How NOT to make meetings interesting...

(The sheer frustration resulting from attending certain formal/semi-formal meetings drove me to post this)

• Talk like no one's listening ( Prof. Bins can help you with this)
• If you have a good sense of humour, you are likely to keep your audience awake. So laugh like a fool in the wrong places and make irrelevant and stupid remarks. You'll not only ace the art of becoming the most uninteresting speaker, but also see the last of your current audience.
• Repeat stuff so as to make sure that all the attendees develop a grimace or squirm in their seats or look away.
• Turn off the lights under the pretense of a PowerPoint presentation. This way, you facilitate a conducive atmosphere for everyone to doze off. Make sure the AC is turned on.
• In the absence of an AC, you have the economical option of leaving the windows open. Your audience can look out and day-dream. This way, you can also save yourself from facing any untoward questions (not that you are in danger of flooring questions from a nodding audience!)
• Load each and every PowerPoint slide with long paragraphs of information using the tiniest possible font. This is a sure way to make people lose interest in whatever you say, for the slides are going to be merely blurred patches in the dark.
• Don't allot a time frame for your talk. Just drone on and on until you find all the eyelids around you drooping in exhaustion.
• Never commit the folly of offering refreshments. People love waking up to eat, if not for anything else.
• Don't forget to beat about the bush. Giving straight , one-word answers like 'Yes' or 'No' is a strict no-no. If you do, you are in grave danger of waking them up or kindling their interest in the meeting.
• Make sure that the meeting place is cluttered with stuff the attendees can fiddle with when the speaker becomes unbearable and unstoppable.
• Stellar examples include: Notepads with pens/pencils (for doodling. What else?), PCs/Laptops (for playing games or working on Paint brush.'Net connection will be a bonus here),Cellphones (games again.Snake is a personal favourite), etc...(the list is quite long)

So much for the speaker. Check this out if you happen to be the victim. I'm afraid the time-pass possibilities for the audience is much more colourful than for the speaker.