I'm an Entertainer

I started working in education back in 1996, when I wrote a class on COM and started teaching it at the University of California/Irvine extension. After my first class, I was hooked. I loved meeting new people, finding out what they were working on, and seeing the light go on over their heads when they learned something new. I found it was a great way to help people.

Over the years, I learned from some of the best in the business (many of whom are no longer in the business, but who I still respect immensely): Don, Chris, Tim, Fritz, and Ted, to name a few. One thing I realized from the start watching these guys on stage was that you have to entertain your audience in order to engage them, but it took me many, many years to be able to do this well myself. What finally clicked for me was to relax, be myself, and stop trying to imitate others.

So I loved Jeff's recent post on The Sesame Street Presentation Rule. This is excellent advice:

After being on both the giving and receiving end of plenty of presentations, I now realize there's one golden rule which applies to all of them:

Entertain your audience.

Every slide of your presentation should serve this fundamental vision statement. Is it entertaining? I don't mean each slide has to contain a wacky joke of some kind. Every slide should provoke a reaction from the audience -- be it controversial, unexpected, amusing, or a meditative Zen koan. Prod your audience. Do this not only to keep them awake, but to engage their brains. Deliver a series of short, sharp shocks that jolt your audience into a heightened state of engagement.

And for those who haven't yet seen it, this is one of the most entertaining and engaging presentations I've ever seen: Dick Hardt's Identity 2.0 introduction.