A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.
John le Carré (*1931)
British author of espionage novels
A view on a participant’s desk allows a more personal view. Thereby, this remote game established and reinforces social connections. Especially, if accompanied by explanatory words.
Objective for My desk
Familiarizing participants with each other by sharing personal insights.
Resources
- Movable Webcam or laptop, or
- Smartphone camera connected to conferencing software
Time
about 2-3 min per participant.
Task
Let the participant turn his webcam on his desk and explain to everyone, what they can see. As facilitator you accompany this with questions about the participants life. This helps participants relate to each other and thereby for later collaboration.
Similiar to the game Talking Objects he or she can highlight a personal objects.
Many webcams can be turned or just taken away and turned. In case of an inbuilt webcam on a notebook, mostly participants can lift and turn them for a short while.
Far easier is to use your phone or tablet as an external webcam. Then, you just switch your camera to the phone and freely move it around. You can use this as an exercise for How to use your mobile as webcam. Thereby you familiarize your participants with that technique and with switching cameras in their conferencing software.
The ideal number is everything up to 12. More than that and it will get time-consuming and boring.
Phase
Forming. It’s a starter game to introduce particpants to each other.
Not the right icebreaker? Why not trying one of these?