You may have heard that starting a presentation with a joke ("A horse walked into a bar...) is a good way to "break the ice" with the audience. But if the joke doesn't go over well, the ice just gets thicker. There are many less risky ways to engage the audience early in your talk, including direct, sustained eye contact and enthusiasm in your voice.

But humor and laughter should be an integral part of every presentation. Laughter helps ease tension and provides a positive environment for learning, so speakers should look for natural ways to incorporate humor into their presentation. Audience members often say and do things that are fodder for humor (unexpected answers to your questions, for example), and speakers themselves should be ready to laugh at their own mistakes -- technical difficulties or a misspoken word or phrase -- because the audience definitely will.