A call back in comedy is a technique that takes something that was said before and ties it back into the current topic. The reminder results in a clever connection and can create some great humor.
A convention theme can have the same effect by tying together common themes at breaks, the keynote speaker, break out speakers and the after dinner speaker.
Simply take variations of your convention theme and have conference speakers call it back throughout the day.
When you reinforce your theme it creates a congruence an...
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Motivate, inspire and increase interaction at any event by borrowing some activities from Improv. Highly interactive motivational talks and workshops can take an event from blah and boring to memorable and impressive.
Instead of searching for concepts you think will inspire an audience, involve them and guarantee your success.
As always, for workshop activities to be successful they need to be relevant to the audience, so do your research!
When a motivational speakers presentations are all centered on their own st...
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Several years ago, I was a closing speaker for a women's conference and the opening motivational speaker didn't show up. It's not that she had something better to do, but she had fallen ill.
Unfortunately, she waited too long to let the event planner know and two hours before her speech, they were scrambling to find a replacement. I was a five hour flight away.
Unable to find an alternative, they presented a yoga session which had only a handful of participants. Other than the tantalizing opportunity to sleep in...
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I am proud to be the president of the Curiously Canadian Improv Guild.
Last weekend we had an amazing show which was taped live by Shaw TV. I laughed like crazy when I watched the performers on stage and was reminded how powerful and engaging improv is to hold an audience.
Improv is made up right before your eyes. Peels of laughter result as you marvel at how improv unfolds into incredible comedy. It is not a rehearsed motivational speech but more like a unpremediated dialogue between guest speaker and the audien...
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I was an inspirational speaker for an HR conference last year, where I had the most outstanding and memorable speech introduction ever.
The clever fellow who introduced me, saw me speak at an HR conference 6 months earlier. He tied in several ideas from my motivational talk and used personalized information about my family and upbringing. By the time I went up to speak, he made me feel like a rock star. It helped that his introduction was also halariously funny.
His witty and clever way of introducing me to the aud...
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I spoke last year at the HR Star Conference. Because I wasn't a keynote speaker (usually limited to 60-90 minutes) but presented a full day team building workshop, I had the time to experiment and develop some team activities.
I used to think games and activities were designed to waste time. They seemed irrelevant, they were often forced on the group, and typically some people refused to participate. I have since started using games and activities to enhance the message and build congruence in a group.
Like im...
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