Pecha Kucha

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Pecha Kucha (ペチャクチャ, ^?) or Pecha Kucha Night is a presentation format in which (mostly creative) work can be easily and informally shown. It was originally devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa) in Tokyo in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. The format has spread virally to many cities across the world.

The name derives from a Japanese term for the sound of conversation ("chit-chat").

1 Overview
2 Business Application
3 See also
4 References
5 Related links

[edit] Overview

Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-cha ku-cha) was started in Tokyo, Japan in February 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as a designers' show and tell event to attract more people to SuperDeluxe, their multi-media experimental event space they had set up in Roppongi.^[1]

The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. Each event usually has 14 presenters. Presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields, but recently it has also stretched over to the business world.

The demand for a place in the city to informally show and share one's work seems to be global - proven by the fact that the event format has been replicated in over 80 cities stretching over every continent^[2]. Events are usually limited to one each month per city.

Well-known presenters have included the architects Jun Aoki, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, designers such as Tom Dixon, Ron Arad, Thomas Heatherwick but also comedians such as Johnny Vegas, actress Joanna Lumley or BBC newscaster Jon Snow.

There are actually no restrictions on the type of content that could be presented. Some organizers have added their own variations to the format. In Groningen, in the Netherlands, two slots are given to a live band, and the final 20 seconds of each presentation consists of an immediate critique of the presentation by the host’s sidekicks. Video art has also been presented at some events.

[edit] Business Application

The 20x20 format of Pecha Kucha is now also being adopted in the business world, with some company internal business presentations being run in a strict 6 minutes 40 seconds, with all discussion and questions held to the end of the presentation. This is primarily a device to help timebox presentations, force presenters to be more focused in their message, allow them to flow uninterrupted, and ultimately to avoid the "death by powerpoint" syndrome, of sitting through long and often tedious PowerPoint presentations.^{[citation needed]} ^[3]