I did a lot of stand-up comedy (about 350 gigs from 1995-2006), during which I developed skills for improvising with an audience for maximum engagement.

Here’s 90 seconds of me having some fun at the amazing Watch Me Think conference on May 22nd, 2025:

The spontaneous bits of a talk are sometimes the most memorable, and I can do as many of these bits as feels right. It means the whole thing flows, the audience feels truly involved, and it makes the time fly by.

Each one of those is very big plus in my book!