whisperer session! Depending on your budget, you can find a lot of fun things to do. Some of the activities have a clear team building element to it. Others are simply good fun!

## Few more Games

There’s many fun games out there (as the previous section shows). Yet, there are also games with a more serious character. In this last section we’ll deal with a few of these games:

### Management games for office
Ever thought of what your staff is really thinking about their work conditions? How do they experience the food in the canteen, are they happy with the setup of their office workplace and do the value either more money or more free time when it comes to it?
These or very different subjects can easily be addressed with an online questionnaire. For instance to be composed through the [Sendsteps Audience Response tool](/en/audience-response-system/). As soon as the results are gathered [let’s say over the course of a week or so], then a non-management member can present the results to the management. Before showing the actual outcomes, you can build in a moment to let the managers discuss amongst each other of what they think the outcome will be. The more serious questions don’t leave much space to call it a game any longer, but you can vary with the depth of questions and see how it best relates to the setting of your discussion. As such its either one of the more serious management games or in the end, a strategic session.

### Motivational games for employees
When presenting to your employees you can easily turn a serious presentation into an element of fun. Something to think about and to play at work. Consider a question within your presentation with which your office team can decide on the next subject to discuss. Or test their knowledge about the theme you’re addressing.

One of the other nice word games, is to ask colleagues to come up with words representing their feelings about a certain theme. Words that you can than turn into a word cloud. E.g. “What is your biggest motivation to work at this project?”. Attendees can send in words like “sustainability”, “teamwork”, “profit” or “challenging”

### Play a Quiz

If you're looking to play a fun quiz with your coworkers, Sendsteps.ai is an excellent solution. This [AI presentation maker](/en/ai/) can generate a quiz for you in just minutes, saving you time and effort in coming up with an idea and working it out. Plus, with Sendsteps.ai, you don't have to plan ahead of time to make a quiz, which means you can spontaneously decide you want to play a game with your team. This tool is highly beneficial for those who want to engage their coworkers in a fun and interactive way, without the hassle of planning and preparing. Try out Sendsteps.ai today and see how easy it is to create a quiz for your team!

Office games create an informal atmosphere which helps to create trust at the workplace,boost morale and foster engagement among your staff.

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