The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Should I play it safe by avoiding humor?

Speech Writer: “It’s good to open a speech with a joke. This will loosen you and your audience up.”

Chief Legal Counsel: “Humor? Are you crazy? Do you want to get us sued?”

You: “What do I look like Jerry Seinfeld? Joan Rivers? I think I will play it safe and avoid humor all together.”

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Your Audience: “Nothing is worse than a speaker who is trying too hard to be funny by telling stale or canned jokes. On the other hand, nothing is better than receiving that unexpected surprise of laughter. A speaker who can have fun and make fun, especially of himself or herself, will always have a special place in our hearts. Here is the one thing as a speaker that you should know about us audience members: if we are laughing, we aren’t sleeping, daydreaming or checking our Blackberries. Enough said.”

I have written a lot about pausing in the past. Here are some additional insights about the pause as it relates to humor from well-know speaking expert Tom Antion.

“In joke telling, a pause just before and just after your punch line sets it apart from the setup of the joke and gives the audience a chance to laugh. Absolutely do not continue to talk when laughter is expected. Laughter is hard to get and easy to discourage. Hold eye contact a little bit longer than you think you should when delivering punch lines because time is hard to judge when you are pumped-up for a presentation.
The size of your audience will affect your timing. Your presentation will take less time to deliver to smaller audiences. Smaller audiences should mean quicker laughter. Conversely, presentations will take longer for extremely large crowds. Your pauses will be longer to compensate for the wave effect created because of the physical distance between you and the back row of the audience.” from Wake ‘em Up Business Presentations