Do Presentations Bore You? Apr 18, 2008 @ 3:04 PM · Matthew Grant
I am generally bored by presentations, business, academic, or otherwise. I fidget, I doodle, and my comments or questions tend to fall into the "distracting/sometimes comedic" category. And while I've sat through my share of boring presentations, I will freely admit that I have likewise conducted some of my own. Moreover, I have known the searing pain and embarrassment of consciously doing so.
I've tried to play with the genre in order to liven things up. At academic conferences, I've eschewed the traditional reading approach and spoken ex tempore. In business contexts, I've used Godin-esque PowerPoints featuring provocative images and 5 words or less per slide, and I've even daringly presented without a PowerPointed net.
Still, I have yet to try Pecha Kucha. A Pecha Kucha Night is an event whereat designers present their ideas on design under rather strict limits: Each presenter gets 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. If you do the math, you'll realize that gives each presentation 400 seconds, or a little over six minutes.
The founders of PK Night, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture, realized that, if you "give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) ... you'll be trapped for hours." At the same time, they wanted to create "a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public." Incipit Pecha Kucha.
I'm loving the concept. Can you imagine a speaker telling you, "Yes, I'd be happy to present at your conference, but I refuse to speak for more than six and a half minutes"?
If that sounds like a dream come true, CALL ME! I would be happy to speak anywhere, on ANY SUBJECT, Pecha-Kucha-style. Even if I'm boring, the light at the end of the tunnel of boredom is coming atcha in twenty 20-second increments. So don't worry. It will be over soon.
Image Courtesy of Sam Takes Photos.
