Even a Geek Can Speak: Low-Tech Presentation Skills for High-Tech People by Asher Joey

Author:Asher, Joey [Asher, Joey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Persuasive Speaker Press
Published: 2006-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

“Funny is an attitude.”

—Flip Wilson

Lessons from a

Professional Humor

Geek

So you want to be funny. The good news is that anyone can be funny.

If you don’t believe it, ask Jeff Justice, a professional humor coach who has made even the geekiest, dullest people funny.

“Anyone can be funny,” says Justice, who has coached over 1,000 students to do stand-up comedy through Jeff Justice’s Comedy Workshoppe. “You just have to be willing to poke fun at yourself.”

Poking fun at yourself is only the first of Justice’s Low-Risk Guidelines for Humor During a Presentation.

The Best Humor Is Self-Directed

“When I tell people this they often respond, ‘But if I make fun of myself, people might not take me seriously,’” says Justice, who also coaches executives on how to inject humor into their presentations. “Actually the opposite is true. Study after study concludes that if you’re able to take yourself lightly and poke fun at what you do, it makes people think you are extremely confident.”

One of Justice’s students is Charles Brewer, founder of Mindspring, which recently merged with Earthlink. In Brewer’s presentation about his business, he tells hilarious stories about his adventures trying to start his Internet service provider. The stories almost always poke fun at his early stumbling as an entrepreneur. For example, Brewer claims that his original desire to get on the Internet was fueled by a desire to get weather maps on his computer.

Well . . . you had to be there.

But, trust me, to hear this computer executive claiming that his huge organization started with an insatiable desire to know the weather . . . it was funny.

Humor Should Be Relevant to Your Presentation

Good presentation humor is always relevant. When your attempts at humor are relevant, it matters less that the joke is funny. “Even if they don’t laugh at the joke,” says Justice, “they’re still getting the point. Indeed, they may even get the point better.”

Use Funny, Relevant Quotes

When Justice speaks about stress in the workplace, he tells the story about astronaut John Glenn, who was asked what he was thinking about as his rocket was ready to blast off. Glenn reportedly said, “I was thinking about how everything I was sitting on top of was built by the lowest bidder.”

Use a Joke from a Relevant Cartoon

When making the point that he is terrible at grammar, Justice describes his favorite Far Side cartoon, where all the Founding Fathers are sitting around writing the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson looks up and says, “Now is it ‘We the People’ or ‘Us the People’?” This joke is on the mark in terms of its topic (Jefferson in this cartoon also has a problem with grammar), plus it’s very funny. A perfect example!

Also, by setting a cartoon up and telling it as a joke, you don’t have to pay the copyright fees that you’d owe if you handed it out as part of your presentation.

Humorous Analogies

If you have a humorous analogy, use it.

Trying to finalize this project is impossible: it’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.

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