The Ho Hum Crasher

Years ago General Electric ran an excellent management training program. As part of the curriculum was a segment on public speaking which employed learning to begin as speech by waking the audience up. The “Ho Hum Crasher”, as affectionately referred, had come out of a simple technique developed by Richard C. Borden in the 1930s. It is a statement that makes the audience ask “That is interesting, tell me more.” The 4 rules from his book Public Speaking as Listeners Like It! are still applicable to any presentation or pitch, or even conversation.

1. Ho hum!

2. Why bring that up?

3. For instance

4. So what?

Andrew Blocha is an experienced public speaker with training at Yale Drama School and a history of stage production that informs client engagments designed to ease social barriers, break down the “4th wall” with the audience and transform passive pitches into conversations.