Cool Tips for Using Humor in Your Presentation

Tip 1: It is often said the best way to win an audience over is to open with a joke or some bit of humor. Actually, unless you are a humorist or unless your talk is very funny all the way through, this can be the worst way to start your talk or speech. If your humor bombs, you will have to work twice as hard to win the audience over. But what is more important, if you get a big laugh, you have set up your audience members to expect a funny talk. They will sit back, relax, and be prepared to be entertained. And as they can grow increasingly frustrated with your inability to match your opening bit of humor. So, if you're not a humorist, speak for at least two to four minutes before interjecting any humor.

Tip 2: If you use humor books or humor newsletters to find humor do not read them to find your gems. If you want to get humor for a spoken presentation, you need to hear how the joke or piece of humor sounds, not how it reads. Humor that sounds funny often reads very weakly on paper. Get yourself a humor buddy and have him or her just read two or three pages at a time (any more than that and all the jokes start to sound the same) from your humor source. Then you will find it easier to hear how "funny" a line is by the way it sounds to your ears.

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