What Cirque du Soleil Can Teach Speechwriters
12/12/10 21:30 Filed in: Speeches
Cirque
du Soleil combines drama, pageantry,
acrobatics and live music into a
thrilling treat for the senses. But
mesmerized audiences are far less aware
of the role communications plays in
crafting the excitement on stage.
Take for instance Mystère, the Cirque du Soleil show in residence at Treasure Island in Las Vegas. During every performance, acrobats, comedians, singers and musicians create an out of this world experience for viewers. Yet underscoring the action is a solid foundation of communication designed to keep the audience engaged and focused on the magic rather than the technique.
Chances are, you won’t be able to convince your speaker to do a double back flip at the end of a speech. What you can do, however, is apply some lessons drawn from Mystère to write a better script.
Start charming the audience while the lights are up
At a Mystère performance, the action begins while the theatre lights are still bright. Clowns appear in the aisles where they interact with people waiting for the show to begin. The result is laughter and applause. In a matter of minutes, isolated groups of families, friends and couples come together as a single audience with a common purpose -- to have some fun. And as they do, the atmosphere in the theatre warms up.
Lesson: Reaching people through a sense of community can do a lot to set a friendly tone and open the minds of listeners to the speech giver’s ideas. So, establish common ground with the audience early in the speech. For example: mention a shared cause, affiliation, belief, purpose or experience. Or, do like the Cirque du Soleil performers: inject some gentle humour to bring the audience together through laughter.
Bring listeners back to the theme from time to time
Mystère comprises a mind-boggling array of acts and activities. Trapeze artists, wirewalkers and gymnasts bedazzle the audience with amazing physical feats. But occasionally, the pace slows. As it does, the musicians play a refrain and the master of ceremonies and other now familiar characters take centre stage. This reset re-establishes the mood and brings continuity to the show.
Lesson: Bring people back to a point where they can see the big picture from time to time. Listeners have a limited capacity to absorb detail. A steady stream of facts, statistics and lists can lead to information overload. Reminding people of the main message here and there will give them context. Artful repetition of the overarching idea will also help the audience remember the key point.
Smooth the flow
To stage Mystère, groups of performers discretely move in and out of the audience's field of vision. The skill with which they make their entries and exits distracts attention from the logistics of the show.
Lesson: Poor transitions pull the curtain back to show the audience the rough edges of your speech. In contrast, good transitions can be a credibility builder for the speaker who uses them to move seamlessly from topic to topic. Writing smooth transitions takes time and thought. So, put real effort into developing transitions that will keep the audience focused on the message rather than the mechanics of the speech.
Leave a strong impression
Mystère ends with an image that's hard to forget. (I won't spoil the surprise by telling you what it is.) But as the performers disappear into the wings and the lights come up, a wondrous sight fills the stage.
Lesson: While no rule says every speech has to end with a trumpeting call to action, the close should give the audience something to think about. To create a lasting impression ask and answer a thought provoking question, make a vivid analogy, share a compelling statistic, or tell a story that illustrates the main point.
Finally, when you finish writing your speech take a bow (and don’t forget to wipe the greasepaint off your face).
Take for instance Mystère, the Cirque du Soleil show in residence at Treasure Island in Las Vegas. During every performance, acrobats, comedians, singers and musicians create an out of this world experience for viewers. Yet underscoring the action is a solid foundation of communication designed to keep the audience engaged and focused on the magic rather than the technique.
Chances are, you won’t be able to convince your speaker to do a double back flip at the end of a speech. What you can do, however, is apply some lessons drawn from Mystère to write a better script.
Start charming the audience while the lights are up
At a Mystère performance, the action begins while the theatre lights are still bright. Clowns appear in the aisles where they interact with people waiting for the show to begin. The result is laughter and applause. In a matter of minutes, isolated groups of families, friends and couples come together as a single audience with a common purpose -- to have some fun. And as they do, the atmosphere in the theatre warms up.
Lesson: Reaching people through a sense of community can do a lot to set a friendly tone and open the minds of listeners to the speech giver’s ideas. So, establish common ground with the audience early in the speech. For example: mention a shared cause, affiliation, belief, purpose or experience. Or, do like the Cirque du Soleil performers: inject some gentle humour to bring the audience together through laughter.
