Idioteex

Posts Tagged ‘Public’

You need never again suffer the indignity of delivering a boring speaker. By adding humor to your speech you can instantly add sparkle to your public speaking. The best speakers know how to use it. Many new and part time speaker’s either don’t use it or don’t know how to use it.

Humor is a very powerful tool for even the occasional public speaker or presenter. It can:

- Instantly attract the attention of the audience

- Be used to illustrate the points in your speech

- Break up your speech into more manageable chunks and give the audience a breather

- Increase your likeability factor with the audience

- Be used to transition from one point to the next

- Be used as a planned response when the unexpected happens

Of course, for some people humor comes easy. For others, it can be a struggle and they doubt whether they should employ it. The advantages to the public speaker from using humor, mean that it is well worth learning the techniques of humor, and with a little application anyone can use it effectively.

Here are 8 tips you can use to spice up your public speaking:-

- Build up a storehouse of stories and quips that you can use. You can find these by being a keen observer of every day life. Other sources of humour newspapers, books, magazines, conversation, films, TV etc.Make a written note of these stories and utilize a filing system to categorize them under appropriate headings.

- Observe other successful public speakers. Analyse how they use humor in their speeches. Do they start with humor? How do they use it in their speech? What gestures, facial expressions, body language etc do the employ?  Read more...

A speech can be interesting, informative and highly entertaining without being humorous. Most speakers are invited because they are well informed on a specific subject and it is of interest to the audience, the listeners do not necessarily expect to be entertained. For entertainment they would hire an entertainer.

However, humor has a number of great benefits in helping the speaker to be more effective in achieving the overall purpose of their speech. The advantages of using humor in your speech are:

-You’ll quickly gain control of the audience – it gains their attention and helps in pulling them together

- It can be used to transition from one part of the speech to the next

- Helps to illustrate the points that you are making 

- It will give the audience a “breather” by breaking up your speech. It is difficult for listeners to concentrate for long periods and it gives them a rest and keeps them interested.

- The use of humor can show that you do not take yourself too seriously and will increase your “likeability” quotient 

- When presenting new ideas and policies that may not be popular, you can use humor to put your point across without creating hostility.

Humor can be learned and utilized by anyone willing to try. Most of the best speakers use it. To develop the art of humor will take you only a few minutes a day. To put humor in your speech apply the following:

- Develop a stockpile of stories – be on the lookout for good brief stories in newspapers, magazines and the internet. Be a careful observer of life. Also be a “watchful “listener of stories on TV or other speakers. Note the stories down. Do not rely on your memory * Observe other speakers. Note how they tell the story, the tone of their voice, their gestures, face expressions, the timing and pauses.  Read more...