Pecha Kucha is a presentation method that you might never heard of. It is invented by two Japan-based architects, Astrid Klein and Mark-Dytham, hence the name ‘Pecha Kucha’, which means ‘chatter’ or ‘chit-chat’ in Japanese. However, this method is far from just noises, it results in meaningful presentation that has a lasting effect on its audience. The idea of it is simple, to avoid death by PowerPoint.

Pecha Kucha utilizes 20 slides with 20 seconds of commentary each. That means every presentation is going to take 6 minutes and 40 seconds in total. The slides mostly show pictures and sometimes very few words. It emphasizes the power of visual aids to convey a story. There is no reading sentences that you put on your slide to the audience, no clutter, no distraction. It relies on precision and concision that will capture your audience’s attention.

How can this be powerful?

It is actually shown that people will only remember two things from your speech; the first one is the general impression of the speaker and the second one is probably the thing you said. Pecha Kucha allows its striking and meaningful images to hit your audience with the point straight away, making them remember exactly what you want them to remember.

For this reason, practice becomes crucial. You have to know everything you want to deliver by heart as there will be no pause or getting back to your previous point. Since the slides change automatically in exactly 20 seconds, you don’t want to focus on fitting as many words to your 20 seconds as possible, rather, to think of your goal opportunity statement. Engage your audience with curiosity and don’t fall into a communication trap by giving them too much details.

We might think that people will understand our presentation better by flooding them with information, but often times, we end up hurting the communication process instead. The truth is people don’t learn and absorb comprehensive information as they listen to our presentation. They do it when they are alone. That’s why many will come to you asking for a handout, more references, or a copy of your presentation in the end.

What we want is to give an impact and to spark a curiosity that will motivate them to educate themselves more in that topic. We don’t want to overload them with such a long and what seems like a never-ending presentation. We want to create a cognitive gap that will help that information to stay longer in their brains.

Pecha Kucha is a place for you to create a creative and fun presentation, make sure you give your personality and be authentic!

To give you more idea, here’s a Pecha Kucha about Pecha Kucha!