It is often helpful to start a meeting with an ice breaker exercise or a bit of humor to give everyone a chance to relax and start to bond. Especially in a virtual setting, a humorous video clip can be an effective way to relax the group.

In the past folks would use a video clip from a film or TV show. To do so involved recording it on a VCR or downloading it and inserting it into a PowerPoint presentation. YouTube offers us more readily available and searchable resources to use. We can use videos from YouTube not only as ice breakers but also as humorous or serious examples to help make a point during a meeting.

From a technical perspective, the advantage of YouTube is that the meeting host doesn’t have to worry about bogging down his or her local internet connection with multiple people trying to download a video from one of their servers. Participants go straight to YouTube on the internet to download the video.

Inserting a video is easy. Go to the YouTube site and locate a video you want to embed. To the right of the video frame, there is basic html code for embedding the video on a web page. Click on the little icon next to the code to select from various options such as frame color and size. Then copy the html code which you can use to embed the video in a page as I do below or you as a link in your presentation or meeting invitation.

As an example, here is a humorous clip which could be used as an ice breaker exercise in which you ask folks to share the funniest thing which ever happened to them during a meeting. Enjoy.

Original post created by: Facilitate Proceedings