Bring listeners back to the theme from time to time
Mystère comprises a mind-boggling array of acts and activities. Trapeze artists, wirewalkers and gymnasts bedazzle the audience with amazing physical feats. But occasionally, the pace slows. As it does, the musicians play a refrain and the master of ceremonies and other now familiar characters take centre stage. This reset re-establishes the mood and brings continuity to the show.
Lesson: Bring people back to a point where they can see the big picture from time to time. Listeners have a limited capacity to absorb detail. A steady stream of facts, statistics and lists can lead to information overload. Reminding people of the main message here and there will give them context. Artful repetition of the overarching idea will also help the audience remember the key point.
Smooth the flow
To stage Mystère, groups of performers discretely move in and out of the audience's field of vision. The skill with which they make their entries and exits distracts attention from the logistics of the show.
Lesson: Poor transitions pull the curtain back to show the audience the rough edges of your speech. In contrast, good transitions can be a credibility builder for the speaker who uses them to move seamlessly from topic to topic. Writing smooth transitions takes time and thought. So, put real effort into developing transitions that will keep the audience focused on the message rather than the mechanics of the speech.
Leave a strong impression
Mystère ends with an image that's hard to forget. (I won't spoil the surprise by telling you what it is.) But as the performers disappear into the wings and the lights come up, a wondrous sight fills the stage.
Lesson: While no rule says every speech has to end with a trumpeting call to action, the close should give the audience something to think about. To create a lasting impression ask and answer a thought provoking question, make a vivid analogy, share a compelling statistic, or tell a story that illustrates the main point.
Finally, when you finish writing your speech take a bow (and don’t forget to wipe the greasepaint off your face).
|
An Education: In Presentations
29/09/10 22:14 Filed in: Presentations
What
a gift. Over a two-month period, eight
highly regarded presentation experts have
been booked to lead hour-long webinars as
part of a virtual event called the
Outstanding Presentations
Workshop.
And bonus — the webinars are free,
courtesy of generous sponsors.
Three of the webinars have already taken place (as of the end of September.) I listened to each one of them and took notes to share with Podium readers. So, here are some great insights and tips from a trio of top presentation designers.
Rick Altman - Author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck and the updated version Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Still Suck. Rick is also the conference host for the Presentation Summit which is taking place in San Diego in October.
Rick says:
• One of the reasons presentations suck is because people put too much text on their slides. To cut back, apply the three-word rule. Look at every bullet in your deck and ask yourself: could I shorten it to just three words? The answer won’t always be yes, but chances are you’ll still do some serious pruning.
• People become overwhelmed and quickly lose interest in slides that are busy and complex. To help people absorb what they see, present information in bite sized sequences. For example, when displaying a chart, start by showing the axes, then the bars, and then the lines. You’ll also probably do a better job of narrating such slides when you build them bit by bit.
• If you’re creating slides for someone else, provide extra directions and advice to the speaker in the notes field.
Nancy Duarte - principal of Duarte Design — the company that created the graphics for Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, and author of Slide:ology and the just-published Resonate.
Nancy says:
• Presentations are a new form of literature and people need to develop presentation literacy skills.
• When designing a slide, think in terms of signal to noise ratio. Ask yourself: how challenging will it be for people to get the message? Then get rid of anything that might slow down the viewer’s ability to understand the point.
• One of the reasons PowerPoint is ‘broken’ is because people use slides like documents. In other words they create ‘slideuments’. To avoid that fate, pull off everything that’s a crutch for the presenter and just leave the information the audience has to remember.
Olivia Mitchell - Partner in a presentation skills training company called Effective Speaking based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Olivia says:
• Craft a solid, clear key message that is relevant to the audience, specific (the more specific the more memorable) and expressed in plain spoken language.
• Follow the advice of the Heath brothers who wrote the book Made to Stick. Tell a story first to create an emotional impact. Then follow up with the statistics.
• Use a metaphor when you’re speaking about a concept that’s new to the audience. To help listeners get the idea, compare the thing that’s unfamiliar to something that is familiar.
Three of the webinars have already taken place (as of the end of September.) I listened to each one of them and took notes to share with Podium readers. So, here are some great insights and tips from a trio of top presentation designers.
