Last night I attended the sixth installment of Pecha Kucha in Vancouver. What is 'Pecha Kucha' ? According to the 'About' page this was devised back in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network and show their work in public.
I can't say too much about the meet and network elements, although I did meet Steven Cox who hosts and introduces the speakers. I was assisting Bruce Sharpe of Singular Productions who was recording the event. You can see some of the recordings Bruce made at the previous event here.
I was particularly intrigued by the format of the event. Every speaker has 20 slides which are displayed for 20 seconds. My instinct tells me this should be written as Twenty20 but maybe that's been done already. That's basically 7 minutes by the time each speaker gets on and off stage. 7 minutes is also, as it happens the average length of a speech at Toastmasters, so I was keen to see how this worked out.
Steven opened the evening with a dedication to Arthur Erickson who died aged 84 on Wednesday. Erickson has long been an inspiration in Vancouver and his list of achievements are simply staggering. There's more information on Erickson's website which I encourage you to take a look at. I am definitely not qualified to do what Steven did so well (especially given his own emotions) but I will say I loved the fact that many of Erickson's buildings complemented their natural locations, especially climate (I stole that from Wikipedia!). For instance, the post and beam construction method of the Coastal First Nations - something that particularly resonates with me at the moment.
The Twenty20 format was fascinating. In amongst the crashing beer bottles kicked over by the audience sitting in the dark, each speaker came up and tried to time their delivery with the slides. No monitor was provided for the speakers which meant that sadly most of the time they were looking at their slides not at their audience. A lot of the content was excellent, but generally the delivery was disappointing. Few had very little energy - the pressure of 'losing control' of their slides clearly the biggest impact.
Some spoke very quickly and they had to introduce a pregnant pause until the next slide came up. Some overrun the particular slide. Admittedly a couple of speakers made a joke of this which for the wrong reasons was a highlight of their presentation, simply because from a technique point of view it was very well done compared to how the rest of the speech was delivered. Normally a crashing bottle or a baby's cry would be distracting as a speaker, for many speakers this acted as a release and they seemed to relax more. There were lots and lots of ums and ahhs as well as other crutch words which took away from some of the message.
But let me be clear about this. Public speaking is NOT easy, it is particularly complicated when you add a visual dimension with slides. Add to that the loss of control as the slides change automatically and presenting at Pecha Kucha is tough! All of the speakers got up in front of hundreds of people and shared their personal passion of the moment - that takes guts. Many times I have met/seen designers who in person have eccentricity and extroversion in boat loads, but throw in a big audience (and the above!) in and they become introverted and shy.
Although I can throw stones at the presentation skills, to do so is to a large extent missing the point. The art, i.e. the pictures, the buildings, the stuff the speaker creates and shares is an expression of who they are. If I consider the content of the slides alone then this is more than enough for me to enjoy the whole experience and make sure I get tickets for the next one!
Like the other manifestation of Twenty20, Pecha Kucha is a truly international affair with events in well over 100 cities worldwide. I would love to see an event in another city (maybe a roadtrip would make a good documentary?) - it is amazingly inspiring to be in the company of such amazing creativity.
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