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Storytelling & My Masterful Audience Skills

Pecha Kucha (pronounced “peh chak cha”) is Japanese meaning “chit chat.” Pecha Kucha  has a simply said, but probably harder to do, rule: each speaker gets 20 slides and 20 seconds of each slide for their story. 20X20 = 400 seconds, end of story. Period. Pecha Kucha is like a cross between storytelling and TED talks (ted.com) -at least the Pecha Kucha Night of Philadelphia #9 reminded me of this cross combo. Their Pecha Kucha consisted of, what I would consider, soaring above average speakers. The host himself is a PhD researcher at Penn. As ‘birds of a feather,’ a lot of people there went to Penn and/or are currently apart of the staff at Penn (young staff at that). Needless to say I felt my usual self: a really good audience member.

My (also really smart) friend and I drove to West Philly, gave the suggested $5 donation upon arrival, and tipped the large ceramic pot after pouring ourselves Solo™ red cups of Yellow Tail. As my good audience member self, sitting front-‘n-center is respectful to the speakers, so we did just that. There were seven speakers with an “Iron Pecha Kucha” (Iron Chef style) involving three people at the end. I attentively listened and took notes. Here’s a bullet point breakdown of each talk:

+ Chris Sha
    Working for non-profits & inner-city schools with no budget and little support.

+ Chris Wink
    Social entrepreneurship is the solution to Philly’s lack of ‘greatness.’ Co-founded technicallyphilly.com.

+ Matthew Malham
    Promoting beekeepers, as he is one of them. January is the best time to become a beekeeper!

+ Shakey Lyman
    Philly Blues artist with a boasting personality for himself and Philly’s blues scene.

+ RA Friedman
    A self-titled figurative artist. His specialty evolved into photography which can be viewed at steampunkphoto.com

+ Jen Marvelous
    Teacher turned nurse turned researcher on the origins of medicines, specifically aspirin -Weeping Willow trees 6,000 years ago, and morphine -poppies from Turkey with two wars in China under its belt.

+ Lindsay Miller
    Love & relationships’ 3 red flags: 1) Your friends not liking someone. 2) Fighting. 3) One person pulls the weight of the relationship.

As Lindsay Miller is from Los Angeles, when the Iron Pecha Kucha rolled out with 3 different stories from the same 20 slides (arranged in any order), the guy who told his ‘love story’ -read: first make-out session- won. Los Angeles still takes the gold for persuasive and biggest mouth. Kudos.

I very much recommend any and every body to go to their local Pecha Kucha. This was my first time going and that nervous newness melted away almost instantaneously. If you have any more questions in regards to mastering the art of being an audience member, feel free to ask.

Here is more information on Pecha Kucha in general: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/
Here is Pecha Kucha Philly Chapter:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/43011883327/