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Don McMillan

The setting is a huge conference hall at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The stage is adorned with energizing messages like “Take the Lead” and “To a Billion and Beyond!” The President & CEO of a major International Business Services Company has just spoken and rallied his “troops” for the upcoming year. He then introduces an outside guest speaker who is going to address the crowd on the exciting topic of “Improving Communication Skills”. The title of his talk is “Life After Death by PowerPoint”. The speaker strides to the podium. The crowd inches forward to the edge of their seats in anticipation (heavy sarcasm implied here). The guest speaker begins:

“An engineer, a sales guy, and a marketing guy walk into a bar. The engineer asks the bartender, “How much for a martini?” The bartender responds, “12 bucks.” “Do I get a volume discount if I buy 6 of them?” asks the sales guy. “No” answers the bartender. “Okay”, says the sales guy, “I’ll take 12.” The marketing guy walks up next and asks “How much for a Gin & Tonic?” “6 dollars”, answers the bartender. The marketing guy immediately pulls out his laptop and shows the bartender 20 PowerPoint slides showing that $6 is too high of a price point. The bar should be charging $4 and, to improve sales, they should rename the drink to “The Gin & Tonic Experience”. “It’s still 6 bucks” responds the bartender. “I’ll have one”, says the marketer reluctantly. The bartender hands him the drink and the marketer sneaks out without paying. Finally, the engineer approaches the bar and asks, “How much for a beer?” “3 bucks”, says the bartender. “3 bucks!” screeches the engineer, “That’s highway robbery! I’m not paying that!” He looks around the room, spots the sales guy, and gets an idea. “Hey, aren’t you from Intel?” asks the engineer. “Yes”, says the sales guy. “I’m a systems designer with HP” says the engineer. “Really?” responds the sales guy, “Let me buy you a beer.”

The crowd laughs - This not going to be your run of the mill General Session. The speaker goes on to talk about effective communication by showing examples of some of the worst PowerPoint slides ever created in history. One slide is so filled with type that the font size must be .01. Another has so many animations that some people in the crowd are getting sea sick. And a third slide contains so many bullet points that it looks like it’s the victim of a hit by the Corleone Family. (See Figure 1).

The crowd is laughing even harder now. This may be the funniest talk on “Improving Communication Skills” ever given. Our speaker then goes on to show us a “Line Graph of the Number of Line Graphs” that will be in his talk; a “Bar Chart of the Number of Bar Charts”; a “Pie Chart of the Number of Pie Charts”; and finally, a “Pie Chart of the Pies for Dessert at Lunch” later today. Everyone is laughing – even the engineers. There is a murmur going through the crowd – “Who is this guy?”

“Raise your hand if you still think that I’m still some sort of Communication Skills Expert?” the speaker asks the crowd. A single hand goes up. “Sir, I was just fooling with you. I’m a comedian” replies the speaker. “Please stop taking notes.” The man fires back - “Can I still get a copy of your PowerPoint slides?” The crowd roars with approval. And so begins one of the 70 corporate shows that engineer/comedian Don McMillan will do this year. He’s one of the hottest corporate comedy acts around. He’s done multiple shows for IBM, Dell, Apple, Microsoft, Chevron, Pepsi – amongst many others. In total, Don has performed more than 300 corporate shows in the last 10 years. What makes Don so different? It could be the fact that he’s 6’5” with red hair (He looks like a cross between Howdy Doody and Lurch). Or it could be the fact that he is the only comedian working in PowerPoint. But, Don thinks it’s his unique background of more than 10 years in the high tech corporate world and 15 years doing stand-up comedy in clubs across America.

Don McMillan is not your “normal” comedian. He has a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He worked at IBM, AT&T Bell Laboratories and VLSI Technology. While at VLSI, he designed more than 20 integrated circuit chips some if which are still in systems today. So far this guy sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn’t he? Well, he quit is day job in 1991 to pursue stand-up comedy full-time. In 1993, Don won $100,000 as the Comedy Grand Champion on Ed McMahon’s Star Search. He headlined comedy clubs across the US in the 90’s. He’s appeared on The Tonight Show, Larry King Live, and MTV. He also starred in 15 national commercials for Budweiser as the delivery driver who made sure the world had fresh beer. Turns out, this engineer-turned-comedian is one funny guy.

“It wasn’t until the middle 90’s that I started doing corporate events” says McMillan. “My old friends in the high tech industry started bringing me in to their corporate events to add some fun. They needed someone who was technical, understood their world, and was clean and politically correct. It was like the ‘Perfect Storm’ of comedy for me” explains McMillan. “My corporate experience, my 10 years in comedy clubs, and PowerPoint all met at the same point to transform my act into Corporate PowerPoint Comedy.”

