A keynote opening for any business event

by | Jan 18, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking

It’s great to be here.

By ‘here’ I mean in this three-dimensional presentation space.

It has to be three-dimensional; otherwise this keynote would be a bit flat.

I do like the shape of the room, the way it’s formed, configured and fashioned.

The combination of symmetry and lopsidedness, commensurateness and disproportionality, and how it’s both oblongitudinal and truncated, is, too say the least, very unique.

The way this is orthogonal to that is clearly the right angle.

It was hard to find this place, though, wasn’t it?

My journey to this destination was so long as to be spiritual.

I meandered along a tortuous, sinuous and serpentine route only to become lost in a mazy, labyrinthine and concatenated series of interconnected corridors.

This area is quadrangular, that is: tetragonal, but is it a rhombus or a trapezoid? At a guess, I’d say it’s antiparallelogrammatic.

Nice schematic, the variegated motif being a symbolic pictographic hieroglyphic. The edges, longitudinal axial and horizontal transverse, do well to enclose and describe this expanse.

The seats, arranged in a grid, being both serial and parallel depending on how you look at them, works well enough, but it would be better if alternate rows were offset so that tall or broad people sitting immediately front of a more modestly-dimensioned patron would not block views of the stage. I’m inclined to believe that raking might help.

There’s north, there’s south, there’s east, there’s west, and I’ll be your moral compass.

This room is big. This room is roomy. It’s amplitudinous, a humongous behemoth of capacious volume. It’s panoramic and lofty, expansive and soaring. Big. As big as this room is from the inside, from the outside it’s ever bigger. That’s because the walls are thick. And the floor and the ceiling.

I’m usually placed in venues that are teeny-weeny. Minuscule. Diminutive. You can imagine why.

Anyway, we’re here together now, for the duration, as long as my repertoire, and your politeness, last.

We’re connected, interconnected, interrelated, interlinked. More than associated, we’re correlated, there’s a correlative correlational relationship between us. I’m pretty sure that it’s corresponding, that the feeling’s mutual and reciprocated, quid pro quo.

You’re all in close propinquity to each other, side by side, but it couldn’t be said that you’re nearby to me. We are more contiguous, adjacent and juxtaposed. I’m against us being abutting or adjoining. But we perhaps a bit far away, a little far off, at a distance. Come on down. Or up.

Those of you at the margin, your peripheral vision must be bordering on acute.

Enough of these introductory remarks. It’s time to go on to my content.

…   …   …   …   …

Rodney Marks

I’m an Australian comedian, hoax speaker and corporate impostor. I mainly present comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.

Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.

For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.

Over-explaining is under-explaining

by | Jan 17, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking

Clarification1 with footnotes2

The3 remarkable4 thing5 about6

precision7

Is8 its9 arbitrariness,10

For11 as soon as12 we13 probe14 life,15

places,16 time17

We’re18 bound19 to find20 no21

borders.22

  1. Of course, a title doesn’t entitle the reader, only what’s read.
  2. Like this one.
  3. When I say ‘the’, I’m being subjective, of course. ‘An’ might garner more of a consensus.
  4. The proof of its being remarkable is that I am remarking on it now.
  5. A weak sleeper of a word, I know. However, when generalising, I like to. It is also a neat and acceptable collocation for its adjective.
  6. Concerning, isn’t it?
  7. I’m trying here, to exact meaning.
  8. Is is what it is.
  9. It’s hard to be relatively possessive.
  10. The world is so unjust. Just so.
  11. Here we imply a causal relationship.
  12. Immediacy depends on where you start from. And when.
  13. Be embraced by the all-embracing.
  14. We have space to.
  15. To define the meaning of life in a footnote would be so demeaning to an ancient history of philosophy.
  16. The special is oh so important …
  17. … but not compared to the temporal.
  18. Not the royal plural but our shared humanity.
  19. Our destiny has us tied up.
  20. The possible discoveries for non-adventurers are limited to the theoretical.
  21. Yep, the party line is that there’s a complete absence.
  22. Here we have a footnote about a margin note.

…   …   …   …   …

Rodney Marks

I’m an Australian comedian, hoax speaker and corporate impostor. I mainly present comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.

Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.

For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.

43 Business Jokes

by | Jan 17, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking

  1. All probabilities are really 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won’t.
  2. All the world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
  3. All work and no play will make you a manager.
  4. Any theory can be made to fit the facts by means of appropriate additional assumptions.
  5. Anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked.
  6. (Anything in parentheses can be ignored.)
  7. Better latent than never.
  8. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
  9. Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.
  10. Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you’re doing.
  11. Dare to be average.
  12. Don’t be irreplaceable; if you cannot be replaced, you cannot be promoted.
  13. Due to recent budget cuts and downsizing, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
  14. Efficiency is a highly developed form of laziness.
  15. Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average.
  16. Enough research will tend to support your theory.
  17. Everything is actually everything else, just recycled.
  18. Rule of defactualisation: information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
  19. Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it.
  20. Stay in with the outs.
  21. Success can be assured only by devising a defence against failure of the contingency plan.
  22. The best way to lie is to tell the truth, carefully edited.
  23. The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
  24. The first 90 percent of the task takes 90 percent of the time, the last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.
  25. The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all of the parts.
  26. The light at the end of the tunnel is a train hurtling towards you.
  27. The longer the title, the less important the job.
  28. The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.
  29. The moment for calm and rational discussion is past; now is the time for senseless bickering.
  30. The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do it in. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
  31. The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
  32. The only important information in a hierarchy is who knows what.
  33. The organisation of any program reflects the organisation of the people who developed it.
  34. The trouble with doing right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
  35. There is no evidence to support the notion that life is serious.
  36. There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrnog.
  37. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.
  38. If enough data is collected, anything can be proved statistically.
  39. If there is a 50:50 chance that something can go wrong, then nine times out of 10 it will.
  40. If you’re already in a hole, stop digging.
  41. If you can’t measure output, measure input.
  42. If you consult enough experts, you can confirm any opinion.
  43. If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we’ve solved it.

