As I looked through this year's commencement speeches, I came across this delightful opener. Hamid Mir addresses the graduates of the Kennedy School at Harvard and begins by asking everyone to get up and stretch. It's a simple, but brilliant idea that instantly raises the level of energy in the room.
At the end of his speech, Mir gets the audience on their feet again - this time for a standing ovation. While clearly the audience appreciates the speech itself, I believe that his opening stretch made it more likely for the audience to stand up at the end.
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2 comments:
The stretch works because he introduces it artfully and participates in the exercise himself with humorous exaggeration. He also tells a funny self-mocking joke starting at around the 4:30 minute mark, and, in general, shows he can craft a good speech. Too bad the substance of his talk was a clever-sounding but intellectually vacuous paean to moral relativism.
Great point. Had he merely asked the audience to stretch without joining in, the technique would have bombed. Thanks for stopping by!
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