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In a recent Presentation Zen entry, Garr Williams applauds one of the TED presenters for his technique when showing a slide with a comic slide:
"He does not read the comic but instead pauses to give a few moments silence which allows people to read the strip and chuckle; silent pauses are always refreshing.

That last bit put me in mind of one of the key elements of any presentation: timing. You can have the most compelling content and concise message out there, but if you deliver it too fast they won't follow you. Deliver it too slowly, they'll lose track of where you started.

Ah, but deliver it just right...and you'll ride with your audience from wave to wave of laughter, "hmmmm..." moments, and wide eyed realizations.

"Silent pauses are always refreshing"

Why is that? If you think about it, it's almost a transgression. You're the speaker. You're supposed to be speaking, right? If you don't keep speaking, you run the risk of allowing the audience a moment to (gasp) interrupt you. Or look at something else. In short, instead of spoon-feeding them content, you are giving them the opportunity to create content on their own.

It's quite a vulnerable position for a speaker to be in. It requires both a sense of confidence in the message ("I believe that what I'm saying is compelling enough that you'll think about it") and a sense of trust ("I believe you're smart enough that whatever you think will enrich, not detract, from my message.")

The Corpo de Masquere: "Blow of the Mask"

The technique mentioned by Gar Williams is a version of a very, very old theatrical device: the blow of the mask. It's why comedians from Wile E. Coyote to the staff of The Office take that extra second to look at the camera. They break the fourth wall consistently. They're not looking at the camera; they're looking at you the viewer, taking a moment to move you from a voyeuristic one-way experience to a shared reality. Suddenly both of you are aware of the ludicrous situation, and you both become audience for just a moment.

Then the hapless coyote plummets to the canyon floor.

And you laugh. Because in that instant, you are in on the joke. The masterful actors of the Italian Renaissance commedia d'ell arte could keep an audience rolling with laughter with nothing more than a tilt of the head as they turned in their leather masks and looked, not at their fellow actors, but at the audience. The particular glances conveyed a plethora of messages: "Can you believe this?" "Oh, watch what's going to happen next!" "Oh, no, why didn't you warn me?" Or, my own personal favorite: "Why are you laughing at my misery?

The Inside Joke

By allowing the audience to read and understand the comic on their own, Barry Schwartz created a shared experience rather than a delivered message, and that made the audience more sympathetic to him and his talk. The pause of the corpo de masquere does that - it creates a shared moment, usually of humor, and the next time there is a pause and glance, you have not only that shared moment but all the prior ones. In short, you have a shared past, and that is the path towards friendship.

Inside jokes don't have to be from content within a presentation, either. If you know your audience, you can tailor the "refreshing pauses" to be more like asides to common experiences.

One of my "saves" when I give a presentation uses the popularity of comedian Eddie Izzard among the demographic of people in my audiences. If I tell a joke that falls flat, I will hold up my palm and mime writing on it "Note to self: never tell joke about rhinoceros and bananas again..."

This does a few things. People who have never seen Eddie Izzard just find it cute. People who ARE fans of the brilliant comedian, though, will laugh not because I'm funny - but because I'm reminding them of all of his other funny jokes. I become associated in their minds with all of his content.

I also have outed myself as a fellow Izzardite, and that also puts me into a sympathetic relationship with those members of the audience. The people who aren't familiar with him begin wondering why we fans are laughing so hard...they want to know. It all rolls into a synergistic ball of people laughing and listening to me more intently to see what I might say next.

All from just pausing in my delivery of content to write on my hand.

It is a skill; use it too much, it starts looking for a constant need for approval. Use it not at all, and you can still be considered a good speaker, brilliant, even - but you'll never have the kind of relationship with the audience that a real master of the art can create.

For an example, I hold up that modern master of commedia, Bill Irwin, as he opened the Tony Awards in 1987. He can elicit a laugh with a pause and the simple word "...or..."

What's the key to an effective TIMING! presentation?

(Note to self: verbal jokes about delivery do not necessarily translate well into blog format...)