Why Pecha-Kucha is Catching On

Since first reading about pecha-kucha, PowerPoint presentations limited to 20 slides displayed for exactly 20 seconds each, in this month’s Wired magazine, pecha-kucha seems to be everywhere I look.

My home town is holding a pecha-kucha evening at an arts and technology center this month. Fellow blogger Mike Caulfield has proposed a Learning 2.0 pecha-kucha contest, and Wayne Hodgins has written that this week he delivered a pecha-kucha presentation at an Autodesk Leadership Summit.

The fact that pecha-kucha is catching on so quickly is almost surely due to the fact that so many of us have endured the worst that can be done with PowerPoint, both from the point of interminable duration and content presented terribly.

Edward Tufte, possibly the world expert on presenting information, is likely the most vocal critic of PowerPoint. Check out his article PowerPoint Does Rocket Science–and Better Techniques for Technical Reports.

So why is pecha-kucha catching on?

• Pecha-kucha offers us an irresistible promise: that, no matter how bad the presentation, our suffering will be limited to six minutes and 40 seconds.
• Also appealing is the curiosity of seeing what a presenter can do within such a rigid structure. (Think 12-tone music from the 1920s.)
• In a world of information overload and diminishing abilities to process information, less is more, and information is best consumed in bite-sized chunks.

Wayne Hodgins correctly points out in his post Adding Arrows to Our Communications Quiver that there’s a risk that pecha-kucha will gain such popularity that all presentations will be expected to be in this format:

“For me, PK is a fabulous new choice that we have in our arsenal of tools for expression. Just as we are beginning to learn (well some are) how to make a good decision about when to use e-mail, when to use a phone call, when to use Instant Message or Twitter, when to meet in person or send a handwritten note (remember those?), we need to be better at knowing WHEN PK is the best choice for a given situation and skilled at using the PK format well.

Therefore, just as instant messaging (IM) didn’t eliminate e-mail or phone calls, neither will PK eliminate more “traditional” forms of presentations. Instead, PK will help us improve one of the most powerful and requisite skills we have and need—the ability to communicate effectively, and to share our ideas.”

Well said.

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Tagged as: Humor, Pecha-kucha