How To Be A Blockchain Emcee

The term Blockchain Emcee was coined by one of the speakers, Anthony Davie at the Borneo Blockchain Summit. Anthony Davie, a.k.a @quantumwarrior spoke of how a Blockchain nation consists not only of programmers, but other artists and writers as well. As a joke, I asked if he was keen to hire a Blockchain Emcee in front of the audience and thus, the term Blockchain Emcee was born.

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To be honest, there's nothing different between a Blockchain Emcee and an Emcee hosting a Blockchain event. However, I was inspired to write this post because one of the team members from the Borneo Blockchain Summit pointed out how difficult emceeing must be. Thus, I will be sharing a bit of my experience from that event. Hopefully, another Blockchain Emcee may stumble upon this and find this useful.

Speaking In Front Of An Audience Is So Scary

Some may find speaking in front of an audience to be rather scary. I get it, it can be. However, there are a few methods that I use to mitigate this. First off, I don't stare into anyone's eyes. The thing is, you can never tell if someone is bored, angry or in a daze. Thus, I prefer to dart my eyes across the room. I never look at the same audience for more than 2 seconds. This helps me stay focus on what I want to say. Furthermore, it stops me from getting distracted by anyone who may be staring at me.

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I learnt this from an experience back in college. I was emceeing a formal event. My friend saw me and waved from a room behind the audience. Naturally, I ignored me and continued speaking. Feeling ignored, he lifted his shirt and pointed at his nipple. He proceeded to do things that I shall not mention on this post. As such, I lost my cool and choked. From then on, I learnt to never stare at anyone for more than 2 seconds.

Keep The Laughter Coming

For summits and conferences, it can be a long day of sitting down and listening. Thus, it is as much the job of the emcee as it is the speaker to entertain the audience. In many ways, the emcee serves as a nice break. This is important especially if certain speeches become too dry.

I keep the laughter coming by picking excerpts from the speakers' speech. These excerpts can then be made into jokes. Personally, I would use two methods to convert any excerpt into a joke. The first method I call it experience and I do so by relating it something funny that I have experienced before. The second method is to play the popular card. For example, if its near lunch time, talk about how you can hear the growling noises from their bellies.

Keeping everyone laughing is important because it helps keep the audience relaxed.

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Some Final Thoughts

Another point that is important is to always do your research. I am lucky to have been exposed to Cryptocurrency and so making comments related to the topics of each speaker was not too difficult. However, some research was still needed to ensure that I don't make any irrelevant comments.

Lastly, if you are going to be emceeing anytime soon, always remember this, you will only be speaking for a maximum of 2 minutes each time, not too difficult and thus, there's really no need to stress about it.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://alvinauh.vornix.blog/2018/09/13/how-to-be-a-blockchain-emcee/

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