We’re currently facing new and unprecedented times with the Coronavirus forcing everyone to create social distancing, work from home, and make events virtual. Paul & I are even trying to think about what team building could look like if people weren’t in the same room. Hard to imagine without the high fives and in-person connection that we’re so used to, but possible. We decided to look back at a case study from a company that used flop balls to engage teams not only in different locations but across cultures.

Director of Network Standards at Akamai, Aaron Charlwood, sent flop balls out “between my local documentation team in Cambridge and a remote training team in Krakow. These two teams need to trust each other and build rapport in order to work together effectively. Finding activities that are inclusive of all team members is a constant challenge that is easily met by flop balls.”

After a few months of using the flop balls with his teams, Charlwood reflected, "Skill toys like flop balls can also bridge geographic divides through friendly competition. My teams build rapport across geographies by playing games together. We also use video conferencing to communicate: adding the visual aspect preserves non‐verbal language cues such as body language and facial expressions. This is immensely beneficial to teams that don't share a common native tongue. Since these teams are already familiar with video, flop ball tricks can be recorded and sent to teams in other geographies to instigate friendly competition."

You can see Charlwood’s further reflections on how his team benefited from integrating flop balls here. Interested using flop balls to connect your remote team, contact paul@flowcircus.com