Rick Altman - Author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck and the updated version Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Still Suck. Rick is also the conference host for the Presentation Summit which is taking place in San Diego in October.
Rick says:
• One of the reasons presentations suck is because people put too much text on their slides. To cut back, apply the three-word rule. Look at every bullet in your deck and ask yourself: could I shorten it to just three words? The answer won’t always be yes, but chances are you’ll still do some serious pruning.
• People become overwhelmed and quickly lose interest in slides that are busy and complex. To help people absorb what they see, present information in bite sized sequences. For example, when displaying a chart, start by showing the axes, then the bars, and then the lines. You’ll also probably do a better job of narrating such slides when you build them bit by bit.
• If you’re creating slides for someone else, provide extra directions and advice to the speaker in the notes field.
Nancy Duarte - principal of Duarte Design — the company that created the graphics for Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, and author of Slide:ology and the just-published Resonate.
Nancy says:
• Presentations are a new form of literature and people need to develop presentation literacy skills.
• When designing a slide, think in terms of signal to noise ratio. Ask yourself: how challenging will it be for people to get the message? Then get rid of anything that might slow down the viewer’s ability to understand the point.
• One of the reasons PowerPoint is ‘broken’ is because people use slides like documents. In other words they create ‘slideuments’. To avoid that fate, pull off everything that’s a crutch for the presenter and just leave the information the audience has to remember.
Olivia Mitchell - Partner in a presentation skills training company called Effective Speaking based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Olivia says:
• Craft a solid, clear key message that is relevant to the audience, specific (the more specific the more memorable) and expressed in plain spoken language.
• Follow the advice of the Heath brothers who wrote the book Made to Stick. Tell a story first to create an emotional impact. Then follow up with the statistics.
• Use a metaphor when you’re speaking about a concept that’s new to the audience. To help listeners get the idea, compare the thing that’s unfamiliar to something that is familiar.
Working With Word Clouds
29/09/10 22:02 Filed in: Speeches
We
speechwriters don’t end up with much to
show for our efforts. While the words we
write may change what people think,
believe or are willing to do, our only
souvenir of the assignment might be a
paper text, an entry on a Web site (text
again), or maybe a video recording of the
speaker on the podium. But have you ever
asked your friends over to watch the
video of a speech you wrote? Probably
not…
Well there is a way to create a memento that you could hang on the wall if you were so inclined. Make a word cloud. To do that go to www.wordle.net, follow the simple instructions and congratulate yourself on your artistry.
Wordle is the brainchild of a man who thinks outside the font. His name is Jonathan Feinberg and he developed Wordle as a means of drawing pictures with words. The tool is free and anyone can use it to make word clouds for their own use or to share with the world. Users have licence to do whatever they like with their creations: publish them on paper or online, for instance, or even emblazon them on t-shirts and mugs.
Wordle applies weight to the words in the source text. The more frequently a word occurs, the larger it appears in the word cloud. (Allowances are made for words such as ‘a’ and ‘the’ to keep things manageable.)
So, pour a speech into the hopper, wait a few seconds and then gaze upon the glory of your creation. You can tweak your efforts endlessly to change the colour, font and arrangement. Once you’re happy with the results, save the word cloud as a screen shot and treat it like an image.
Keep in mind, however, that the word clouds Wordle generates are meant to be decorative. They’re not analytical tools. Take for example a word cloud made from the speech Pierre Trudeau delivered on the eve of the 1980 Quebec Referendum. While he was firmly on the ‘no’ side of the debate and said so repeatedly, the word ‘yes’ figured prominently in the word cloud. I suspect Wordle eliminated ‘no’ as a freestanding word because it’s also a common syllable.
Despite the odd glitch, some of which can be fixed with some experimentation, Wordle is a great tool for creating interesting graphics from words. It’s fun to play with too.
Ideas for Using Word Clouds
• Illustrate a Web post of a speech
• Illustrate a newsletter or magazine article about a speech
• Illustrate a cover page for a hard copy of a speech
• Decorate your office wall
• Save in a journal where you document each speech that you write
If you can think of other ways to use them, please add a comment.
