Philly Pecha Kucha 2 Was Fun

By Joel Mathis
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jun. 13, 2009

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Philly Pecha Kucha 2, held Saturday night at Studio 34 in West Philly. Pecha Kucha was invented by Japanese architects to move PowerPoint presentations along more quickly -- but on the other hand, the event in Philly was being promoted as a cultural event. So what was I going to get? Information or entertainment? Presentation or performance art?

A little bit of both, as it turns out.

The idea behind Pecha Kucha -- and the pronunciation is a little more complex than the spelling would indicate -- is that each speaker gets 20 slides to tell a story, and only 20 seconds with each slide. So rather than a long drawn-out discourse, presenters get six minutes and 40 seconds to tell their story. (Here's an example from the first Philly Pecha Kucha event.)

The result? A quick run-though on a half-dozen or so topics ranging from activist theater in India to Philadelphia's world fairs to the sci fi musings of local band Igor's Egg. Unfortunately, a dry PowerPoint presentation doesn't necessary become entertaining when condensed to just under seven minutes. Temple University's David Kanter, for example, is doing God's work in his efforts to create projects that help middle schoolers learn science by actually doing science -- but that doesn't make pedagogy interesting, at least to me.

Luckily, it was only six minutes and 40 seconds before he ceded the stage and the next speaker took their shot. That's the great thing about Pecha Kucha, as it turns out: There's no guarantee you won't get bored, but you probably won't be bored very long.

And there was some genuinely entertaining stuff.  Diana Pankevich shared her underwater photos from her volunteer work as a diver at the Camdem aquarium. Jonny Goldstein gave a hilarious disquisition about his fear of snakes. And Kevin Werbach, an assistant prof at The Wharton School, gave an astounding presentation about the World of Warcraft and its importance for the American economy.

All in all, a good evening. Organizers say the next event will be in the fall. That's a long time to wait for an event that rewards short attention spans.

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