How To Setup Pecha Kucha Powerpoint For Mac

Pecha

Jul 17, 2014 What is PechaKucha, and how do you set up the 20-second timing per slide, as well as record voice-narration for your PechaKucha in PowerPoint 2007? Pecha Kucha PechaKucha or Pecha Kucha (Japanese for chit-chat) is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds). The format keeps presentations concise and fast-paced. Nov 11, 2017 This video shows you how to make a pecha kucha with PowerPoint 2016 for Windows PCs. It includes how to set the timing, how to record in PowerPoint, and how. Choose a generic topic: Pecha Kucha events attract a diverse audience, and you don’t want to choose a specialized topic that’s relevant to a small part of the audience. Generic topics work best. Bring in some humor: Pecha Kucha presentations are too short to bring in humor that needs context and detail. So its best to just laugh at yourself. The Pecha Kucha presentation format can be a great way to provide an overview of a topic. Pecha Kucha presentations consist of 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each. This tends to produce a high.

Overview»Getting Started»Slide Design»Practicing»The Big Event»Downloads»Videos

My Philosophy on Pecha Kucha Talks

In my opinion, Pecha Kucha isn’t the same as any regular speech or reading. To me, it’s a different animal, and falls closer on the side of performance.

Setup

While I’ve seen presenters read their talks from a piece of paper, rarely do I feel that these “readings” hold the same energy as someone who’s speaking and looking directly at the audience. I think Pecha Kucha talks should be memorized, and that the goal should be to walk up on the stage with nothing but your voice and your slides.

Ultimately, Pecha Kucha provides a place where speakers can share their passions and attendees can become inspired. But I’ll also argue that an unspoken goal of Pecha Kucha is one of entertainment. If you’re taking the stage to read from a piece of paper or a predefined script, that takes some of the fire out, I feel. That to me seems more like mere recitation than presentation – my two cents.

Practicing and Refining Your Talk

While there are many ways to go about practicing, these here are the ones I found most useful. Your style may be quite different from mine, so use what makes sense to you. Use what you like.

The main mantra I hear when it comes to talks/speeches is: be comfortable/familiar with the material. So long as you’re familiar with what you’re going to say, you won’t be nervous.

I didn’t start practicing and doing dry runs until maybe 3 or 4 days before the event. In hindsight, I’d recommend starting to practice a full week before you hit the stage. I did pretty well, but feel confident that I’d have done a killer job had I only started practicing a little earlier.

Practice against a timed version. Depending on the venue, some folks may end up using Powerpoint, others may use Keynote. It’s pretty easy to import slides into either program and set a default transition time to 20 seconds.

If you don’t have a copy of Powerpoint or Keynote, consider downloading Open Office (which is free).

It’s essential that you practice your talk against an actual, timed version of your slides. In fact, I can’t imagine a scenario where you wouldn’t want to do this.

Practice standing up. While your initial test runs may be done sitting in front of your computer screen, as the event date nears… you’ll want to practice while actually standing up.

Position yourself next to the computer in the same way you’ll be presenting (either to the left or right of the monitor). Check with your event organizer to see whether you’ll be facing the screen, or if you’ll be facing the audience.

The closer your practice runs mirror the final event site, the more comfortable you’ll be when you take the stage.

If possible, hook up your computer/laptop to a projector or your television. Having your presentation on a larger screen also helps get you closer to the same setup as the actual event.

Look at various points in the room, when talking. A good speaker is able to make listeners feel included by making eye contact with audience members. While this may or may not be possible (depending on your comfort level), consider at least practice scanning the room as you talk.

Add in silence, remove “filler” noises. I say “uhm” all the time, particularly in everyday conversations. But I remember vividly how many of us (in high school speech class) would say “uh” or “uhm” or “like” as a silence filler, something that happened between sentences or thoughts.

Try to fight this tendency, as you practice. Making a sound like “uhm” is our way of signaling to others that we’re thinking, that we’re processing information. We do it so we don’t look like dumb-asses just staring off into space. It’s an audio cue to others that our brain is, in fact, working away.

