TED videos on the Internet provide rich examples of presentation skills. We have used them to explore different aspects of presentation skills. Here's an activity that deals with the use of humor in presentations.
Basic Idea
Teams watch different TED lectures, paying particular attention to what makes the audience laugh. Based on these observations, the participants create sets of guidelines, first within the teams and then across the teams. They apply these guidelines to plan and rehearse a humorous presentation.
Purpose
To discover, discuss, and apply best practices for injecting humor in a presentation.
Participants
Minimum: 8
Maximum: Any number
Best: 12 to 20
Time
1 hour
Equipment
Four computers that can play back TED videos
Preparation
Set up four computers to play different TED videos. Make sure that all team members can watch the watch and listen to the lectures. Place the computers at different tables so that the teams’ activities do not interfere with each other. Pre-select four different lectures, one for each device. Select lectures that have good content presented with an appropriate amount of humor. Do not select comedy shows for this activity.
Flow
Round 1. Working with original teams
Brief the participants. Explain the importance of adding humor to presentations. Briefly discuss different ways of making humorous presentations.
Divide participants into four teams of approximately equal size. It is not critical if a team has one more participant than the other teams. Assign each team to one of the four computers, each ready to play a different TED lecture.
Ask teams to watch the TED presentation. Help the teams to play the appropriate TED lecture. Instruct the team members to take notes on what makes the audience laugh. Encourage them to write down guidelines for adding humor to lecture presentations.
Ask teams to analyze the techniques for adding humor in lecture presentations. After the TED lecture ends, instruct the team members to share their observations and come up with a set of guidelines for adding appropriate humor in a lecture presentation.
Round 2. Working with new teams
Re-organize the participants into new teams. Explain that you are going to facilitate sharing of best practices for adding humor to lecture presentations. Create new teams that consist of one member from each original team. If you have extra participants (because some TED lectures were watched by more participants than the others), add them to one or more of the new teams. You will end up with some teams having two people who watched the same TED lecture, but this should not present any problem.
Ask the new teams to share their guidelines. Begin by asking each team member to share the humor techniques from the TED lecture. Encourage the participants to continue sharing and consolidating their guidelines.
Round 3. Preparing and rehearsing humorous presentations
Ask each participant to prepare a short humorous presentation. Explain this presentation should not take more than 3 minutes. Encourage the participants to incorporate as many of the humor guidelines as possible.
Pair up the participants. Ask the two members of each pair to take turns making their humorous presentations.
Invite the listener to give appreciative feedback by identifying the things they found to be especially humorous in the presentation. Also ask the listener to give useful constructive suggestions.