Had to do a presentation on a book at the end of the class year. I basically found a TED talk that was close enough to the book's premise and used that. I think this is pretty similar to when Costanza tried to outsource rather than read Risk Management.
Along these same lines, but mine might be a bit off topic. Although, don't we all interpret the message of Costanza in our own way? Personally I think this embodies his spirit.
All throughout school I chose ants for my biology projects. It seemed like at least once a year we would have to do a report on some type of animal, so I figured why not stick with one. 6-7 year old SaskyStache's reasoning at the time was "ants are cool". I still stand by that sentiment. So I kept my notes while making incremental improvements and additions year over year, to keep up with the increasing demands of each level. It saved me some work over the years, and lead me to the glorious last project I could use ants for in high school. I already knew what I was going to say for the presentation and had the written part mostly done, but for this project there were bonus marks for props.
The thing is I didn't have any props, but I wanted those easy bonus marks. Was I going to spend the extra time I saved on research, writing and preparation creating awesome props? Hell no. My solution was to pair the bristle board with an ant farm. I didn't have an ant farm, but I had easy access to the next best thing -- dirt. I filled a large mason jar with dirt partially chiseled from the ground (winter) and potting soil (I tried to keep this to a minimum but frozen soil isn't the best thing to dig in).
The presentation was going well and I had pre-explained that since it was winter the ants were huddled in the middle in a resting phase, but it almost came crashing down when someone exclaimed that they saw one. I was so close to losing my shit because I have near certainty that there were no ants in that jar of dirt. But somehow I managed through it and got the bonus marks. The jar then sat with bristle boards on display for a couple weeks before my teacher told m that I could take it home. When I did pick it up he looked at me with a straight face and said that, " I think that your ants are dead." He probably knew from the onset and most definitely knew at this point that there was never anything in that jar other than dirt. But did he think it was as hilarious as I did? Probably.
I can't use ants anymore, but there's something almost as good. PANEL SESSION! (read this as you would pool party!) I had to do a presentation at a conference. I was not really looking forward to filling an hour on this particular topic, so I shifted to a panel session. I asked a few people, they said yes and all I had to do was put together a couple intro slides and start up questions (a few hours before the session). I felt like I was scamming the system. I didn't really do anything. I just let everyone else talk. My bosses seemed happy, the panelists seemed happy to be included, the attendees were happy or didn't give a shit. It was pretty much outsourcing all of the work to positive reviews. It felt weird getting positive remarks for avoiding work.
I have a feeling the first person to float this idea must have been trying to dodge work as well.
