PowerPoint Pecha Kucha

While working on an event highlighting best practices for meeting planners, we stumbled upon something different.

"Then they'll do their Pecha Kucha presentations," said one of the creative directors.

The what now?

Pecha Kucha (pronounced pa-cha-chka). It's a presentation format developed by Japanese architects who wanted to show off their work, but who were sick of the same old death-by-PowerPoint presentations.

Basically, a presenter is allowed 20 slides--20 seconds per slide--for a presentation total of 6m:40sec.

We kind of love the idea.

Obviously, it's not going to work for all content and all presentations, but the concept is great.

• Because there are only 20 seconds alotted per slide, slides have to be very graphically heavy.
• Simplicity is key--there are no eye-chart graphs, because you can't absorb that in 20 seconds.
  
• The rapid-fire format is a break from the norm, and has the potential to be incredibly engaging.
• There's something *different* and catchy every 20 seconds, continually reinaging the brain.
  
• It forces presenters to pare down their information into the most critical bits.

Now, we could see where an entire day of Pecha Kucha presentations would be very wearisome (and also overwhelming), but in small doses--or as a stand-out presentation--we think it's a fabulous idea. It's something we'll definitely explore trying/recommending in the future.