Monday, April 5, 2010

Public Speaking: Have The Audience Write The Humor

Writing custom humor for groups is really tough. I remember the days when I was doing 85 percent humor in my speeches. The customized humor always took the most effort and carried the most risk. One way to beat the system is to have the audience write their own customized humor.

Who knows what's funny to them, better than them?

Break the audience into groups and give them some direction to start. You might ask them to come up with funny book titles based on people in their company (remind them to be kind because we don't want any hurt feelings).

You can give them some to start which will get the mood set and get you some laughs using stock humor before the exercise starts.

Book Titles:

"Secrets to a Happy Marriage" by Bill Clinton

"How to Raise Sober Kids" by George W. Bush

"Why I Hate Florida" by Al Gore

You could have them do Movie Titles, Work Project Titles, Newspaper Headlines, etc.

After they've been working on them for a while have them pick a spokesperson for the group who will recite to the entire audience their five best lines.

You can give out prizes and generally have a lot of fun with this technique.

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