Creative & Serious Pecha Kucha

A little more than a month ago I did not know what a Pecha Kucha was. For some strange reason the word Pecha Kucha has been popping up everywhere even in the recent book I am reading on Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery recommended in Guy Kawasaki’s book Enchantment.

Thanks to Angiemille and Dana Montenegro two young entrepreneurs investing in the well being of our Puerto Rico I had the opportunity yesterday to understand and be part of a Pecha Kucha event.

What is a Pecha Kucha?

When Angie mentioned Pecha Kucha a few weeks ago while attended the “A Jugar en Familia event” one of her non-for-profit events. I did some research and found out its main purpose which was to make Architects become more efficient in presenting ideas.

With 20 slides and 20 seconds for each slide giving an overall time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds each presenter needs to share their idea in a brief but complete way. Giving the opportunity for many others to share their ideas at one event.

I also learned from Angie that the Japanese word translates into Chit Chat.

My First Pecha Kucha

Dana Montenegro from SeriouslyCreative started of the night and focused his presentation on solving problems by experiencing them from the frontlines. Dana’s message was geared towards how on many occasions an attempt to solve problems is done from a cubicle and even when no solution is found they resist visiting the frontlines.

After Dana’s Pecha Kucha Mr. Bartolomé Gamundi took the floor. A published author who spoke about having Puerto Ricans become an Owners Society.

My Key takeaway from his Pecha Kucha was how we need to become less dependent of the U.S. even if it means receiving less federal fund in areas where the U.S. is failing. He made his case on how the No Child Left behind in education is imposed on us as a Colony making our education system even weaker.

I was very impressed by all the speakers but the Uberrican Pecha Kucha given by Pedro Ortiz from MindOven had many of my interested mixed into the presentation. Pedro spoke about how by presenting positive values you can trigger positive actions. He gave the example of the Ninety Nine which where superheroes created with values tied to the Koran and the Muslim religion and lifestyle.

I also enjoyed a very fun slide which expressed how locally so many people use social media to release negative thoughts instead of leveraging for social good.

Image by Pedro Tirado!

That particular slide had scene of Death Wish (one of my dad’s favorite movies), strangely enough when I got home Death Wish 2 was being played on TV.

Ramphis Castro from Taino App closed the night by sharing his message of how we need to start creating more to reach our dreams and goals. He expressed on how he enters his own distortion field where he sets his mind into executing and idea and learns along the way while he reaches the goal.

The individuals who presented had a common goal of improving the well being of Puerto Rico by finding solutions instead of just identifying problems.

I am not a fan of sitting in presentations because in most occasions the presenters are not sharing information that is of value to me. In this case I sat and listened trying to absorb and internalize the many ideas these 4 gentleman had to share.

I have to Congratulate Dana,Bartolomé, Pedro, and Ramphis for making those 4 presentations look like it was something very easy to do.

My thanks to Angiemille and Dana for the invite it was a very pleasant evening where I felt like our Island has not lost its enchantment yet.

I shared a few more pictures of the event on Flickr!