Humor as a weapon

The best and most comfortable place to find humor comes from your own personal experience. 

Jot down funny ideas as you come across it that might appeal to your audience - an embarrassing moment that you might not have found funny at the time, or a funny conversation you had. 

Make sure your choose humor is funny to you. First practice with small groups of people. Pay attention to the way your are delivering the joke or quip.

Only use humor in a speech after you are comfortable telling it from memory and have tested it.

• Humorous touches can almost always improve a piece that is already valuable on its own.
• If you’re sure a joke is going to land, it can make an effective advertisement. Test variations of the joke with a small audience first; that way, you can be sure the humor doesn’t cross a line.
• Brand differentiation. For example, Oreo has long differentiated itself by offering a quirky, tongue-in-cheek voice across its social media platforms. This is especially effective in dry, or otherwise “boring” industries.
• Personal branding. Elon Musk, for example, has separated himself from his companies Tesla and SpaceX by cracking jokes and roasting people on his own account.

• People will enjoy working with you.
• Humor is a potent stress buster.
• It is humanizing.
• It puts others at ease.
• Ha + ha = aha!  Humor is a key ingredient in creative thinking.
• It helps build trust.
• It boosts morale.
• People who use humor tend to be more approachable.
• Humor can allow your company to stand out.
• It can increase productivity.

• Humorous information receives increased attention during the perception stage.
• Improved encoding. Our brain gives preferential treatment to humorous information when it comes to storing it in our memory.
• The use of humor serves as a distraction from negative emotions, such as anger or anxiety, that people might experience when processing certain information.
• Reading or viewing something humorous has a positive and energizing effect.
• Adding humor to the information that you are presenting can make it more interesting to others.

The use of positive, nonaggressive humor is associated with 

• improved learning outcomes, 
• a relaxed learning environment, 
• better student evaluations, 
• an increased motivation to learn, 
• improved information recall, 
• an increased degree of student satisfaction throughout the learning process.

The use of negative or aggressive humor, especially if aimed at particular students, will produce the opposite effect.

• Humor, in a way, protects us from life's grim reality. We joke because if we didn't, we'd cry.
• Humor and laughing are also a social vocalization that includes some and excludes others. Jokes establish who is inside the group and who is not. We laugh with people to belong, and at others to exclude.
• In our current crises, humor is everywhere because fear is too. Laughter binds us together against a common enemy.

Poking fun at the ills of the world is only funny if they are considered benign. No one is making memes about child abuse that may increase during periods of enforced domestic isolation.

Observations about people's behavior can be funny if they poke fun at a social norm in a relatively inoffensive way, such as hoarding toilet paper.

• Humor: It takes a lot of practice until you can figure out the natural timing and flow of a joke. Practice makes perfect.
• Interest comes from having an interesting life. You can be interesting by telling stories  or by simply being quick to bring up an interesting fact.

Interest is similar to humor whenever people discover something they didn’t expect.

• You need to have an interesting point to make it worthwhile.
• Your most interesting point should be the last thing you say in your story.
• Keep it short.
• Keep it personal. People prefer stories about people they know.
• The more you tell a story the better you get the natural timing and emphasis. 

1. Ask yourself WWJD? (What Would Jerry Do?) Take an everyday situation and ask yourself, “What’s funny about this?”
2. Keep it clean. Steer clear of controversial topics and jokes in bad taste.
3. Use your wittiness to compete against big budgets. 
4. Just because your company is serious doesn’t mean all marketing has to be. Poke fun at yourself by doing a parody of your company or your industry.
5. The best humor comes naturally. Experiment by recording video interviews with quirky customers and employees.

• Some people might not appreciate your company’s brand of humor. Make sure the humor fits.
• Being funny may not work for healthcare, financial services or any highly regulated industry.
• Try using an online survey to test your attempt at humor against an internal audience before you send it out. 

• Good Humor is Inclusive.

• Good Humor Promotes Bonding.

• Bosses and managers who use self-deprecating humor are considered more approachable and human.

• Bad Humor Is Poison and can affect an employee’s performance or future.

• Clumsy Humor is a Risk. Your audience might take offence instead of laugh.

The perception of humor is directly related to the release of built up tension. We are set up through tension to get to a release point of humor. And that release has been shown to actually be good for our health.

We find humor when something happens that doesn't fit with what we expected to happen. It's about the unexpected.

... to recover from a mistake with humor:

• Acknowledge the mistake. There’s no hiding it now. Everyone saw!
• Correct the mistake. If it’s necessary, make whatever correction you need to get things back on track.
• Make a joke. Make fun of yourself. Get everyone laughing and they won’t care anymore.
• Move on! And don’t bring up your flub again until you’re totally in the clear.