Okay, you may not know this, but your friends at Comic Wonder are diehard Cheeseheads. Yep. We are from Wisconsin. The simple fact is that you need to have a sense of humor to weather winters like these. If you cannot find frozen snot funny, Wisconsin is not for you.

Following the Packer’s loss, our fair state has been embraced by a profound sense of mourning. Beyond Green Bay, I dare say that the world is mourning our loss. The simple fact is that without the Packers at the Superbowl, the jokes just won’t be as funny. Making fun of Wisconsin is a global pastime. And let’s face it, we are kind of funny. We sit in bleachers in subzero temps sporting nothing but body paint. We flaunt our love of beer and cheese by lugging about mammoth bellies and orange hole-y hats. We are begging to get laughed at!

But the funniest thing about us, isn’t our wardrobe or girth. It’s our accent. After trying to shake it most of my adult life, I must say I am finding it more endearing as I age. For those of you out there who don’t know much about cheesehead speak, I found the following dictionary. (Special thanks to our friends in Houston: http://www.cheddarheadpackhouston.com/humor.html#A) Enjoy!

Ain-a OR Ain-a-hey: placed at the end of a profound statement; as in “isn’t It?”

Bart: a Green Bay institution who doesn’t need a last name; (see “Vince”).

Believe-you-me: attached to the beginning or end a statement makes it more credible; as in, “really!”

Big fatties: nightcrawlers for fishin’.

Blaze orange: what deer hunters and cold-weather Packers fans wear at Lambeau.

Born in a barn?: a sarcastic question which usually means you left the door open.

Borrow: used in place of “lend,” as in, “could youse borrow me a couple two-tree bucks?”

Brat: a sausage; a Wisconsin tailgate favorite;doesn’t have anything to do with a spoiled kid.

Bubbler: to the rest of the world outside Wisconsin’s borders, it is known as a drinking fountain.

Budge: to merge without permission; cut in; as in “Don’t you budge in line for a brat, I was here first!”

By: to; near; as in “Let’s go by One Eyed Jack’s,”or “She’ll come by Froggers tonight.” It has nothing to do with a purchase.

Cheddarhead: someone from Wisconsin; see, “Cheesehead.”

Cheesehead: someone from Wisconsin; see, “Cheddarhead.”

Cheese curd: small pieces of fresh cheese that squeak when you bite into them; a parish picnic favorite when deep fried.

Come-here-once: a beckoning call to another Cheddarhead.

Couple-two-tree: more than one; as in “Delmer and I drank a couple-two-tree beers.”

Cripes: a Wisconsin expletive.

Cripes-sake: a mild Wisconsin expletive.

Cry-yiy!: a bit stronger expletive.

Cry-yiy-yiy!: a much stronger expletive.

Crymany-cripes-sake: a wild Wisconsin expletive.

D: a substitute for words beginning with “TH;” as in”Dat guy over dere in dah Bears shirt is a FIB.”

Da OR Dah: used in place of “the”, almost the same rules as D.

Davenport: what your mom called the sofa; a couch.

Dere: used in place of “there”. Same rule applies to all “th” words - see D

Fair-to-midlin: not bad or great, just “O.K.”

FIB: acronym (three words) for our neighbors sout of the state line - middle word is “Illinois”.

Fish fry: a Friday night dining ritual in Wisconsin.

Farm & Fleet: a Cheddarhead’s answer to Bloomingdales.

Frozen tundra: Lambeau Field.

Geeez!: Another Wisconsin expletive.

Gohead: proceed; as in, “gohead and back up your car.”

Gots: used in place of “have;” as in, “I gots my tickets to watch da Packers play on da Frozen Tundra.”

Guldarn: another Wisconsin expletive.

Hey: placed at the beginning or end of phrases for emphasis, as in “Hey, how ’bout them Packers?” or “How ’bout them Packers, hey?”

Holy-cry-yiy!: as in, “wow!”

How’s-by-you?: a greeting; the same as, “How’s everything?”

Humdinger: a beauty; as in “dat crappy youse caught upnort is a real humdinger.”

John Deere: a Cheddarhead’s other vehicle.

M’walkey: Wisconsin’s largest city; located just down the lake from Trivers and Mantwoc.

N’so?: a word inserted at the end of a statement; used as a substitute for “right?” or “correct?”

Oh, yah: depending on emphasis, it’s either used as acknowledgment (as “That’s correct”) or skepticism (That’s bull!).

Parish picnics: social events of the summer upnort.

Pert-neer: near; in close proximity; just about.

Polka: what you do at parish picnics.

Rubbers: protection for your shoes; also known as “galoshes.”

