Every May and June for 15 years I’d tune into CSPAN and watch graduation speeches. Thank goodness I got married one June and now have a few better things to do with my leisure time. But hearing about graduation speakers the last few weeks brings back some of those memories and how I would look for the most compelling, prepared and memorable.
Now with the internet and Youtube, these speeches are widely published and you don’t have to be on your couch at the exact moment CSPAN broadcasts them.In our random completely unscientific review of about a dozen addresses, the best were ten minutes or less and got straight to the point from an unexpected personality. The expected ones were the ones who get paid to normally speak (news commentators) and had a packaged, well-researched, attempting to be funny address.
Those are the ones everyone forgets.In the one we’re posting here- we give props for being truly entertaining with a delightful dose of self deprecating humor. And it was nice to see that the audience could have fun, even stuffed under all of those robes and hoods. (Side note: I think it’s the only school that has commentators offer play-by-plays of all the commencement activities like a horse race. See, I’m not the only one that considers this a sport.) So…enjoy Jimmy Tingle @ Harvard 2010.