But in a talk or speech, it’s disruptive and sounds a little clumsy. The more you can edit out these “uhms” and replace them with pauses or silence… the better your talk will sound. I promise you – they’ll make your transitions seem that much cleaner, that much more professional.

Let your slides do some of the work. One of the most important things I learned when practicing was that I didn’t need to fill in all the details. I didn’t need to give all the backstory – just enough to establish context, and enough to be able to make my point.

Powerpoint

Remember that your slides can do a lot of your talking for you. As an example, let’s say you wanted to talk about your younger self, and your slide is a photo of you as a kid.

Instead of saying “This is a photograph of me when I was a child,” jump immediately to the point you want to make. When the image appears, assume that people will pick up much of what’s already in the photograph.

Compare a line like “This is a photo of me when I was younger” to something like:

Kucha

“The third grade was the worst year of my life.”
“I fell in love for the first time when I was eight.”
“As a kid, I loved ice cream sandwiches more than my parents.”

Stronger, right? By letting your slides do some of the storytelling, you save a bit of time and can get to the heart of your topic/idea that much faster.

Leaping between slides. With only twenty seconds per slide, that’s not a lot of time to work with. One of the things I realized during my practice runs was that I spent a lot of time talking about how each slide related to the other. I felt compelled to fill in the space between slides, and felt like I needed to describe the transition from slide to slide.

Totally unnecessary. One of the greatest things here is that you’ve got the ability to make HUGE leaps, between slides. Realize that you actually have to do less work than you think. When you put two images next to one another, people will automatically connect them together.

A link will exist, without you having to outline why the two images are related. I encourage you to experiment with slide and image juxtapositions, to see what works and what you can get away with. Coupled with pauses, a big leap between slides can be very effective, and makes for a great transition.

Break your talk down into “sets.” If trying to do an entire practice run seems too daunting at first, try breaking down your slides into different sets. Instead of thinking of your presentation as a large chunk, you can likely see where there’s a start, middle and an end, and practice each segment separately until you’re ready to combine them.

Practice your talk while you have your iPod/headphones on. Ok, this suggestion is a little looney tunes. But if you want to really test how well you know your material and how ready you are… put in some headphones and play some music (very softly) as you try going through your talk.

With the music providing a bit of a distraction, you’ll be forced to concentrate even harder on your talk as you practice. If you can pull this off, and can go through your talk while having headphones on… you’re in great shape.

Run through your talk, first thing in the morning. If you want another really good test to see how prepared you are? Start up your computer or laptop right when you wake up. First thing in the morning, see if you can run through your talk, cold. If you can do that and are comfortable with how it turned out – you are definitely set. Inspiron 1501 windows 10.

Ultimately, how well you do with your presentation has everything to do with how much you practice beforehand. Many of you out there are way better at winging things than me, but I know that I need a lot of trial runs, a lot of rehearsals before I can get up on stage.

To me, practicing helps iron out all the technical things – the pacing, the delivery, the timing. And the more you practice, the closer you’ll get to just getting up on stage and talking with the audience. The more you practice, the less it becomes about mechanics… and the more it becomes about substance: your ideas, your passion, the things that inspire and energize you.

I’ll leave with this final thought: you can never practice too much. But you can definitely not practice enough. When in doubt, run through your presentation one more time.

Next: The Big Event

Overview»Getting Started»Slide Design»Practicing»The Big Event»Downloads»Videos
Overview»Getting Started»Slide Design»Practicing»The Big Event»Downloads»Videos

Final Runs

By now, you’ve likely practiced a great deal and have gone through several practice runs. While I’d like to say don’t worry and try not to think about the event… I know I didn’t fare very well. Throughout the day of, I was pretty nervous and things just got a worse as the evening (and start time) drew near.

On the day of, there aren’t really a lot of things that can be done. At this point all the slides are in, and IMO it’s risky to make dramatic alterations to your talk, last minute. If you’re really nervous, consider using your morning and evening commutes to practice, or go over your talk during lunch. Try (hard as it is) not to think too much about it.

