by Peter Kageyama
During October’s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, attendees will hear from some of the world’s leading experts in the creative economy, entrepreneurship, placemaking and technology. There will be keynote presentations, panels and breakout sessions on a wide range of topics and this year, there will be a new addition to the conference.
For the first time Innovation Philadelphia will feature two pecha kucha sessions as part of the program. Pronounced “pa-chok-cha”, the presentation format was devised by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in 2003 in Japan. They were trying to create a forum for architects and designers to present their work to each other and they recognized that these folks could go on for hours (death by PowerPoint) if left unchecked! Their solution, limit each speaker to 20 slides each on screen for 20 seconds, advancing automatically, for a grand total of 6 minutes 40 seconds. The result was pecha kucha, which is the Japanese phrase for the sound of people talking.
The format itself reflects our time constrained, attention challenged age where we are all trying to assimilate the daily deluge of information. Is pecha kucha the cause or merely a symptom of that deluge? Probably both, but the impact of the format has been significant.
Pecha kucha has proven to be hugely popular and a worldwide phenomenon. It is being used in conferences everywhere and has even spawned special “Pecha Kucha Nights” in cities all over the world. Pecha Kucha Night (www.pecha-kucha.org) has spread to over 200 cities worldwide, including Philadelphia. Topics are limited only to whatever the presenters are passionate about. People will talk about everything from their work, their hobbies, their pets or their breakfast, which turns these presentations into a bit of performance art. It forces presenters to tightly focus and really strip their presentations down to the critical elements. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that it is far more challenging than you would expect and it is very good for sharpening your thinking. And because of the shortness of the presentations, there are many speakers, covering a lot of territory.
With this notion in mind, the Summit will include two pecha kucha sessions. Innovation Philadelphia received submissions of brilliant examples of work being done all over the world and we wanted to find creative ways to showcase that work. The pecha kucha sessions became the obvious choice. Fun and informative, they will allow multiple speakers to share their best ideas about the creative economy. I will be moderating the sessions as well as doing a special introductory pecha kucha for the conference, “10 Things You Need to Know About the Creative Economy.”
For more examples of pecha kucha, you can check out the 3rd Philly Pecha Kucha, September 26 at Studio 34. You can also see a brilliant example of the format from 2006 GCECS keynote Dan Pink here.
Peter Kageyama is a community and economic development consultant with Creative Cities Productions (www.creativecitiesproductions.com) and part of the 2009 GCECS Planning Committee.
