Pech* Kuch* (evidently Japanese for "full of yourself")

Holy crap. Seriously people. So evidently I'm a bit behind the curve. My friend Ellen Wagner recently did a presentation at the Learning Solutions conference (along with Cammy Bean and Koreen Olbrish). Part of that presentation included a wonderful piece entitled the "Secret Handshakes of Instructional Designers"

This is one of those presentations where you do 20 slides and only use 20 seconds talking about each one. Ellen has a whole post on using this Pecha Kucha format for talking about instructional design here. I was there for the presentation and it went over like gangbusters. Evidently though, in doing it, Ellen joined the ranks of lawbreakers, rebels and general neer-do-wells...

Maybe Ellen will comment here on the email she got from the Pecha Kucha Foundation but I saw this post today that seems to run along similar lines. Quoting from that post by Lorenz Khazaleh: 

"This is Jean from PechaKucha HQ here in Tokyo. It has come to our attention that you recently organized a PechaKucha event without our consent.

The PechaKucha name, logo, and format are all trademarked concepts, and as we clearly indicate on our site, we ask that anyone who is interested in running a PK event get in touch, as we have a review and agreement process that we go through."

Yeah, I know. My head almost exploded too. I mean...this is a format people!! So then I decided to take a look at the Pecha Kucha web site. Sheesh. Rarely have I seen a site so full of whining pretensions. 

Like (from Aims of the Pecha Kucha Foundation):

"To keep the global PechaKucha movement -- now in close to 300 cities with over 60 events a month -- growing in a sustainable manner, reviewing city applications and granting handshake agreements."

How about getting out of your own way? How's that for managing growth? Why does a format either for a presentation or an event, have to be managed for sustainability?

"With revenue from sponsorship, donations and advertising the Foundation will start and support global initiatives such as the PechaKucha website "Presentations" section -- a global city archive of presentations -- and the Marc Hoekstra PechaKucha Award."

You're kidding right? You need to donations to host presentations? Have you heard of YouTube? SlideShare? And I love the idea of an award and Marc sounds like a tremendous human but if you believe in it so much, set up a PayPal account and let the world contribute.

"Klein Dytham architecture has sponsored PechaKucha since its inception in 2003, paying for all website development and staffing costs. As the number of cities and events have grown so have costs and staffing. In 2008, Autodesk, the world's leading architectural and creative sofware company, came on board as a sponsor and helped cover some of the running costs. Klein Dytham architecture still sponsor the movement by covering the considerable shortfall."

That's huge kudos for Klein Dytham but sheesh don't cover the costs of something like this out of the goodness of your heart and then come whining about it and about shortfalls. And while we're on the topic, "staffing costs"? I guess that not trying to make people apply for PK permits and having to review those applications would dramatically cut down on your staffing costs. 

So...since PK and 20x20 are both trademarked...I'm recommending we start a new movement...I'm torn between 19x19 and 21x21...can't decide right now. I do promise though to keep web site development costs low (if only there were some kind of free service for hosting a web site) and staffing costs down (my salary will be reasonable I promise).  So there you go people...what's next? A patent on starting your talk with a joke?

Comments

[Bill Brandon]

Should I ever want to present something in, say, 6 minutes and 30 seconds, supported by slides, and if I wanted to give it a name in, say, Japanese, I believe I might call it "Hiyaku!" ("Hurry Up!" or "Faster!")

I might even not call it anything, but just do it. Although there is a certain attraction to the thought of screaming "Allez cuisine!!!!", Iron Chef style, at the beginning. Do you suppose that would get me sued?

(To be truthful, I always did find the P*K* thing a bit pretentious and have never had any desire to call anything I presented by that name.)

[Jay Cross]

Mark, I ran a survey on improving conferences for a presentation I made at an Unconference to Improve Conferences. Re-reading it, I gotta say it's a rather funny and troubling post: http://bit.ly/bG9VLt

[Jay Cross]

There's a possibility you ran into an outlier employee here. I hosted a Pecha Kucha session at Online Educa Berlin last year. Since we already had videocams and an Adobe ConnectPro session, we ran it live on the web.

Unbeknown to us at the time, one of our viewers was the co-inventor of PK at Klein Dytham from Tokyo. He added a few friendly comments and seemed to be a good guy. No mention that we were ripping him off or anything.

[Sleveo]

I agree with Mark, "this is a format people!" Such territorial possessiveness is creepy. But something really good came out of it. I realized something.

After watching Ellen's fabulous Pecha Kucha format for talking about Instructional Design, that I am indeed an ID. (Ellen Wagner on Secret Handshakes of Instructional Design on YouTube.) I come from the learning side, but I do design and training. Me an ID? Who knew?

I like the idea of using a new name, like 20in20. It would make a great meme and hashtag on Twitter: #20in20 It is also easier to identify and explain. Who's with me?

Great post.

[Jeff Hurt]

This is so sad and unfortunate. Why don't we call it Pe Chak Cha (since that's how you pronounce it)!.

Or we could go the Ellios Masie route from their April Fools enews: Warning: Another Patent Claim on Classroom Teaching. There are number of "highly questionable" patent claims being made in lawsuits by groups these days. Yesterday, another suit was filed by a company called YouLearn! They were issued a patent in 1991 that claimed they invented writing on whiteboards and flipcharts in a left to right horizontal manner. These "business process" patents are granted if an applicant can claim to have invented something unique without any disputes of prior art. Since corporate trainers are doing a lot of writing in this manner, we would advise it would be safer to start to write in either an upward or downward slant. Our legal team does not think that Hebrew writing that is right to left is covered by the patent. But, this is an example of the risk of these poorly reviewed patents. You can of course, license their technique of horizontal left to write writing for only $12 a one day class. Many companies are thinking of settling to avoid the cost of litigation.

