In this segment, the presenter categorizes speaker styles based on their level of amusement and audience engagement, differentiating between being "funny," a comedian, and a humorist. She warns against the amateur tactic of opening a speech with a joke unless the speaker is genuinely skilled at humor. The talk outlines the skill sets required for each category: a "funny" speaker relies on relaxed, relatable chuckles; a comedian has honed timing and joke‑craft; a humorist can weave observational, light‑hearted commentary about an event without offending the audience. The presenter emphasizes that effective speaking also means being engaging and entertaining—responding to the audience, avoiding dry recitation, and becoming part of the audience’s experience. The segment concludes by transitioning to a discussion of audience considerations.
Chapters
Then there's one other kind of way we can categorize different speaker styles, and that is in terms of how amusing or engaging we are in front of an audience. So, we refer to some speakers as being very funny or being a comedian or being a humorist. There is actually quite a distinction between those. A lot of advice has been given in the past— please don't take this advice— that you should crack a joke at the start of your speech to get people laughing. That is a very amateur way of starting a speech or giving advice about speech giving, unless you're really good at telling jokes and being humorous on stage. So you need to be able to develop this for yourself and see where you stand. Being funny from stage could just be being relaxed, being able to engage with the audience, being able to find something that is amusing and get the audience kind of chuckling along with you. That's perfectly acceptable. A comedian is someone who actually develops humor as a skill set, who has developed the style and the timing in order to be able to tell really good jokes, but that is a very particular skill set that they have. And then there's a humorist, and there are a few real good humorists in the speaking world, but those who are, are very valuable. A humorist is someone who can spend time at a conference, at an event, with a company or an organization, hear what is going on, and at the end of a conference be able to almost give them a summary of what has happened during that time in a way that kind of pokes a little bit of fun, but also shines light on various things that has happened in a way that is entertaining and funny. But a humorist has to be really good to be able to have fun with a client without making fun of a client and causing any hurt feelings. Engaging and entertaining. We should absolutely be engaging and entertaining, and that just means that we are responding to the audience, we're responding to things that are going on, we're not just giving a very dry lecture, we are not just kind of reciting reams of content at an audience. We feel like we are part of that audience's experience of the content we are sharing. So there you go, a whole bunch of ideas and ways to think about the style of speaker that you are. Now let's move on and look at the audience.
