Pecha Kucha

Japanese for "Chit-Chat, and pronounced "Pe-CHATCH-ka", Pecha Kucha is a form of PowerPoint or Keynote expressiveness that started in Japan a few years ago. Basically, it involves presentation gatherings where all participants present a slide show on a given or a self-chosen topic. Sounds boring, right? Well, the fun is that Pecha Kucha involves a presenter telling his or her story in exactly 20 slides for exactly 20 seconds each slide. That means 6 minutes and 40 seconds on the nose.

Started by 2 Europeans living in Japan and looking for ways to give young designers a way to meet and share ideas in a structured yet fun manner, Pecha Kucha has taken off, with events being hosted in over 170 cities around the world. You can see examples of this unique form of communication in this smart tutorial, or at the official Pecha Kucha Website to look for an event near you. It's become such an accepted form of focused presentation development that the giant Autodesk corporation required their 2007 sales meeting be made up of only pecha kucha-style presentations. It was a huge hit, since listening to someone droning on about their pet project for only 6:40 doesn't seem so bad.

The last presentation I was witness to had 150 slides with less than 40 images total. Yes, that's right, you can imagine the excitement. Had it instead been made up of 3 or 4 crisp pecha kucha presentation segments with relevant, compelling images as the primary content accompanying the presenter's spoken words, it would have been potentially a bit more compelling.

We're considering trying it for one or two presentations at our next mid-year meeting. You should try it too.