Sconsin: the state where Cheeseheads are from.

Schmear: when someone piles on points when playing Sheepshead.

Sheepshead: a card game.

Side-by-each: used instead of, “next to each other.”

Skeeter: Wisconsin state bird.

Smelt: used in place of “smelled”, also a fish that you catch in nets.

Soda: a non-alcoholic drink such as coke, pepsi, etc. Everywhere else it means club soda.

Sout: the direction you travel from Wisconsin to find lots of FIBs.

Start wit me last: to forfeit your turn, “go ahead of me”, or “you go first”.

Stop-and-go lights: what everyone else refers to as traffic signals.

Tirdy: same as “thirty”, and used on all numbers from 30 thru 39. Exception to the “D”rule, similar to “tink” and “tousand”..

Uff-dah: affirmative; as in “that’s right!”

Un-thaw: to defrost.

Where-bouts: locality; proximity; as in, “where-bouts are youse guys from?”

Upnort: where Wisconsinites go on vacation.

Up-side right: right side up.

Vince: the other Green Bay icon who doesn’t need a last name for recognition; (see “Bart”).

Whozitz: a thing.

Yah-hey: affirmative; as in “uff-dah.”

You-betcha: affirmative; as in “Yah-hey.”

Youse: pronounced “YOOS;” it means “you” as in “are youse guys goin’ up nort?”

Youper: someone from ever further upnort than you.

When telling a joke, stunned silence isn’t the response most of us hope to inspire.  To help improve your odds of laughter, you may want to try a couple tricks of the trade.

1.       Know your material.  Practice telling your joke several times before telling it publicly.  Try it out in the shower, car, mirror while dancing.

2.       Is the joke right for your audience?  Maybe your college buddies think your joke’s a hoot, but will your mom?

3.       Be inventive!  The best jokes are rich in interesting detail.  If you mention a car in your joke, try giving it some personality.  Is it a burnt orange Dodge Durango, a lime green Pinto? The more specific you are, the more you invite your audience in.

4.       Original jokes are the funniest.  Nothing worse than mimicking someone else’s warmed-over routine.

5.       The funniest jokes have a strong, unexpected conclusion.  If your audience can see where you are going, you are more likely to elicit a groan than a laugh.

6.       Keep it short and sweet.  Nothing funny about a five minute joke, unless you are a real pro.  There are few people who can keep an audience’s wrapped attention for more than a minute these days.  Statistically speaking, the odds are against you.

7.       Watch out for detours in your joke.  If you get sidetracked, so will your audience.  Oh look, a chicken!

8.       Don’t use accents unless you have mastered them.  Nothing’s worse than an Irish brogue that sounds more like an Indian accent.  Also, be careful.  In certain contexts, an accent in the wrong joke can be highly offensive.  Just ask Rosie O’Donnell how well her “Chinese” went over on The View.

9.       If you don’t fully understand the joke, don’t repeat it.  It’s likely to be far more offensive than you think.  I am still living down a joke I told my father when I was 12…

10.   The best jokes have a cadence to them, a rhythm.  Try to keep your tone confident, expressive, but most importantly comfortable.  Nervous giggles sprinkled about or too many “ums” and “likes” are instant mojo killers.

11.   Is your material offensive?  If so, to whom?  It doesn’t take much talent to make people giggle when you drop the f-bomb.  Unless you are Eddie Murphy or George Carlin, it’s probably just nervous laughter.

12.   Listen to your favorite joke-tellers carefully.  What makes their jokes so funny?  Ask them where they get their material.

13.   Watch stand-up comedy for inspiration not imitation.  There is a big difference between stand-up and joke telling.  Professional comedians practice an art that requires years of intensive training to master.  I would liken the difference between joke-telling and stand-up to the average blog post vs. Ulysses. If people aren’t already telling you that you are the James Joyce of comedy, you may just want to keep it short and sweet.

If you have ever caught yourself wondering where jokes come from, you are not alone. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t altogether clear. Some cultures have long standing, rich joke-telling traditions where lay folk routinely engage in some sort of comic creativity. Other cultures, particularly in the West, tend to favor a more imitative approach — allowing professional comedians to seed the content and then take it from there.

In the US, there is a popular tradition that the majority of jokes come from prisons and stockbrokers. Alan Dundes, a University of California at Berkeley professor, once expanded upon this theory saying that “…stockbrokers have time on their hands between sales and a communications network to send jokes around. Prisoners have a lot of spare time and a captive audience.”

“Lately,” Dundes added, “these two theories have merged.”

