Pecha Kucha 20 slides x 20 seconds ea. = 6.40 sec Presentation

Pecha Kucha is a system of delivering a six minute and forty second presentation in 20 slides @ 20 seconds per slide. Two expatriate architects based in Japan named Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham developed the Pecha Kucha method in 2003 as a means to get to the core of the message from design presenters.

Today Pecha Kucha events welcome creative speakers from all backgrounds and has spread across the world from Tokyo to San Francisco. In Dec. 2008 Pecha Kucha was hosted at the trendy Song Bar in Beijing, which attracted hundreds of spectators including members from my presentation course at Peking University MBA school. A pupil of mine named Stone Shao saved the day by providing a ThinkPad electrical supply cord to power the event's PC! This weekend in Beijing, Pecha Kucha ペチャクチャ, which means 'chit-chat' in Japanese, will showcase the essence of what presentation innovation is all about - creating new methods to clearly communicate.

Compress a Large PowerPoint File

Save email space and simplify the experience for your audience. How many times have you prepared to send your PowerPoint file and found that it is 5, 10, 20 MB or more? Often a corporate inbox will not be able to receive large files. The solution is to compress your photos in the PPT file. Here's how:

1. Save a newly named copy of your PPT file
2. Open the PPT file and right click on any photo image.
3. Click Format Picture
4. There will be a menu with five tabs. The tab Picture should be open, on the lower left hand corner click Compress
5. 'Apply to' All pictures in document
6. 'Change Resolution' Web/Screen. Click OK and you're done.

This will change every image in the PPT deck to 96 dpi from 200 dpi, effectively reducing your file size by 50%.

To further reduce your file size, open a New Folder on your Desktop. Next right click and save each photo image as a .JPEG file, into the New Folder. JPEG image sizes take up the least amount of space compared to .bmp, .png or the enormous file size .tif.

Then delete all the original photos in your slide deck. Next click insert photo, and Select All images in the folder. This will batch insert all the photos onto a slide in your deck. Then manually cut and paste each image into its original place in the deck. Finish and Save your file. Click on properties and see how much space you saved. I recently reduced an 80 MB file full of .tif images into a 2 MB file.

Visualization for the 21st Century

Cooliris is a revolutionary browser based visualization tool that changes how people communicate by moving the PC from a text based interface to a rich interactive visual experience. Expect to see Cooliris visualizations across websites like Amazon.com, news sites and in classrooms. By assembling the web into a visual pictoral menu that can easily be searched and then drilled down, the Palo Alto, California based Cooliris succeeds by speaking to the Left and Right sides of users brains , which control logic and creativity.

As Internet interfaces transition from lines of text, your presentations must also use more visual communication to remain relevant.

Presentation Tip: Cooliris will save you hours of search time by quickly laying out photos that visualize ideas, concepts and emotions in a continuous cinematic stream. Use a mind map to arrange your presentation ideas on paper. Next, structure by key message, supportive points, and credible examples. Launch Cooliris and type in keywords that describes your key points to find photos and websites that can be used in your presentation. Communicate better with visual photos and impactful ideas, which will engage both sides of people's brains!

*Remember to ensure credibility by crediting any photos and websites that you use in your presentation.