Learning Social Skills Virtually 

Over the recent few years, digital workshops and meetings have established a firm foothold. My book, Learning Social Skills Virtually, demonstrates how online workshops and meetings can be just as interactive, varied and enjoyable as face-to-face events. Improvisational theater methods are surprisingly well suited for online use and can elicit the liveliness, playful levity, and co-creativity that are often lacking in digital lessons and meetings. 

The book consists of the following chapters:

1. Introduction: I begin by introducing AI and its online possibilities. I’m preaching to the choir when I mention to this magazine’s readers that AI is one of the best methods to convey social competencies offline and online!
2. Creativity: In the second chapter, I explore online communication for creativity and co-creativity. Improvisational theater is at its core, real teamwork, and therefore, offers a large pool of exercises that promote and strengthen team cohesion. It is more challenging, but still possible to build openness and trust in teamwork online.
3. Storytelling: Improvisational theater is always about storytelling. When improvisers say, “yes, and…” they are guided by how well a story is constructed. Our brain loves stories. When managers, scientists or politicians want to reach their audience, the best way is to wrap their message in a story right from the start. This chapter is about how stories and heroes’ journeys are structured and what exercises can be used online to train storytelling.
4. Status: Status involves non-verbal and verbal signals’ potential effects on our social influence. Although we can only see parts of our bodies online, the topic of status still plays an unchanged major role. The aim of all online and offline status exercises is to increase our status flexibility, in order to adapt our status behavior to the situation at hand.
5. Practical Examples: In the last chapter, I delve into three online workshops for different organizations and describe actual scenarios from these workshops. Several chapters throughout the book end with a collection of exercises for online use.

This book is for everyone — facilitators, coaches, teachers, and leaders — who are seeking new inspiration for their digital workshops and meetings, and who aspire to expand the variety of their online methods. It offers new perspectives on many “soft skill” topics and supports interactive, engaging, lively and productive online learning.

My fellow Applied Improvisation community, I hope you continue to have fun and success working with Applied Improvisation online and offline and I would love to hear from you!

About the Author: Susanne Schinko-Fischli

Susanne Schinko-Fischli studied psychology and acting at the University of Vienna and the University of California, San Diego. Since 2004, she has been an independent trainer, with a focus on and passion for the methods of Applied Improvisation. As a trainer in the areas of social skills, storytelling, teamwork and creativity, she works online and offline for wellknown organizations in Europe. She is also the author of the book Applied Improvisation for Coaches and Leaders (Routledge, 2018).

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(Last Updated: Wednesday, January 28th, 2026)