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| Doug Benson – Working on Segues | ||||
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I enjoy listening to Slacker Radio on my BlackBerry when I go running. While some like to workout to music, I enjoy listening to the Slacker comedy channel.
One night recently, while running along the beautiful Croton River gorge in the scenic Hudson Valley village where I live, Doug Benson (a Last Comic Standing star) came on, and did a bit on comic segues. Here’s some text from it, and the video (see above).
A lot of comedians work really hard on their jokes, which I think is really awesome. But, what I’ve been doing lately is working on my segues. Those are the transitions between jokes that let the audience know that you’ve changed topics. It’s very important. So I hope you enjoy my jokes tonight… but I hope you really enjoy my segues…
I am getting too old for this sh-t
Pigs like sh-t, did you know that in your lifetime you are more likely to get attacked by a domesticated pig than by a shark? Especially if you swim in pig-infested waters.
Dingos can swim. I used to have a pet dingo – but the most ironic thing happened: a baby ate my dingo!
Babies love Vegas!
Pretty funny, and reminded me of the instructions we give during media training: know your key messages, stick to them and BRIDGE (another word for segue) to your messages. Also, in both comedy and media interviews, timing can be important, and you need to put up with some heckling.
So I thought I would combine the two and envision what a tech interview in Doug’s bizarro world might sound like, an interview that might happen if the client watched Doug’s video in lieu of media training:
Tech Exec: Our databases and system are the MOST scalable
Reporter: Sounds great, what are your annual revenues?
Tech Exec: Revenues, scalability, it’s all good, either way we are kicking some serious butt, but seriously, folks….
Reporter: Yea, OK, right, who are your customers?
Tech Exec: Customers? The biggest, the most impressive, a who’s who of the Fortune, and fortunately they all really love that scalability I was telling you about…
Reporter: This is getting tiresome, can’t you give a straight answer?
Tech Exec: Straight answers? The road to the truth can be straight and swerving…
Reporter: Is there any chance that you will you tell me about your profits?
Tech Exec: Absolutely, our Pro version is a great Fit for all types of companies
Reporter: Alright already, go ahead and tell me about your scalability
Tech Exec: It all starts at the application layer… we layer all this tech talk so we can sound very impressive…. the numbers are indeed impressive, it all gets down to the number of CPU cores… and that is core to our scalability and our value prop… so make sure you give us some props in that damn article