Examples of Speech Word Clouds
The speech Pierre Trudeau gave on the eve of the Quebec Referendum 1980
The speech current Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered to the
United Nations, September 23, 2010
The speech environmentalist David Suzuki delivered in Los Angeles to the Governors’ Climate Change Summit in 2008
Finally: The description of my workshop Speechwriting: The Basics & Beyond (shameless self promotion)
Well there is a way to create a memento that you could hang on the wall if you were so inclined. Make a word cloud. To do that go to www.wordle.net, follow the simple instructions and congratulate yourself on your artistry.
Wordle is the brainchild of a man who thinks outside the font. His name is Jonathan Feinberg and he developed Wordle as a means of drawing pictures with words. The tool is free and anyone can use it to make word clouds for their own use or to share with the world. Users have licence to do whatever they like with their creations: publish them on paper or online, for instance, or even emblazon them on t-shirts and mugs.
Wordle applies weight to the words in the source text. The more frequently a word occurs, the larger it appears in the word cloud. (Allowances are made for words such as ‘a’ and ‘the’ to keep things manageable.)
So, pour a speech into the hopper, wait a few seconds and then gaze upon the glory of your creation. You can tweak your efforts endlessly to change the colour, font and arrangement. Once you’re happy with the results, save the word cloud as a screen shot and treat it like an image.
Keep in mind, however, that the word clouds Wordle generates are meant to be decorative. They’re not analytical tools. Take for example a word cloud made from the speech Pierre Trudeau delivered on the eve of the 1980 Quebec Referendum. While he was firmly on the ‘no’ side of the debate and said so repeatedly, the word ‘yes’ figured prominently in the word cloud. I suspect Wordle eliminated ‘no’ as a freestanding word because it’s also a common syllable.
Despite the odd glitch, some of which can be fixed with some experimentation, Wordle is a great tool for creating interesting graphics from words. It’s fun to play with too.
Ideas for Using Word Clouds
• Illustrate a Web post of a speech
• Illustrate a newsletter or magazine article about a speech
• Illustrate a cover page for a hard copy of a speech
• Decorate your office wall
• Save in a journal where you document each speech that you write
If you can think of other ways to use them, please add a comment.
Examples of Speech Word Clouds
The speech Pierre Trudeau gave on the eve of the Quebec Referendum 1980
The speech current Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered to the
United Nations, September 23, 2010
The speech environmentalist David Suzuki delivered in Los Angeles to the Governors’ Climate Change Summit in 2008
Finally: The description of my workshop Speechwriting: The Basics & Beyond (shameless self promotion)
Speechwriting Tips from Twitter
10/09/10 15:53 Filed in: Speeches
Speechwriting Tips from
Twitter
Twitter is a terrific resource for speechwriters. Everyday, scribes from around the world share insights, recommend books and provide links to terrific online resources. If you want to broaden your horizons, join the conversation. An easy way to start is by following me, @wendycherwinski, or the people quoted below.
A great speech is like a pickpocket. It distracts us with its surface brilliance while working its magic in the shadows.
@martinshovel
Frame everything you say and show in terms of your audience's point of view and needs.
@Story_Jon
Being spontaneously funny is hard work http://bit.ly/bjxmpW How Joan Rivers does it.
@beachwordsmith
“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.” -- Cato The Elder
@LilyIatrides
Book Review: Boring to Bravo (Kristin Arnold) http://bit.ly/alEcaE
@6minutes
Twitter is a terrific resource for speechwriters. Everyday, scribes from around the world share insights, recommend books and provide links to terrific online resources. If you want to broaden your horizons, join the conversation. An easy way to start is by following me, @wendycherwinski, or the people quoted below.
A great speech is like a pickpocket. It distracts us with its surface brilliance while working its magic in the shadows.
@martinshovel
Frame everything you say and show in terms of your audience's point of view and needs.
@Story_Jon
Being spontaneously funny is hard work http://bit.ly/bjxmpW How Joan Rivers does it.
@beachwordsmith
“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.” -- Cato The Elder
@LilyIatrides
Book Review: Boring to Bravo (Kristin Arnold) http://bit.ly/alEcaE
@6minutes
Shoot Like a Communicator
29/08/10 14:51 Filed in: Presentations
How
often do you wander around with a camera
slung over your shoulder or tucked into a
hip pocket? Most likely that’s something
you do on vacation. And whether you
return home with shots of the kids at
Disneyworld, or your tour group standing
in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
chances are most of those photos sit on
your computer or disappear into an album
to be looked at again someday. Yet, with
a bit of thought and planning, your best
work could see the light (terrible pun)
in your presentations.