The jokes that circulate on the Internet today, commonly known as “street” jokes, tend to be knock-offs of popular comic routines. However, the relationship between the comedic source material and the resulting street joke is not always clear. Street joke evolution seems to be analogous to the children’s game of “Telephone.” In it’s final form, fundamental aspects of the joke’s structure, rhythm, even basic themes may be altered substantially.

In 2003, Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire conducted his Laugh Lab experiment, an exhaustive research project designed to find the world’s funniest joke. Wiseman collected over 40,000 jokes from 60 different countries. The jokes were then voted on by 300,000 participants online. The declared winner was a joke about two hunters from New Jersey who go into the woods.

Recently, Wisemen announced that he was able to trace the origin of the joke back to a famous British comedian from the 1950s, Terence Alan Milligan (”Spike”). Although Spike’s version of the joke took place in a house in England, the punch line was essentially untouched.

Unfortunately, Wiseman’s success in tracking down the origin of Laugh Lab’s winning joke will likely remain an anomaly. As Wiseman explains, “Tracking down the origin of jokes is almost impossible. Of all the thousands of jokes that were submitted, the chances of knowing who wrote them, with one of two exceptions, is vanishingly small.”

Congratulations to Captainhilariousness for being interviewed on NPR’s Weekend America program this past weekend. Host John Moe and Captainhilariousness provided both insightful and comical banter about the state of the joke in our culture, why audio jokes are more fun, and how to be a good joke-teller. We learned some things ourselves on the art of joke-telling!

Check it out for yourself here!

Every morning I wake up and do a fast scan of my inbox for the proverbial “Oh #$%@!S” You can insert your explicative of choice here. For me, the S word ranks high on the list, closely followed by a slew of other choice words that would make a sailor blush.

After lots of failure and regrouping over the years, the one lesson I have learned better than most is that managing success is easy. The true test of leadership is how well you manage the “Oh #$%@!S”

I would love to say I am the Jedi Master of “Oh #$%@!S” — but alas, up until very recently, I have sucked at it. An unhappy email from an employee, vendor, random family member would send me down a very unproductive trail of self-checks, followed by self-loathing because… yes, usually it is my fault.

I hale from that fine class of entrepreneurs who have clinically diagnosed ADHD. Since childhood, neighbors have quietly thanked their lucky stars that we weren’t their problem… unless we meandered into their yards and ate all their tulips. (Sorry about that Mrs. P.) The upside is that we have a ton of energy and drive; the downside is that we typically move too fast and make more than our fair share of mistakes.

Today, I started the day with not one but two “Oh #$%!S.”  As I started my standard self-check process, I realized that yes (surprise, surprise) they were my fault. However, I then noticed something miraculous. No angst followed! I apologized to the people my mistakes impacted, noted what I would do differently to prevent it in the future, and I MOVED ON!

This may sound so obvious. But for me, this was a revelation. I have been working on “moving on” for no less than five years. Over the last half decade, I have spent a great deal of time in active coaching and leadership training trying to deal with this particular issue. To be able to accept my mistakes and not waste time beating myself up about them was a major milestone.

I used to think the self-flagellation would make me a stronger leader. The sad fact is that it weakened me. My fear of failure would kick in and I would spiral into an eddy of worry and needless anxiety.

How was I supposed to lead others when I was too busy beating myself up for something truly inconsequential?

So, enough said already. I have learned my lesson. It’s time to move on!

Since his win last week, Captainhilariounsess has started locally in his whirlwind global press junket. His hometown of Seattle couldn’t be more proud of their very own Chris Cashman and we do not blame them. He has certainly earned his title. The seattle PI featured our hero in a great piece entitled, “Local comic is planet’s ‘best joke-teller’.”
And, just this morning, he was featured on 94.1 KMPS radio in Seattle and, once again, he demonstrated exactly why he is the Comic Wonder. To listen to the soon to be infamous interview, press the play button.

(Rumor has it that his performance went over so well that they invited him back every week to talk about the state-of-the-art of joke telling on the morning drive show!)

We will keep you posted as his fame snowballs. He is now scheduled to do a 1 hour interview on Seattle’s NPR station, KUOW. (home of some of my favorite NPR podcasts)

Good on ya, Captainhilariouness!

We are proud to announce that Captainhilariousness is the 2007 Comic Wonder! His performance of “Puzzled Sister,” sealed the deal for him and now he will take home a $2500 check and the coolest T-shirt ever. More importantly, he has earned the right to say, “why yes, I DO think I’m a comedian.”

