Edmonton’s NextGen invites you to submit a presentation for the next Pecha Kucha Night (PKN) in Edmonton held on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at the Myer Horowitz Theatre.

What is a Pecha Kucha Night?

Tokyo’s Klein Dytham Architecture first devised Pecha Kucha, the Japanese phrase for “the sound of chitchat” in 2003, as a night for young designers to meet, network, and discuss their projects. The catch: each designer gave a presentation containing only 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds, for a total presentation length of six minutes 40 seconds. These constraints challenged presenters to clarify their ideas and match each thought with the perfect image.Since then, Pecha Kucha Nights are held by a global community of almost 400 cities and the presenters have become just as diverse. Pecha Kucha is a grown-up “show and tell”. The presentations allow the audience to learn, expand their perspectives, and leave the night with something new on their mind. It’s food for thought.

Visit our page within the Pecha Kucha global community. Edmonton’s Next Gen was the first to host Pecha Kucha Night in Western Canada. The event usually sells out to an audience of 450-600.

How do I submit a presentation?

1. Let us know you are interested by emailing edmnextgen @ gmail.com with your full name, title (i.e. architect, designer, student, teacher, activist, etc.), and some background on what you want to talk about.

2. Next, read the tips at the bottom of this page, then create your slides. Once you have the 20 slides ready, convert them to JPEGs (size: 1024px by 768px) using the following naming format to ensure your slides are displayed in the correct order: NG01.jpg, NG02.jpg, NG03.jpg … NG20.jpg. Please substitute “NG” with your initials. Then, put them all in a ZIP folder or other compressed file format.

3. Next, give your presentation a title and write a summary about your presentation (<250 words) or include a few sentences for each slide.

4. Once you’re finished, send us the presentation’s title and summary along with the ZIP folder of your slides to to edmnextgen @ gmail.com no later than Friday, August 12, 2011.

What happens next?

A panel of NextGen volunteers will review all submitted presentations. Often there are more presentations submitted than we have room for in the program, so unfortunately not all can be selected. We will let you know by Wednesday, August 24, 2011.

If your presentation is selected, we may offer suggestions to refine your presentation and slides. You can then choose to make final changes and submit your updated presentation by Wednesday, August 31, 2011.

We will then create a master presentation that has each presenter’s presentation. We will host a presenter orientation prior to PKN 11. At the orientation you will have the opportunity to preview the venue, ensure you slides are in the right order, learn some tips on presenting successfully, and, of course, ask questions. And don’t forget to rehearse before the event.

How can I make a successful presentation?

Pecha Kucha is centered around engaging presentations. As such, there will be no podium. Your mic will be wireless and handheld. We also encourage you to not use notes. Practice your presentation but don’t memorize its every word.

20 seconds is a short and long amount of time. Be sure to allow enough time to say everything you need to, but don’t stall as you wait for the next slide to come up. To keep it flowing and engaging, talk about the next slide if you’re finished with the current slide. You could also tell a story, sing, dance…

Some of the best presentations have images only — impactful images. You can have one image per slide or a few images per slide, but always be mindful of the resolution. Your images will be shown on a big screen. Also, please reference the image if it’s not yours. Incorporate graphics and illustrations if you like, but please avoid clip art. Landscape orientation is preferred in order to maximize the viewable area of the screen.

We suggest you use text sparingly. At some point, you have probably seen presentations with slides full of text. How did they make you feel?

Lastly, Pecha Kucha presentations are about ideas and those ideas allow the audience to learn, expand their perspectives, and leave the night with something new on their mind. It’s food for thought. We are looking for presentations which embody that spirit.

For more tips:

* Read the frequently asked questions about Pecha Kucha

* Watch presentations posted on the Pecha Kucha Daily Blog

* Watch Travis Sheridan’s presentation, Pecha Kucha about Pecha Kucha

We look forward to receiving your submission for PKN 11!