Every time you pick up a magazine or a book on how to make a speech or a presentation, one of the things that they always seem to recommend that you put into your speech is HUMOUR.
How effective is humour in a presentation? Humour in your speech helps both the audience and the speaker. If you emphasize the main points in your speech by using humour, the audience will remember it more because anything said in jest has a longer retention period. John Cleese, of Monty Python's Flying Circus fame, said: If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it, you acknowledge its truth. By using humour in your speech, it makes the speech seem to go by much faster. The audience is left with the impression that they want more, or "wow, that speech was really 15 minutes, time just seem to fly by"; rather than the audience getting bored and thinking "geez, he's been yakking for 10 minutes, it seems like an hour".
One thing I must mention, you must remember that a humourous speech should not be confused with a comedy routine. There is a world of differences. A humourous speech has to be first and foremost - a speech - an opening, a body (with two or three main points) and a closing. It has to have a flow of logic to it, just like a story. As compared to a comedy routine, which is just a grouping of one liners or humourous anecdotes. A stand up comic may have a common theme running through their material, but it is a series of mini-speeches and not a full speech. An easy rule of thumb is: you read a humourous novel not a comedy novel. You see a comedy show not a humourous show.
Oh, how often do I hear people say "but I don't have a sense of humour like you do". Humour requires training to develope, just like Toastmasters allows you training to develope your presentation skills. Humour is all around us, you just have to know where to look. I found that humour falls into three basic categories: Observation, Imagination, and Exaggeration.
Observation is the easiest. This one is just handed to you. You see something funny. Some one slipping on a piece of ice or some one reaching up to grab something and their pants fall down. These are examples of observational humour.
Exaggeration requires a little thinking or imagination. You see something that brings a smile to your face, but you think, how can this be more funny. An example of this would be, you see some one sneeze and they blow out a match that some one just lit to light their cigarette. An exaggeration of this would be that the sneeze knocked the cigarette out of his hand or blew him up against a wall. Or you sneeze so violently that you put out a camp fire or a house fire.
Imagination is when you really have to polish the ol' funny bone. These are the ideas that come out of your twisted little mind. An example of this would be taking a scene from a nature show. The one where they show a pride of lionesses running after a gang of gazelles. Some jump and land on the backs and sink their teeth in, others jump and miss and roll on the ground. Then they drag what they have off and eat them and then lie around and lick themselves. Imagine the scene if you were to "humanize" it and the lionesses were talking and filing their nails and having an after dinner coffee: "Great hunt, girls, I got so close to that gazelle, but the little bugger got away from me, so I had to bring home a wart hog instead".
Now that you know what humour is, and where it comes from, here is a few presentation hints:
Be warned, humour can work against you. Humour can be really sensative material. The best way of avoiding an uncomfortable situation, is to make yourself the butt of the joke.
When it comes to using props, ask yourself if they are really necessary. If your main presentation relys on props, you may be in trouble because small props may not be seen if you play a large room, and large props can take away from your speech.
Props are like icing on a cake, it enhances the flavour and presentation of the cake. You can decorate a brick to look like a fancy cake, it will enhance the presentation but the flavour will not be welcomed. Here is a sure fire test, write out your speech and give it to someone to read, if they chuckle, then you know you have a good speech, and any props will just enhance the presentation. Remember all the rainbow wigs in the world are not going to save a boring speech.
Working the room. Everyone wants to be involved in your speech. Look at the whole room at least once during your speech, but concentrate your main attention to only 45 degrees to both your right side and your side, and never turn your back to the audience. Try to make it look natural, like you are addressing a group of people at a social gathering, if you attempt to look at everyone equally, it will look like an automatic lawn sprinkler. Hand gestures and voice volume may have to be adjusted to the size of the room, you may feel a little silly at first, but the audience will appreciate it. You do not want to tire yourself out by running from one side of the platform to the other, and this will tire out the audience too because they will think they are watch a tennis match. Stand in the middle of the stage, and imagine yourself on top of your kitchen table. You have maybe one to two steps in either direction before you fall of the table.
Time your speech to allow the audience to laugh. This is important in a speech contest where you can be disqualified if your speech went overtime. The time limit for the speech contest is 5, 6, and 7 minutes with a 30 second leeway in the beginning and in the end. There is no rule that says your speech has to be at least 7 minutes. In humourous speech contest I always aim for the 6 minute mark, this allows 90 whole seconds for laughter before I go overtime.
Humour is a very effective tool that anyone can use to spice up their speeches, to help their audience remember their speeches, and to help you "win friends and influence people". It has not done me any harm...yet. |