Today, importing digital photographs to slides is a snap (another terrible pun, sorry). And there are good reasons to do it. Photographs can set a mood, tell a story, make an abstract concept concrete, elicit an emotional response or spark imagination. Research also indicates that people remember information better and longer when they receive it from images rather than text.
Here’s the simple key to success: be purposeful about capturing images to use on your slides. So, next time you’re looking through a viewfinder, keep these tips in mind.
Some of the souvenir photos I’ve used in my presentations
A close-up shot of message tiles stacked up at a Buddhist temple near Sokcho, South Korea.
This shot provides some comic relief when I talk about choosing the right text size.
Lots of sky makes this shot perfect for use as a title or bullet slide background.
Wendy Cherwinski
words@echeloncomm.ca
Today, importing digital photographs to slides is a snap (another terrible pun, sorry). And there are good reasons to do it. Photographs can set a mood, tell a story, make an abstract concept concrete, elicit an emotional response or spark imagination. Research also indicates that people remember information better and longer when they receive it from images rather than text.
Here’s the simple key to success: be purposeful about capturing images to use on your slides. So, next time you’re looking through a viewfinder, keep these tips in mind.
- Take background shots - Grab a few shots that are mostly sky with the scene or activity in a narrow band along the bottom. These shots are great for title or bullet slides. To learn more about this technique read Life Imitates Art, posted elsewhere on this blog.
- Think like a videographer - To tell a story movie makers shoot a wide variety of shots: establishing shots, close ups, cutaways etc. So, do more than take a wide shot of the scene. Focus on the details. For example: while visiting a Buddhist temple in Korea, I snapped a close-up shot of stacks of message tiles left by other visitors. I’ve used it several times to make different points in presentations.
- Think like a communicator - Don’t just take glamour shots. Think about the three Cs that form the foundation of a presentation: Connect, Convince, Conclude. Then take a few minutes to look around the scene. Do you see anything that could help you communicate those ideas? If so, aim and fire away.
Some of the souvenir photos I’ve used in my presentations
A close-up shot of message tiles stacked up at a Buddhist temple near Sokcho, South Korea.
This shot provides some comic relief when I talk about choosing the right text size.
Lots of sky makes this shot perfect for use as a title or bullet slide background.
Wendy Cherwinski
words@echeloncomm.ca
Taking care of the ‘risky’ Business of humour
06/07/10 18:18 Filed in: Speeches
Adding
humour to speeches and presentations is
risky business. The speaker can fluff it.
The audience can find it unamusing,
confusing, or even worse — offensive.
Whatever the negative outcome, poorly
chosen or delivered humour can end up
clouding the speaker’s message.
Fortunately, the opposite scenario is also highly possible. A little humour can warm up the atmosphere, make the speaker appear friendly and help listeners remember key points.
The secret of success lies in carefully choosing humour that will entertain the audience while keeping the speaker safe.
A good way to do that is to favour the kind of humour listeners like. As a rule people respond well to self deprecating humour. If the speaker can laugh at himself, he must be a good egg: or, at least that seems to be the reasoning. General Rick Hillier, Canada’s former Chief of the Defence Staff, likes to joke about growing up with five sisters. He claims he joined the army in self-defence.
Another way to keep things safe is to stick to humour that’s meant to draw a grin or a giggle rather than a belly laugh. The late John Cantu, a one-time comedy club owner, told speechwriters at the Ragan Speechwriters Conference in Washington a few years back to “aim for chuckles”. Comedians cycle hundreds of jokes through their routines in the quest for big laughs, he explained. And of course stand up comics are also trained performers. If your speaker’s idea of preparation is to read through the speech once or twice before an event, you might want to aim for the low end of the laughometer.
A third way to help your speaker in the humour department is to borrow it from others. For example: riff off a late night host: “The other night I heard Jay Leno say…”; describe a popular cartoon “Dilbert asked an interesting question the other day:…” or include a funny quote or wisdom from a bumper sticker. Just keep it short and sweet.
And one more bit of advice: Whenever possible relate the humour to an important point the speaker wants the audience to take away. Humour, like storytelling, is a great tool for reinforcing important points in the minds of listeners.
