MANILA, Philippines — Any Tom, Dick and Harry can make a presentation of boring facts and statistics. And believe us, we’ve had our share of listening to these Toms, Dicks ands Harrys. The results are pretty much uninspiring and sleep-inducing.

What’s the use of being a leading expert in your field if your audience tunes out before you deliver your message? All those years of education, published research and dissertations. You may have impressed the readers, but the live audience is an entirely different story.

In this post-Y2K age of advertising, where visual stimulation is available through high-tech media, taking on a live audience is a high risk! You have to compete with 30-seconder TV commercials, rows upon rows of billboard advertising, and pop-up ads on the internet to capture your audience’s attention, and to keep them focused on your message.

And one good way of capturing attention is through the use of humor.

Humor is good for everyone – regardless of race, color, creed or denomination. It gives us that slightly wider margin of error that allows us to be human enough to laugh about life and to laugh at ourselves, even in the most somber situations. And, as the Filipino spirit has always shown, it is the humor in the situation that makes us live through the most dismal hours.

Humor also makes any bad news or statistics easier to swallow. When we once had to deliver a talk about the poor educational system and the effects of colonialism, we opened with: “They say
Filipino kids today don’t know the value of the peso. Of course they don’t! How could they? When they pay P100 for a T-shirt costing P95.50, the cashier asks them : Sir, do you have five bucks and fifty cents?”

Of course, not everyone is a stand-up comedian. Speakers and presenters are neither trained nor paid to get a laugh a minute. But humor is more than telling a joke; it is the ability to be delighted with life. Someone once said: “A person with a sense of humor doesn’t make jokes out of life, they merely recognize the ones that are already there.”

We often make the mistake of thinking that humor content is judged solely by the number of jokes we spew out in our talk. Audiences laugh at much more than just funny lines. They laugh at undisguised passion; they laugh when they recognize incidents or emotions that reflect their own experiences; they laugh when two yousentences or ideas are juxtaposed to bring about some humorous synergy of thought; they laugh at many other non-joke elements.

More often than not, one can bring on a laugh simply by pausing and giving the audience time to recognize the humor. In other cases, it is simply a matter of some minor restructuring, rewriting, or repositioning a line. This doesn’t take hours of time.

Based on past experience, we are fairly confident that many of the laughs you want are already in your talk. All you have to do is find them.

Get over the fact that you have to be funny all the time. Lighten up! And your audience will lighten up with you!

The Laughter Formula
L – LOCALIZE AND PERSONALIZE YOUR MATERIALS.
Audiences love to be included. Tailor your humorous anecdote. Make it seem as if it just happened. They will think you are incredibly talented. It is better to say “On my way here from the Loakan Airport...” than “A month ago when I was in Baguio City...”. Personalize humor from a joke book or speaker’s file. The audience wants to relate to you, and you want to relate to them.

A – KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!
Are they blue or white collar? Clerical or managerial? What do they have in common? Are there social, religious, regional sensibilities? The nature of your audience determines the type of humor you use.

U – USE YOUR OWN STORIES.
Your audience wants to connect with you — and they’ll do exactly that when you tell your own stories ... not stories from forwarded e-mails or from Chicken Soup for the Soul. While you might weave in brief quotes or short stories from other sources, you must illustrate your most profound thoughts from your own actual life experiences. And if you don’t think you have any interesting personal stories to tell, you aren’t looking deeply enough.

G - MAKE GOOD EYE CONTACT. Try looking at individuals rather than scanning the group. Look at everyone while you are speaking. Don’t pick out just one part of the room to talk to. The rest of the room will wonder if you’ve got a buddy in that part of the audience! Speak to all of them. One sure way to lose an audience is to turn your back on them. And while you’re maintaining great eye contact, don’t forget to smile as well.

H - SPACE OUT THE HUMOR.
The beginning, middle and end of a speech are the strategic places for a joke. You want to start with a laugh to warm them up, throw some humor in the middle to keep them interested, and end with a laugh so they will have a nice, warm feeling.

T – TAKE TIME TO PRACTICE THE JOKE.
Try telling it to unsuspecting friends. Don’t tell someone you are going to tell them a joke, just work it into a conversation and watch their reaction. If they laugh, you know you have a winner on your hands and you’ve mastered the joke. Do not telegraph the end of the joke — surprise them. Suspense is the key in any good joke. If someone feels they know the punch line, the joke is a let down. The listener should be waiting to find out what the punch line is.

E - ENTHUSIASM
Your enthusiasm will make you memorable. The twinkle in your eye, the tone of your voice, and your body movements should suggest excitement and interest. It will rub off on your audience. You’ll see them sit up in their chairs and start really paying attention.

R – RELAX!
Be yourself and have a good time. If the audience sees you are really enjoying being on stage, your enthusiasm will be contagious. If you are having a good time, then your audience will, too.

And REMEMBER to leave them laughing!

(The author, Henry S. Tenedero is the president of the Center for Learning and Teaching Styles, an affiliate of the International Learning Styles Network, based at St. John’s University in New York. He is a graduate of the AIM Masters in Development management and of the Harvard Graduate School for Professional Educators. He is the author of the following books: Cooking Up A Creative Genius; The HI CLASS Teacher, Breakthrough Ideas in Education; and Using Passion and Laughter in Your Presentations. He can be reached at htenedero@yahoo.com)