If you’re like me and you’ve sat through many long, boring PowerPoint presentations then you’ll be interested to learn about something designed to get long-winded presenters to the point…it is called Pecha Kucha (pronounced pe-chak-cha).
I first learned about Pecha Kucha over at Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen blog more than a year ago and was instantly intrigued. A Pecha Kucha presentation is comprised of 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each or 6:40 total. Pecha Kucha started in Tokyo in 2003 and has now expanded to more than 230 cities around the world.
Pecha Kucha, according to its website, was devised by architects “because architects talk too much.” Topics are typically creative in nature, but there are no rules about who can present or what they can talk about. Events usually take place in a fun setting such as a bar, restaurant or club.
Last week, I attended my first Pecha Kucha event in Chicago and I was pleasantly surprised. The event took place at a club called Martyr’s and it was packed.
Pecha Kucha topics revolved around architecture and design, but my favorite presentations were the ones that were what I would consider the “here’s what I stand for” presentation. It was obvious that the presenters were challenged by the time limitations, which is fine because it kept everything moving and everyone to the point.
I contemplated leaving during the “beer break,” but was glad I stayed because I met some very interesting people and saw some some very funny, entertaining presentations, including one from a musician named Michael Jackson from Yorkshire.
Here’s an example of a pretty good Pecha Kucha presentation from Kris Krug at the Vancouver event from March of this year:
The highlight of the Chicago event for me had to be the last presentation, which when it was completed, had the audience gasp in collective delight. It was a presentation about a very interesting project and I was blown away by both the topic and the delivery. I will share more about this last presentation in an upcoming post.
If you’re intrigued about this very interesting, effective style of communication…check out the Pecha Kucha website. There might be an event near you.
