I Hear About Something New, and I Must Try It!

Last Fall I read about something called PechaKucha that captured my imagination.  The idea came from a couple Japanese Architects who were tired of watching boring PowerPoint presentations.  If you have ever been subjected to a long-winded presenter with a 200+ slide count, you know how awful it can be!  These guys said to themselves “wouldn’t it be great if we could impose some rules on these presenters?“  Like what?  Well, what if they were only allowed to have a single PowerPoint slide on the screen for 20 seconds?  And, what if they could only have 20 slides in their entire presentation?  That means all presentations would be over in less than 7 minutes!  Even a guy like me can commit to listening to 7 minutes of most any topic. 

Well, what these guys started has taken the Architectural world by storm.  And not only in the office.  “PechaKucha Night” events have popped-up all over the world, where folks get together to meet and get to know about whatever they are passionate about via a PechaKucha presentation.

Back in January my employer was bringing all our sales reps to town for a sales meeting, so I announced that we’d be holding a PechaKucha Night event.  We had a half dozen folks make presentations, and we had 25 in attendance.  It was a lot of fun and I’m sure we’ll do it again.  Below is my presentation on one of my passions: Missouri Meerschaum Corn Cob Pipes. 

One note: I was so new to this concept when I put this together that I didn't even know how to pronounce PechaKucha.  Oh well, we still had a fun time.