Break the Ice in a Business Presentation – Gangnam Style

“Dress classy – dance cheesy” – Psy

I’m presenting to our tech recruiters at our annual Stafflink retreat next week. Team building and knowledge sharing are the main objectives of this retreat. Plus we want to burn off some stress. So I think it would be great to lighten up my presentation with some of that Gangnam style magic.

An old-style bulleted Powerpoint is the kiss of death for a business presentation. And Gangnam style is the opposite of boring. So I think it might be fun to try a little experiment. What do I have lose? (Only my job and the respect of my colleagues. )

Here are a few seriously crazy ideas I have.

1) Gangnam style rap: Imagine kicking off my slideshow with Gangnam Style playing in the background, only with my voice auto-tuned, rapping on top of the track. There’s no way that can backfire.

I’m a bit obsessed with an app called “Autorap” that I found for my iPhone. For $6 it will record your voice and play it back auto-tuned over any song in your iTunes account.

The point of my presentation is to share some IT recruiting tips I learned at a course I took recently. With Autorap, I can record the key takeaway from my presentation and play the track as background music for the intro to my slide show. How cheesy is that?

2) Face-in-the-hole Gangnam Style: One of our favourite pastimes at Stafflink is to post embarrassing “face-in-the-hole” pics of our staff. I think it would be fun to plant Gangnam style face-in-the-hole pics of my boss and coworkers in my slideshow.

3) Gangnam style dance lesson: What does dancing have to do with the message of my presentation you may ask. Well, it’s good team building and my boss will like that. But I think it’s best if I leave this one for the end of the presentation. I could tie it in by arranging for someone to randomly ask, “Can you show us how to do Gangnam Style?” That wouldn’t be obvious at all.

Okay, they will probably be laughing at me not with me. But who cares. When people are laughing they are having fun which means they are paying attention.

Would you use this technique for a business presentation or is it way too “out there”? Let me know in the comments section below.

Watch Psy – Gangnam Style: