Pecha Kucha Night

September 11, 2009 by Nichole 

pechaPecha Kucha, is the Japanese term for the sound of conversation, or chit-chat, usually pronounced “pe-chak-cha”. In 2003, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham Architecture established Pecha Kucha Night as a place for young designers to meet, network, and present their work in public.

Pecha Kucha follows a simple concept. Each presenter is allowed 20 slides or images, shown for 20 seconds each, totaling 6 minutes 40 seconds. This format showcases many presenters, keeps the presentations short, and interest strong. Pecha Kucha Night has spread virally to over 100 cities worldwide.

Time Magazine, Wired Magazine and a host of popular presentation sites, including Garr Reynold’s Presentation Zen have all written about Pecha Kucha

After his first Pecha Kucha event in 2007, Garr Reynolds wrote in his blog, “Pecha Kucha is good training and good practice.” Another blogger, Oliver Adria, on rethinkpresentations.com noted that, “one person was – in a nice way, though – boo’ed for having a slide with a business process flow chart.”

This summer, I had an opportunity to experience this phenomenon first hand. My goal was to understand how this presentation model relates to the business-to-business presentation world. The answer is “it does,” but only distantly.

Business presentations, as a matter of course, require more thorough discussion, as well as interaction with the audience. The Pecha Kucha format, by definition, excludes those dynamics. However, it is a very successful social networking platform—especially when fully equipped with beer, chips and salsa.

Narrowing your presentation down to 20 concise slides drives home the importance of Less Is More in designing your slides for your business presentation. Less Is More will help you avoid Death by PowerPoint. However, always keep in mind the importance of the presenter adding value and interacting with the audience.

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