…   …   …   …   …

Rodney Marks

I’m an Australian comedian, hoax speaker and corporate impostor. I mainly present comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.

Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.

For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.

The art of saying nothing, at length

by | Jan 15, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking

To beg your indulgence, to begin with, I’d like to begin at and in the beginning, as clarity begins at home. Lets start from scratch, or even before then, at the itch. After all, or before all, or above all, all in all, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A single step begins with a hop, and a hop begins with a tiptoe. Same goes for a thousand kilometres, although the step would be smaller. Or shorter. Anyway, let the games begin. I hardly know where to begin, when to begin or how to begin. I’m sure you’re beginning to see the light.

Even before we begin, if that’s possible, given that we must begin at some stage, but before we begin, in a state of, if you like, pre-preparedness, we are in development, embryonic, nascent, incipient.

Having begun, or begun to begin, one is merely abecedarian, a fledging, an apprentice, trainee, debutante, rookie.

From this elementary stage, at the outset or even the onset or outbreak, we set off to the kickoff, the conception of the commencement, the dawn of day one, the inocculant, the germ of the idea, the root or seed or seedling or cutting or simply the start.

…   …   …   …   …

Now we’re all in a muddle at the middle, somewhere approximately equidistant between the beginning and the end. To split the difference, we’re at the mid-point of the centre of the fulcrum. Something of a grey area.

Not that being in the middle makes me a middleman. But certainly my role is now that of the intermediary, the liaison, the go-between. I am the intermediate factor.

Sometimes I’m median, sometimes mean  depending on the distribution.

Being mediocre by birth, training and capability, I’m well-equipped, here and there, to be halfway between  here and there. And in the midst of that, I’m in the midst. Lost in the mist. Im the point thats missed.

In another sense, you could say that being in the middle is core, central and medial. It feels re-medial, even middling, but being in the intervening time is a very average experience.

…   …   …   …   …

The end of the line doesn’t always lead to a new paragraph. A one-time-only offer in its last days is available for those who believe in some sort of apocalyptic Armageddon. An end in and of itself must have a termination at the terminal or terminus, a use-by date, an expiration, a cessation, a conclusive conclusion, a culmination.

That’s all for now, that’s final, this is this, that’s that, it is what it is and what will be will be.

Fate and destiny have us all totalled in our pursuit of closure.

As we draw to an end its time to put the finishing touches on the homestretch by signing off:

Yours truly  sincerely, respectfully, faithfully and affectionately.

With love, regards, and good wishes.

Cordially yours, ever yours, to you and yours, all the best, thinking of you, wish you were here, see you soon.

Cheers!

…   …   …   …   …

Rodney Marks

I’m an Australian comedian, hoax speaker and corporate impostor. I mainly present comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.

Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.

For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.

 

50 shades of grey

by | Jan 14, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking

1. aluminium
2. ash
3. bat
4. battleship
5. bitumen
6. charcoal
7. chrome
8. cinder
9. cinereous
10. colourless
11. concrete
12. dove
13. dust
14. flint
15. fuliginous
16. granite
17. graphite
18. greige
19. grey
20. gunmetal
21. hoary
22. iron
23. lead
24. mercury
25. moleskin
26. monochrome
27. mouse
28. mushroom
29. neutral
30. nutria
31. obsidian
32. oyster
33. pearl
34. pelican
35. pepper-and-salt
36. platinum
37. plumbago
38. pumice
39. salt-and-pepper
40. silver
41. slate
42. smoky
43. soot
44. steel
45. stone
46. storm cloud
47. tarmac
48. taupe
49. tin
50. wan

…   …   …   …   …

Rodney Marks

I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.

Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.

For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.

Waffling by qualifying is sure to impress

by | Jan 14, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking

Feel free to use this opening sentence when delivering your next keynote address at a business event:- 

Generally,

referentially,

computationally,

bibliographically,

encyclopaedically,

serially,

organisationally,

journalistically,

collectively,

philosophically,

psychologically,

metaphysics,

epistemologically,

causally,

humanly,

paranormally,

phenomenologically,

logically,

ethically,

morally,

theologically,

biblically,

comparatively,

religiously,

socially,

scientifically,

statistically,

politically,

economically,

legally,

administratively,

problematically,

educationally,

commercially,

communicatively,

customarily,

folklorically,

linguistically,

mathematically,

astronomically,

physically,

chemically,

earthily,

paleontologically,

paleozoologically,

botanically,

zoologically,

technologically,

medically,

psychiatrically,

agriculturally,

managerially,

artistically,

architecturally,

decoratively,

painterly,

graphically,

photographically,

musically,

recreationally,

performatively,

literately,

historically,

geographically,

biographically and

genealogically …

… I’d like to begin.

—   —   —   —   —   — 

Rodney Marks

I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.

Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.

For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.