I see a lot of guides on how to give presentations, and I’m shocked that a lot of them give these magical rules of what to do and not to do. Each presenter is his own little world and there is no one way to give a good presentation, so my advice is stay away from those who would make you think there is. More specifically I’m referring to several articles I’ve read that tell you not to use humor in your presentations.

Humor is a very good resource to use during presentations. It lightens up the mood and gives your audience a rest. During a presentation, especially during a long one, the audience starts to get tired of just siting and listening. It’s been proven that a person cannot hold his/her attention on something for more than 50 minutes, and that is being generous, usually we lose focus after 5 minutes. I’ve already talked about how to keep your audience’s attention in the post how to give an interesting presentation, but I didn’t go into much depth talking about humor. To know how much humor we should use we have to start by thinking of the audience, as usual. This time, more than individually, we should consider their culture, how they react to humor. Americans are clearly the promoters of using humor during presentations; actually Americans usually begin presentations with a joke. It is used as a manner of breaking the ice and creating a more comfortable environment to be in. Other cultures have a different approach, in Japan, for example, it is customary to begin with an apology; you can imagine how it might not apply to your own culture to begin a presentation by apologizing for not knowing much about the topic you will be speaking about. Keeping your audience in mind you can improve your way of using humor in your presentations. Here is a quote from a Japanese speaker who gave a presentation in The United States:

“I know that Americans usually start off a presentation by telling a joke; in Japan we usually start by apologizing. So I’ll compromise and apologize for not having a joke.”

This speaker clearly understood that he had an audience with a different culture than his own, and adapted his speech to fit the audience; needless to say it was a great beginning and the presentation was a success. I personally do not start off with a joke, but I do try to include humor somewhere throughout the presentation. As usual, I encourage you to try it and see how it changes your experience of giving presentations.

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.