Germans are funny, too

Dr Eckart von Hirschhausen, 40, has worked as a medical doctor and business journalist. For the past 15 years, he has been a comedian, television presenter and humour consultant and is the founder of Rote Nasen Deutschland. His 2007 book Arzt/Deutsch-Deutsch/Arzt (Langenscheidt, €9.95) is a best-seller. Von Hirschhausen is currently on tour with his cabaret show, Glücksbringer, and will be appearing in Hamburg, Bremen, Bielefeld, Ingolstadt, Augsburg, Munich, Ulm and Stuttgart in February this year. For more details, go to his website , and look under Kabarettist.

What motivates companies or organizations to hire you?

The brain runs on fun! In the post-industrial age, people are not paid for their physical abilities, but for the use of their brains. Humour is strongly associated with creativity, good communication, job satisfaction, performance and loyalty to the company.

What kind of people attend your training sessions?

Many are senior managers and people working in sales and marketing who know that they are selling not only a product but also themselves. PowerPoint presentations are  boring — after ten charts, people fall asleep. In my training sessions, I teach the Anglo-American idea, that every presentation needs a touch of entertainment.

What kind of activities do you do in a training session?

The training sessions are a mixture of hard work and lots of fun. I have developed a set of special exercises to train improvising skills. As a stand-up comedian and a television presenter, I know how important the first contact with the audience is. As the saying goes, “You never get a second chance for a first impression!”