“I don’t always pretend to be a ‘Communication Skills Expert’ or some other bogus title”, explains McMillan. “That’s only maybe 50% of the time. I am often introduced as a stand-up comedian and I perform after dinner, lunch, or at a reception – just like any other corporate entertainer.” “But,” he goes on, “I find I’m most appreciated at events where the group has to listen to a seemingly endless string of speakers each with 20-30 PowerPoint slides. The crowd suffers from PowerPoint burn-out. My client will place me in the middle of a long day where I can be a funny, energizing break from the monotony of talking heads and slides. I think it even helps the speakers after me because I wake up the crowd.”

It was when Don put his act on PowerPoint that his corporate comedy really struck a nerve. “I find PowerPoint to be a great comedy tool. I can do all kinds do jokes about PowerPoint itself. Plus, I can use images to pictures to tell jokes”. One of the funniest places Don uses his PowerPoint is in a bit he calls “MultiMedia Math”. To make math more fun, he uses pictures and images to teach math rather than numbers and symbols. Here’s how it works:

“Mel Gibson” plus “Tequila” equals “Nick Nolte”. (See Figure 2) Or “Hermie the Dentist” from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer plus “$50 Billion” equals “Bill Gates. “Isn’t math more fun this way?” he points out. “Kids will want to do math!”

“Another great thing about using PowerPoint is that I can send the client my PowerPoints ahead of time” adds Don. “That way the client can review what I’m going to say ahead of time. I always tell them ‘If there is anything you are not comfortable with, just let me know and I’ll be glad to delete it. I’ve got plenty of material. There is NOTHING I can’t live without. I want you to be able sit back relax and enjoy the show with everyone else.’”

“Plus”, adds McMillan, “PowerPoint is a great tool to develop a lot of material specifically for that group. I love to write new jokes and I make each show unique for that audience.” In one instance, Don was performing at a Healthcare conference. One of his opening jokes went like this: “Why did they choose me to be here tonight? One simple reason: I am the only comic that is HIPAA compliant. Actually, sir (to a man in the front row), I’m going to have to ask you to move back a little. You have to be at least 10 feet back for privacy reasons.”

“That’s my favorite part of my job”, says McMillan. “Finding the comedy in what these folks do. They don’t believe that there is humor in their work. I make it my goal to help find laughs in what is happening right in front of them everyday.” One of the many ways that McMillan does this is to examine a particular group’s specific jargon. He writes a joke attached to a specific buzz word. Then later on, when a member of the audience uses this word at work, that person will think of Don’s joke and laugh. “It’s like planting a joke with a timer on it for future laughs” explains McMillan. As an example, at a recent software conference, Don redefined the phrase “Customer Relationship Management” as “The valuable ability to date a client and keep it from your boss.” At Legal seminar, he referred to “Pro Bono” as “Preferring Sonny over Cher”. And at a pharmaceutical sales meeting, “Bacteria” became “The back entrance to the cafeteria.” “I really like to tap into a company or industry’s culture” says McMillan smiling. “The more specific your humor is, the funnier it is.”

Other company specific bits that Don has developed include: Casting a major motion picture about that company using pictures of the executives split-screened with photos of Hollywood stars; Reapplying a company’s process or development flow to making dinner; and making a Top 10 list of the signs that you’ve been with your company a long time.

His adaptability and flexibility allow Don to play a wide range of industries these days. He has done all kinds of corporate groups from chip designers to software developers to lawyers to pharmaceutical sales to building contractors to the United States Air Force. “My show last Christmas at an Air Force base was one of my most memorable shows. Not only was I proud to be entertaining the troops away from home over the holidays, but it turns out that Generals use a lot of PowerPoints – and they use them painfully badly. I don’t think any crowd has laughed as hard at my examples of bad PowerPoint as the Air Force folks. And it was a unique laugh, too. It was – Ha. Ha. Ha. Thank you, sir. May I have another!?”
Don has also taken his engineering comedy in another direction that everyone can relate to: Relationships. In a bit he calls “A Users Guide to Life” he has captured some basic truths about life and love using PowerPoint graphs and charts. In one PowerPoint titled “Chances of Don Winning an Argument with his Wife versus Time”, he shows that he was winning 50% of the arguments when he and wife, Laura, were dating. It drops to a 25% winning percentage during their engagement. And since he has been married – he is a perfect 0 for 963 (See Figure 3).

Don has hundreds of these charts including: a GPS plot of a typical shopping trip to the mall with his wife; a graphic titled simply “Laura’s Inefficient Vacuuming”; and another called “Thermostat Wars” that chronicles Don & Laura’s ongoing battle over the house temperature setting.
Back at the Moscone Center, Don is talking with a crowd that has gathered after his show. “Were you really an engineer?” asks one fan. “Like I would make that up!” answers Don. “Being an engineer is not a great comedy credit! Nobody ever thinks ‘Oooo, he’s an engineer. He’s got to be funny!’” And he’s right - Who would have thought that one of the funniest comics around is an engineer? Then again, who would have thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be Governor of California? The world is a funny place - even at work.

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Judi Marmel
Levity Entertainment
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