Pecha kucha voorbeeld
(Pecha Kucha Chicago, Volume 9, photo courtesy Thorsten Bösch)

At the Event

Try arriving at the event site a little early. Perhaps meeting with some of the other speakers will help take your mind off of things, prior to your taking the stage. Or, if you were like me, getting there early gave me a chance to get a bit more comfortable with the space.

Get comfortable with the mic. As silly as this sounds, go up to the stage area and stand near the microphone. I did this, and it helped immensely. Getting a feel of what the view/perspective will be from the mic will help when it’s finally your turn. It’ll seem a little more familiar.

Try not to drink before you talk. This may seem self-evident, but try to avoid drinking (too much) prior to your talk. By all means, order a stiff drink afterwards… but try to hold off as much as you can, beforehand.

One drink can easily lead to a few drinks, particularly when you just want to “settle your nerves.” Consider this: how terrible would it be for you to slur your words on stage? All your hard work and prep, undone by a few too many drinks prior to.

I say this as a big fan of the sauce: save the boozing for afterwards. It’ll taste that much sweeter.

Volunteer to go early. For me, until I finished my talk… I was a ball of nervousness. If possible, check with the event organizer and see about getting an early slot. There are many good reasons for speaking early, but the major reason to me is that you can get your talk completed… and spend the rest of the time basking in your great performance, and enjoying the other speakers on the bill.

The crowd is on your side. Intensity and passion are things that can be felt by the audience. The crowds at Pecha Kucha are there to cheer you on, and everyone’s there to get excited, to get inspired together.

Remember that this isn’t you getting in front of a class, giving a report on Lincoln’s presidency. You’re talking about what interests you, what you’re passionate about. You’re sharing that with the crowd, and they’re eager to hear what you have to say. You came here willingly and the crowd came here, willingly. It’s not a you-versus-them thing, it’s a together thing.

Slow and steady. As you start your talk, recognize you’re nervous and that there’s probably a lot of adrenalin in your system. Try to consciously slow things down. Try to make sure you’re speaking clearly and that you’re not just zooming through your slides.

If you finish a particular slide a bit ahead of schedule, it’s ok to pause in wait for the next slide to appear. Consider using the pause to look around and make eye contact (see below).

Try to make eye contact. Hopefully this doesn’t throw you off your game too much. And hopefully you practiced looking around a bit, when you were doing your dry runs.

A big part of speaking is engaging the audience, and scanning the room making eye contact with people helps tremendously in this regard. If you’re too nervous, don’t worry about locking eyes with individuals… but try looking to different areas of the room as you talk.

This is a particularly tricky thing, especially if you haven’t tried it out beforehand. I’d definitely recommend adding this to your practice runs so that you’ll be a bit more comfortable with this, prior to the event.

Pecha Kucha Voorbeeld

Bring business cards. People from the audience will likely come up to talk with you after your presentation (particularly if you did a good job). Neatreceipts scanalizer driver for mac. In addition to the well-wishers and pats on the back, many folks may be interested in setting up meetings with you or exchanging information.

Make sure to have some contact info or business cards handy. Anything, so long as it has your phone number, email, or URL on it. At the very least, have some paper and a pencil on hand.

That’s pretty much all the advice I have. If you’re interested in more presentation advice, check out Garr Reynolds’ site for some great tips (I referenced his pages a lot, when doing my own prep work).

Good Luck!

I hope these pages were of some help to you, or at the very least helped you see what goes on behind the scenes of a Pecha Kucha talk. The following two sections don’t really have any tips or advice, and are more just media assets: the slides themselves and some videos of my talk.

If you came across this guide while prepping for your talk, I’d love to hear how things went. Preparing for Pecha Kucha was unlike any other kind of presentation I’ve done before, and I found it to be a fascinating process.

How To Setup Pecha Kucha Powerpoint For Macbook Pro

Good luck to you, as you put yours together… and feel free to drop a line, as I’m curious to hear all about it.

Next: Downloads

Overview»Getting Started»Slide Design»Practicing»The Big Event»Downloads»Videos