How many goofs are in your presentation?

I met with a client recently who will be speaking at a prestigious conference in his industry. When we started working together, I discovered that we have a similar approach to audience engagement.

He likes to make sure he has incorporated a couple of moments of humor into his presentations to shake up the audience and get them re-focused. He calls them "wake up" moments, or "goofs."

As he shared each "goof" with me, I couldn't help thinking how so many speakers are obsessed with "professionalism" or being "taken seriously." At the expense of audience engagement, I might add.

My client wants to make a particular point by Photoshopping his head onto a supermodel's body ("you can't just look at parts; you have to look at the big picture"). At another point in the presentation, he might hand out "nerd" glasses and a gold crown.

His ideas are fun and inspiring, and will certainly help make his points in a presentation that -- by the way -- is technical and could be rather boring in the wrong hands.

We're thinking about how to take a couple of illustrative stories about his students and make them cliffhangers. We're talking about using graphs as an opening quiz for the audience to get into the topic.

What "goofs" can you add to your next presentation to make your message more entertaining, more persuasive, more understandable and ultimately, more memorable? Please share in the comments!

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