Infusing Connection, Interactivity, and Fun into your Virtual Meetings with Melissa Dinwiddie
This episode is a MUST LISTEN for anyone who leads or facilitates virtual meetings!
Melissa Dinwiddie – Founder, CEO, Lead Curriculum Designer & Facilitator at Creative Sandbox Solutions – joins Dayna and Gabe to discuss ways to make virtual meetings, trainings, and events more fun and engaging, which is so needed right now!
We have been doing the virtual meeting thing for over 2 years now, and they aren’t going away any time soon! Melissa is a pro at creating excitement and engagement in every event, and she shows us how to sprinkle in connection, interactivity, and fun into your virtual meetings so that you don’t lose your attendees to their emails, social media, or many other distractions!
We highly recommend watching this podcast on Spotify, because Melissa shows some cool slides on her video as she provides her awesome tips and tricks to better meetings. If watching on a different platform, please check out the YouTube videos in the show notes so you can see what she is displaying during the episode.
Don’t lose your audience to distraction, and don’t be a talking head in virtual meetings. Allow your meeting attendees a chance to engage and participate, and you will see much better outcomes and productivity in your meetings and trainings!
- Check out Dayna and Melissa playing Powerpoint Karaoke here: https://youtu.be/F89_fYokQOM
- Video from podcast – 8 Unofficial Start Ideas For Your Virtual Meeting – https://youtu.be/kUxHWO3pqqc
- Video from podcast – Micro-Engagement Ideas for Better Virtual Meetings – https://youtu.be/MoUynFIswdY
- Melissa’s website: https://creativesandbox.solutions/
- Melissa’s Free Guide – 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Your Next Virtual Event, Training or Conference – https://creativesandbox.solutions/resources/
- Melissa’s Virtual Learning Lab every month – https://creativesandbox.solutions/learning-lab/
- Follow Melissa on LinkedIn – she posts some helpful tips and tricks for better meeting engagement!
- Follow Melissa on Instagram for her creative pursuits.
- Check out Melissa’s personal website for all her creative and fun endeavors – https://melissadinwiddie.com/
Reminder: You can now sign up for Private Speaker Coaching on our Speakers Alliance Website. If you have an upcoming pitch, presentation, or speech that you are working on, you can practice it with both Dayna and Gabe and get feedback and suggestions for improvement. For more details, go to https://speakersalliance.org/speaker-coaching/
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More About Our Guest Melissa Dinwiddie:
Melissa specializes in working with innovative, people-first organizations grappling with boring (or nonexistent) virtual trainings and events. She helps them engage and delight attendees, who acquire new skills and behaviors while building connections and having fun.
Melissa’s the author of The Creative Sandbox Way™: Your Path to a Full-Color Life, an interactive playbook that countless readers have sworn freed them from creative block virtually overnight.
Melissa has a reputation for creating impactful, memorable experiences that teach key skills while being fun at the same time. She loves collaborating, and is great at encouraging, cheerleading, and creating a positive vibe.
Melissa’s front-of-room experience ranges from traveling the country teaching calligraphy, to speaking on stages from Connecticut to California, to performing as a singer for audiences as big as 6,500, and presenting at professional conferences internationally. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, she’s become sought after for her expertise in play-based techniques for leading engaging, interactive virtual meetings. When there isn’t a global pandemic going on, she performs improv with a number of different groups in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A graduate of UC Berkeley with a Bachelors in Social Science, and the University of Birmingham, England, with a Masters in Cultural Studies, Melissa lives with her husband in Silicon Valley and spends her free time making art, playing ukulele, or chasing around her rescue kitties, Vinnie and Jack Jack.
For more in-depth information and resources, please check out Melissa’s website – https://creativesandbox.solutions/
