Humor in the High-Content Presentation

I spoke at the Farmer's Insurance Group conference, one of the largest insurance groups in the United States.

Prior to my presentation, the CEO stood up to speak and surprised everyone by saying, "We’re giving everybody here the opportunity to shine in their careers. If they can't shine here, we want to give them the opportunity to shine at 7-11."

About half of them laughed and the other half looked slightly nervous, but he felt that humor had a place in his speech. It was the responsibility of the audience to decide how to react to that humor.

Humorous Introductions

Should your introduction be humorous? Yes, if your speech contains humor. You don't want to lead the audience to believe that they are getting one type of speech when you plan on delivering another.

In the introduction, give the audience a taste of your sense of mirth. My introduction states: "Jeff has spoken on three continents to organizations such as America Online, American Express, Dollar Rent-A-Car, Nation's Bank, Swiss Hotel, and Uncle Joe's Eat and Run."

Opening Lines

You can use a funny opener even if you don't have a funny introduction. Dr. Ken Dykewald, who talks about the effects of aging in America, employs a story from his book Age Wave that he uses as an opener to his presentations:

A 92-year-old couple walks into a lawyer's office. They sit down and announce that they want to get a divorce. The lawyer is aghast.

"'How long have you been married?'
"'66 years.
 "'Why do you want to get a divorce now?'
"They look at each other sheepishly. They look back and they say, 'We were waiting for the children to die.'"

Some speakers say that you should not read a joke aloud during a speech, but it depends upon the situation. You determine whether or not to read a joke depending on the audience, how long you've been speaking to them, and what the atmosphere is like. There is no hard and fast rule; you have to do what fits for you.

Using Props

Don't be afraid to use physical props, especially funny ones. Use things like the old glasses with a mustache set. If you are a woman, think of how humorous it would be to wear them. Some people inject more humor into their presentation by holding up signs that say "applause" or "laughter" after they say something noteworthy or funny.

Lists are great tools to keep your speech from becoming redundant. You could devise a top ten list like David Letterman.

Interactive Humor

Humor can occur in the give and take between you and your audience. While speaking to the International Management Council of the YMCA on the topic of confidence, I offered books and audio CDs as bonuses to audience participants. A young man in the audience answered a question I posed, so I handed him a CD on having a better relationship with your spouse. He announced to the whole room, "But I'm not married."

I then said to him, "Now you've got incentive," which prompted a huge laugh from the audience. This off-the-cuff exchange could have been a dead spot, but he played along, and by way of our exchange, I was able to get closer to my audience.

Sometimes, you can use a joke based on the audience to whom you are speaking. If you're speaking to a group of lawyers or small business entrepreneurs, you could get away with a joke that's related to their own industry. This depends on the time, the place, how long you have been with the audience, the atmosphere, the repertoire, and the dynamics of the situation.

Know the Audience

Research your audience to see if there is something that unites them. Suppose you're speaking to a corporation and everyone must complete reporting forms, which they all hate to do. Use their animosity toward that form as a way of breaking the ice with the audience. If you know more about the group and what is on their minds at the time, your probability of making a great joke out of it increases.

Suppose that you're speaking to General Electric and the lights in the meeting room flutter off and on. What is your comeback line?  "Those darn Sylvania bulbs."

Because of the time you take to research, you have the names of competitors in mind in case anything in the room happens that interrupts the presentation.

Humor in a World...

Why use humor at all? We've grown up in a world where everyone has the ability to take the remote control, click it, and surf through the channels. People's attention spans are decreasing to all-time lows. If you're in front of a group and you don't have something humorous to say at least once every seven minutes, you are going to have a tough time.

Few things in life are really so serious that humor cannot be injected into them.