Think twice about including a joke
As for jokes, many speechwriters say avoid them. There is just too much danger in a flubbed delivery or a tepid response from listeners. Another danger with telling a joke is the audience may have heard it before.
But what if a joke perfectly encapsulates the speaker’s point? OK. There are times when telling a joke in a speech does work. If you decide to put one in, you can always acknowledge the fact that some people may be familiar with the joke by writing a preface along the lines of: “You may have heard the joke that goes something like this…”
Keep in mind that the longer the joke the funnier the pay off has to be to satisfy listeners. And today’s audiences are not known for their long attention spans. As a rule of thumb, corporate speechwriter Fletcher Deans says avoid jokes that take longer than a minute to get to the punch line.
Create your own humour
Look at the news if you want to find fodder for jokes says comedy writer Jon Macks. Macks, who is also a speechwriter, says ask yourself: “What’s stupid about this situation?” Once you identify the absurdity, see if you can use it in a sentence that begins with a phrase such as “It’s so hot that…” or “Taxes are so high that…”
Put humour to the test
When choosing humour for a speech test it. Only include it in the speech if you can answer ‘yes’ to the following three questions:
Wendy Cherwinski
words@echeloncomm.ca
Fortunately, the opposite scenario is also highly possible. A little humour can warm up the atmosphere, make the speaker appear friendly and help listeners remember key points.
The secret of success lies in carefully choosing humour that will entertain the audience while keeping the speaker safe.
A good way to do that is to favour the kind of humour listeners like. As a rule people respond well to self deprecating humour. If the speaker can laugh at himself, he must be a good egg: or, at least that seems to be the reasoning. General Rick Hillier, Canada’s former Chief of the Defence Staff, likes to joke about growing up with five sisters. He claims he joined the army in self-defence.
Another way to keep things safe is to stick to humour that’s meant to draw a grin or a giggle rather than a belly laugh. The late John Cantu, a one-time comedy club owner, told speechwriters at the Ragan Speechwriters Conference in Washington a few years back to “aim for chuckles”. Comedians cycle hundreds of jokes through their routines in the quest for big laughs, he explained. And of course stand up comics are also trained performers. If your speaker’s idea of preparation is to read through the speech once or twice before an event, you might want to aim for the low end of the laughometer.
A third way to help your speaker in the humour department is to borrow it from others. For example: riff off a late night host: “The other night I heard Jay Leno say…”; describe a popular cartoon “Dilbert asked an interesting question the other day:…” or include a funny quote or wisdom from a bumper sticker. Just keep it short and sweet.
And one more bit of advice: Whenever possible relate the humour to an important point the speaker wants the audience to take away. Humour, like storytelling, is a great tool for reinforcing important points in the minds of listeners.
Think twice about including a joke
As for jokes, many speechwriters say avoid them. There is just too much danger in a flubbed delivery or a tepid response from listeners. Another danger with telling a joke is the audience may have heard it before.
But what if a joke perfectly encapsulates the speaker’s point? OK. There are times when telling a joke in a speech does work. If you decide to put one in, you can always acknowledge the fact that some people may be familiar with the joke by writing a preface along the lines of: “You may have heard the joke that goes something like this…”
Keep in mind that the longer the joke the funnier the pay off has to be to satisfy listeners. And today’s audiences are not known for their long attention spans. As a rule of thumb, corporate speechwriter Fletcher Deans says avoid jokes that take longer than a minute to get to the punch line.
Create your own humour
Look at the news if you want to find fodder for jokes says comedy writer Jon Macks. Macks, who is also a speechwriter, says ask yourself: “What’s stupid about this situation?” Once you identify the absurdity, see if you can use it in a sentence that begins with a phrase such as “It’s so hot that…” or “Taxes are so high that…”
Put humour to the test
When choosing humour for a speech test it. Only include it in the speech if you can answer ‘yes’ to the following three questions:
- Does it suit the speaker? - Will the speaker seem natural as he or she delivers the lines?
- Does it suit the topic? - Is the link between the subject and the humour obvious and appropriate?
- Does it suit the audience? - Will the humour resonate with the people in the room?
Wendy Cherwinski
words@echeloncomm.ca