Chris “Captainhilariousness” Cashman is currently the 3rd most famous Chris Cashman on the internet, but we are pretty confident that his joke telling ability will quickly launch him into the stratosphere as the 2nd most famous Chris Cashman on the Internet. (#1 is a Realtor from Maryland and, well, Maryland is a big state and we don’t want to set ourselves up for disappointment.)

Captainhilariousness will now embark on a year-long adventure to all corners of the earth as he joins us in our search for the best joke-teller on the planet. The media tour begins on Saturday with an article about our hero in the Seattle PI newspaper. (details to follow)

Don’t get me wrong, Captainhilariousness is the best joke-teller of 2007 and he has set the bar high, but he, like Miss America^TM, must defend his title in a year-long catty and bloody battle of joke-telling. Even now, as he stands at the top of the mountain and screams “I am most definitely funnier than ALL of you!”, someone is sitting in a mountain shed sharpening their wit and preparing to topple the master.

Can Captainhilariousness’ joke-Fu stand up to the challenge? Most certainly, but when it comes to the life of a Comic Wonder, there is no rest for the victor. Don’t worry too much about Captainhilariousness though. He can hold his own.

Just how strong is Captainhilariousness’ humor? Try this experiment. Take any Chuck Norris joke and substitute “Captainhilariousness” for “Chuck Norris,” then substitute “Joke ” for “Roundhouse Kick” and you will start to get an idea of who you are dealing with.

We are excited to have Captainhilariousness on our side and I get the feeling we are going to have a lot of fun this year.

Congratulations Captainhilariousness!

In my daily scanning of the various blogs of start-ups, technology, and business strategy, I almost never see the “S” word mentioned: Sales. It’s a dirty word to a good deal of smart people, particularly technical founders. Over the years, I have observed that too many entrepreneurs associate sales with smarmy used car salesmen. Visions of “Glengarry Glen Ross” dance through their heads. When steeped in this stereotype, founders attempt to hire an EVP of Sales quickly and then turn their sites onto “more important” vistas.
Now here’s the rub: Entrepreneurs cannot simply hire sales talent. They need to embody it. Why?

A founder who can sell cannot:

• convince a sales person worth his/her salt to join the team, unless there is gobs of money in the bank or an absolutely killer product (which is generating gobs of money)

• woo VCs, angels, even his rich uncle Freddie into giving him/her gobs of money so they can hire sales talent

• find great sales talent because he/she doesn’t know what he/she is looking for

• keep great sales talent (if they are lucky enough to find it) because they don’t know how to motivate them, compensate them, or, in many cases, even respect their skills

Sadly, entrepreneurs too often discover this recursive problem only after years of trial and error. They have hired sales “talent” that was unable to sell. They pitched angels, family and VC alike without raising a nickel. And perhaps the worst of it, they have racked up terrible amounts of personal debt without ever recognizing that the problem was staring them in the mirror.

To be clear, sales skills transcend than the ability to sell widgets. To sell is to engage in the art of influence. If you are lacking sales acumen as an entrepreneur, it is time to get busy. Like any skill, it can be learned. The good/bad news is that it comes more easily to some than others.

Comic Wonder is right now building a sales team. A sales team for a Web 2.0 play? Yes, a sales team. We have identified a clear market for selling our wares and are assembling an amazing team. Now all we have to do is get busy selling and hope that the market we’ve identified is as receptive as it seems.

In the end, it’s not how amazing the technology may be. It’s how open and receptive the market is. The good news is that a great sales talent can warm up a reluctant market. With that said, it’s only a piece of the puzzle. If the market isn’t ready, even the greatest sales talent will fail you.

So in addition to some serious sales skills, a founder needs to have a good sense of timing and feel for overall market dynamics. If that sounds overwhelming, well it is. Is it any wonder why the vast majority of new companies and products fail?

What a brilliant day to start a blog! Comic Wonder has been officially online for a little over one month. We set out in beta five months ago. Lots of testing, set-backs, milestones passed, milestones delayed, and my personal favorite, milestones accomplished!

Comic Wonder was the brainchild of my husband Jeff and his business partner, Mike Dillon, back in 1999. The idea of user-generated content was in its infancy and the blogosphere had yet to be properly coined, but there was Jeff and Mike trying to explain the concept of user-generated jokes to traditional media companies. Their comments were along the line of, “Let’s leave comedy to the professionals, no one wants to hear from amateurs.”

How wrong they were!

After many starts and restarts, Comic Wonder raised $450K from its founders and launched its beta site in July 2007. We now have a team of seven dedicated to bringing smiles to the masses.

We wanted to keep this blog to track our progress with the site, share our stories and mishaps, and discuss industry trends. All the members of our wee community will be contributing. So, off we go!