Beware of Jokes – I
April 13, 2009 by Jerry
One of the most pervasive pieces of advice bandied about in the presentation trade is to start a speech or a presentation with a joke. Wrong! No one can guarantee the success or failure of any joke; certainly not a business person – but not even a professional comedian.
Consider Johnny Carson. The legendary talk show host spent 30 years on late night television telling jokes written by a crack team of professional, experienced comedy writers; but the jokes didn’t always work. Fortunately, one of Johnny’s greatest assets was his ability to recover from failed jokes. Whenever a scripted gag elicited no reaction or even groans from his audience, Carson would mug a silent take or make a comment about the bomb; either of which would often produce more laughter than some of the scripted jokes.
Consider one of Carson’s most prominent successors, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show.” Although Stewart’s adulatory studio audiences worship and roar at almost every word he utters, he occasionally produces a dud. Stewart recovers with one his many rubber-faced expressions or trademark cackles which, as with Carson, often produces more laughter than the planned gags.
If Johnny Carson and Jon Stewart can’t guarantee a laugh how can you?
Still, the temptation persists to use humor in presentations to break the ice, to lighten up the proceedings, entertain, or engage the audience; all of which are noble intentions, but still risky business. For, even if a joke beats the odds and gets a laugh, the laughter is a digression from the main message of the speech or presentation.
The risk of humor is made even riskier by the diversification of audiences brought about by globalization. Diverse cultures, however, still retain their original sensibilities, and comedy does not cross borders easily – even when there is a common language. U.S. humor and U.K. humour differ by much more than a single letter. If you have any doubt, watch Americans in the audience of a British music hall comedy. They are the only ones not laughing.
If, despite all these caveats, you still insist on telling a joke in your speech or presentation, make it self-deprecating. If you fail at making fun of yourself, your failure will be far less onerous.
But even that strategy can backfire – as you’ll see in the next post.
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[...] previous post, which cautioned about the many risks of trying to be funny, included even self-deprecating [...]
Another thing to beware of in presentations are colloquialisms. Colloquialisms are defined as: expressions not used in formal speech, writing or paralinguistics. Colloquialisms or colloquial language is considered to be characteristic of or only appropriate for casual, ordinary, familiar, or informal conversation rather than formal speech or writing.
Here’s an example:
At a large company meeting in the United States, a senior executive (who was not born or educated in the U.S.) was giving a presentation. In his presentation, he talked about how his Product Development/Sales Team had beaten the competition; on his PowerPoint slide, he presented in big bold print, “We did not back down in the face of Diversity! [sic]”
Needless to say, there were many guffaws in the audience and nobody took him seriously or paid attention after that. He had no idea what people were laughing and joking about. The audience turned their attention to their own jokes about not backing down to green people, challenged people, etc. And to this day, it’s what people remember from his presentation.
Something to think about.
[...] trying to be funny. The task is difficult enough for professional comedians; the subject of a prior blog called "Beware of Jokes" that discussed how late night television stars Johnny Carson and Jon [...]
[...] trying to be funny. The task is difficult enough for professional comedians; the subject of a prior blog called "Beware of Jokes" that discussed how late night television stars Johnny Carson and Jon [...]
[...] trying to be funny. The task is difficult enough for professional comedians; the subject of a prior blog called "Beware of Jokes" that discussed how late night television stars Johnny Carson and Jon [...]