[Kevin Thorn]

Howz about 50-50? Seriously, most presenters still have 80 or so. Ya'know, crawl, walk, then run! Next year, 40-40, then 30-30, and work into your 19-19 or 21-21 (once you decide).

I've heard of PK (notice I didn't try to write it because I still don't know how to pronounce it), but have never tried presenting in that manner. Sounds more like these events mimic a night at the improv at a local comedy club.

Seriously, I totally agree. Putting a patent on an idea? a format? a community of practice? Hearing this I want to Pecha Kucha all over my keyboard!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone else getting tired of the "Pitch-shit Katch-shit" format anyway. Formats don't need more attention, good execution does.

[Steve Portigal]

A similar thing happened a few years ago with Freecycle, a simple format for giving away and getting stuff for free. The originators of the movement got very formal, officious, and downright mean. They seemed to attract legions of middle managers types who would take the rule enforcement verrry seriously and turn the focus to something that really, most people shouldn't care about. See http://www.portigal.com/blog/the-nature-of-communities/ if you want to read more details about an analogous experience...

Steve, who was once in an email thread between Mark Dytham and some Ignite people (but not sure how I ended up in that thread)

[Steve Nguyen]

I find it funny that there's a Pecha Kucha HEADQUARTERS! What do you think that place is like? I'm assuming all meetings only last 6 minutes and 40 seconds. There's probably a sign on their door that says, "We ban the use of bullet points on the premises."

[Geeta Bose]

Hilarious! Currently the 20-20 fever has gripped India. Only a slight difference - its 20-20 cricket (where each side has 20 overs to bowl and bat!)

It's high impact, power packed and gets over in 3 hrs flat - unlike the 5-day test match or the 1-day formats. Now wondering if the 20-20 Cricket Board too received an email from the PK foundation!

These manic rules will eventually throttle this cool format!

[Putz Katz]

Howz about Kecha-Pucha? Fits well if presentations result from over-imbibing.

[Steve Howard]

If you do it with tin foil on you head does that change the format *and* prevent the PK police from hearing you?

[Dave Ferguson]

Not only do most people not know what pecha kucha is, but as a term it is never, ever going to fly in the English-speaking world.

I realize that's not the only world around, but it's a larger one than the Gaelic-speaking one, and has a hell of a lot further reach than the Japanese-speaking one.

Just trying to get English speakers to pronounce pecha kucha is like trying to get everyone to call you Siobhan Dziengelewski. Even if that were your real name, you'd have a long hard climb. If it was a name you made up for yourself, face it: no one's ever getting it right, and lots of people will just plain never get it.

For those of us in the real world, the best thing to do is also the simplest: stop calling a quick presentation with visuals by a name that sounds suspiciously like pet-tchotchkes.

Way too much "owns 15 cats and a boatload of trinkets" there.

Just do your thing. Kleenex brand facial tissue (and its vast extended family) is a trademarked name--but that's a brand for a type of tissue. Which is why Scott can have facial tissue, and Puffs can have facial tissue, and in theory KFC could have chicken-scented facial tissue.

Honestly, there aren't any pet-tchotchke cops.

[Mrch0mp3rs]

We may benefit from officially creating a format, have a site for it, and license it as Creative Commons so that everyone is free to use it as they wish with no encumberance.

I'm actually somewhat serious here. If Ignite doesn't have a formal release of their format, we may want to do it specifically to avoid this kind of bull****.

And... I vote for 17 x 17, because 17 is a prime number and as Jason Fried says, you almost never regrest reducing scope.

[Nancy White]

I ran into this a couple of years ago so did not use the name. Ignite (Seattle, I believe, was the home) was the brainchild of Brady Forrest and I think he too, ran into the dreaded PK-ites.

We have been playing with a variant, a slide deck karaoke. You make up your set of slides (20-20 or any other style), but someone else has to present them. (Already documented too, on the Wikipedia PK site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha)I'm sure we didn't invent it, but it came up over alcohol. What can I say? The global brain, creating itself over and over again.

I think today there is an obsessive desire to "own" something, to be the "inventor." Maybe with the volume we pump out into the net, there is a stronger desire to be unique. I don't know. But PK's strong hold on their brand won't bear fruit for them.

[Leo Salazar]

Hilarious post! And going to the PK site, it seems to me the script on their logo is eerily similar to Alfa Romeo's: http://www.alfa145.co.uk/dl.html.

Maybe someone should send an email to HQ in Milan?

[Snarky Larky]

Just FYI, I have a patent, trademark, copyright and other IP-sounding things on closing a blog-post with sarcastic remarks. We'll see you in court! (not really)

[Jane Bozarth]

For those not on Twitter this morning, we have now trademarked the idea of reading text from slides, icebreakers, use of the words "share" and "feedback" during training classes, 4-part models of personality type, and ADDIE. Please contact the appropriate person for fee schedules and permissions/release forms. Thank you.

[Brent Schlenker]

I'm putting you in charge of this for DevLearn2010. Here are my thoughts.
We call it Ahcuk Ahcep and abreviate it AA...no, wait, I think that's taken. Well I'm open to ideas.

Check out the "Ignite" groups all over the country. I believe Ignite Portland is the founding site, but I know there is one in Phoenix that I keep missing. Their "format" is 20 slides at 15 secs each. NO mention of PK. So, no worries.

Most people still don't even know what PK is...and from how the founders, and copyright owners are handling it, most never will. PK will die, the format will become the new standard for effective focused presentations.