Word of the Week: Pecha Kucha

Pecha kucha: A presentation format in which each presenter is limited to 20 slides at 20 seconds each, for a total presentation length of 6 minutes, 40 seconds.

Pecha kucha was conceived and named by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham, a western architecture firm in Tokyo; the first event—Klein and Dytham called it PechaKucha 20x20—was held in Tokyo in February 2003. The concept spread around the world, especially among the design community.

Pecha kucha (sometimes spelled PechaKucha; its creators have obtained trademark protection for PechaKucha Night) is the transliteration of an onomatopoetic Japanese term that means "chit chat." It's pronounced as three syllables: pe-CHALK-cha. The format is often described as "the antidote to death by PowerPoint." Other informal definitions include "attention-deficit theater" and "the Twitter of slide presentations."

According to the official PechaKucha.org website:

Good PechaKucha presentation [sic] are the ones that uncover the unexpected, unexpected talent, unexpected ideas. Some PechaKuchas tell great stories about a project or a trip. Some are incredibly personal, some are incredibly funny, but all are very different making each PechaKucha Night like 'a box of chocolates'.

UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business recently hosted its first Pecha Kucha Night, "Dimensions in Design: The Evolving Role of Design in Business." Read the live Twitter stream from the event here. PK Nights take place monthly (mostly) in San Francisco, Chicago, London, and other cities.

A similar presentation format, Ignite, was started in Seattle in 2006. Ignite limits presenters to 20 slides at 15 seconds each.

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Do you, like me, have trouble seeing "pecha kucha" without thinking of gutta-percha or Esa-Pekka Salonen?

Comments

[Duchesse]

We've done this where I've worked, it's a fun way to stop people from vomiting slides. Not knowing any better, we pronounced it Peach-ah Kooch-a.

[Jessica]

Or peche melba? Esa-Pekka, would you like some peche melba on a plate made of gutta-percha? Maybe, maybe not.

[ASHOK]

Hello Fritinancy and all! The term "Pecha kucha" seemed to me pretty similar to a Panjabi/Hindi term " Pukka-Kucha" which has been in use in India for hundreds of years. Even British Rulers used these words. "Pukka" is still a slang-term used in British English to describe something as "first class" or "absolutely genuine" and the opposite of "Pukka" is "Kucha" which means "raw" in Hindi The word 'pakkā' also means solid,ripe having its roots in Sanskrit word 'pakva'. The word Pukka is also frequently used in today's Hindi and Panjabi language in India like- Pukka naa? which in English means- Are you sure? The words- "Kucha" and "Pukka" are also used in present-day's government records to describe the categories of houses in India like "Pukka" houses and "Kucha" houses ( 'Kucha' house means a house made of mud and clay whereas "Pukka" house means a house made of bricks and cement etc. So I think these words are native of Indian languages only and the term "Pecha Kucha" as claimed above is a derivative of indian term- Kucha-Pukka" and have been borrowed from Hindi/Sanskrit by other laguages, bet it Japanese , Western or else.
Thank you!

ASHOK
Brand Brewer & Domainologist

[Nancy Friedman]

@Ashok: Interesting theory, but I'm pretty certain it's a coincidence. "Pecha kucha" is a *very* approximate transliteration; the Japanese is pronounced in three syllables, "pe-CHALK-cha," and is (as I said) an onomatopoetic word meaning "chit chat." It's not even close to "pukka."

There are countless examples of false cognates in unrelated languages: in Hebrew, a word pronounced "dog" means "fish." Or see my post about Ardipithecus Ramidus: http://bit.ly/P2Rv