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Corporate comedian and professional speaker Bob Ross opens with a paraphrase from humorist Dave Barry. "Too many business meetings are like funerals," he says. "You have a gathering of people wearing uncomfortable clothes who would rather be someplace else."

Ross waits for — and gets — the laughter, and goes for more. "But there are a couple of differences. One: A funeral is held for a purpose. Two: A funeral has an end." Ross pauses for the chuckle of recognition, then continues: "I wonder just how much younger I’d be if I could have back all the time I’ve spent in unproductive meetings."

On the conference circuit today, the medium of humor is the message.

Make it funny or even just warm, and you can bank on it, humor consultants say. The lighter touch makes for more productive meetings, clearer communication, higher profitability.

Speakers such as Ross, of Bonita, California, find themselves in increasing demand at meetings, where companies get serious about being funny. Speaker bureaus report American conventions are warming up to adding humor. "Messages mixed with wit, fun and zest are more effective messages," explains Sandra Schrift of The Podium, a San Diego speakers bureau.

Humor is the fastest-growing segment of the professional speaker market, Schrift says. Bookings are up about 20 percent over 1989, industrywide. There’s more fun and wider innovation. Corporate humor consultants are brought in early. Other agenda speakers sit in on their lectures, catch the drift and take the funnybone ripple through the last day.

Ross is an expert at the "corporate spoof," or put-on. Introduced by association executives or company CEOs as "foremost experts," loaded with credentials, bogus keynote speakers are popular acts on the meeting circuit. Such speakers start off credibly enough, but then drop their notes or lose their place and launch into inside jokes, researched and rehearsed with corporate officers weeks before a script is written.

Other humorists come in costume, appearing as Henry VIII, Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein and General Patton (who also does Attila the Hun). Complete in voice and role, their presence says "Lighten Up." If there’s a formal cake cutting, for example, a samurai swordsman will do the job — and take the edge off stuffy formality.

Such speakers don’t just bring levity to what might otherwise be long and boring meetings, they also send attendees home with smiles, and a message that translates well to the workplace. The pundits of joy claim a little fun eases business and person problems, improves customer service and makes for better management. It creates a can-do attitude that makes good companies even better.

"Today’s successful businesspersons are wearing their smiles." Ross says. "They’re showing the symbol of corporate health and personnel care — traits of modern company winners."

Ross cites author Robert Levering’s studies in The Best 100 Companies to Work for in America (Addison-Wesley, New Your: 1984) as ample evidence that firms that treat their people well make more money.

Franklin Research & Development, adds Ross, analyzed 70 of Levering’s companies and found they were more than twice as profitable as the average Standard & Poor’s 500 company and that their stock prices grew at three times the average rate.

"Meanwhile, at somber companies, old-fashioned managers will continue the beatings until morale improves," Ross says. You don’t’ have to be born with a funny bone in your throat, he adds. "A sense of humor is an attitude, and attitudes can be developed. Old ones can be changed and new ones can be fostered."

From Ross’ recently published book, That’s a Good One: Corporate Leadership with Humor (Avant Books/Slawson Communications, San Marcos, California: 1991): "We are talking about job satisfaction through enjoyment of the work environment. I am not suggesting you come in to work tomorrow with a lampshade on your head and carrying a rubber chicken or doing comedy routines, unless that happens to be your style. I am suggesting you and your management staff sit down together and talk about how you, as a group, can make a more pleasant place and how everyone can have more fun performing their tasks."

Ross recalls that Bob Ueker, the former baseball player now occupying the cheap seats, made a TV career by capitalizing on his mediocrity. And that President George Bush, no flash at personality, helped himself get elected by promising to keep his charisma in check. "Self-directed, self-inflicted humor enhances rather than diminishes one’s image, Ross maintains.

Today’s managers and planners may be laughing at themselves and the corporate humor specialists, but almost nobody, Ross says, is laughing at the humor-in-business results. "Play produces more than non-play. One-liners are bottomliners."