I don’t know about you, but every single time someone mentions “Pecha Kucha” I think about the Horrible Histories song about the Incan Lord “Pachakuti”… Do the “Pecha Kucha” (it’s quite a catchy song)…

Horrible Histories – Pachacuti from Matty driver on Vimeo.

Pecha Kucha actually has nothing to do with Incas.  In fact, they are a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds with each slide advancing automatically and you talk along to the images.

I can’t imagine any ancient Incan Lord wanting to use this format so I’d take the opportunity to present a Pecha Kucha any day over being a human sacrifice in their rituals.  Doesn’t the mind work in mysterious ways?

Later this year, I will be presenting at the Change Management Institute Global Conference, Change in the Age of Disruption and one of the requirements is to deliver a Pecha Kucha on our selected topic. I had been thinking about integrating my talk around social learning with a particular project that I’m working on (Knitting a QR Code) however, as my knitted QR codes are failing to scan and I’m at my wits end with them, I had to change the topic slightly.  So instead of doing a talk on how a group of knitters around the world are learning and collaborating with each other using social tools to create QR codes, (and of course weave it into how people in organisations extract learning from their work – it’s not just about knitting you know…) I made it more general to:  “What Organisations Can Learn About Social Learning from Knitters”.

I’ve never had to create a Pecha Kucha before. Truth be told, I’m fearful of public speaking at the best of times.  So having to be up on stage for a short period of time as well as talk about a topic I’m passionate about is a welcome relief.

How Did I Approach this Task?

First of all, at the time of agreeing to present at the conference, I wanted to talk about a specific project that I had worked on.

I really hate presenting ‘lecture’ style presentations and prefer to talk about stories and my own experiences because I feel it’s easier for me up on the stage.  If it’s your own story, you’re the one who is best able to convey the need, the emotions, the people and the situation.  However, I wanted a new and different project that I hadn’t blogged about previously.  I toyed with the idea of going through my journals to see what projects I had worked on in the past and if I could glean a key message around social learning through them.

I didn’t have to wait so long. Within one week, Lisa Noble (@NobleKnits) asked the world through Twitter if there were any knitters who were keen to have a go at knitting a QR code and then share their experiences.  She was going to present her findings at an academic conference in Canada this year.  This was my project.  I immediately saw the link of social learning with other knitters on a shared project and one in which we could openly narrate our work (work out loud).  I will be able to have something that I could “Show and Tell” during my own conference and which had unique curious appeal.  I had mental images of people holding up their phones and scanning my knitted QR code that would take them to my blog.

But What Happened?

So even before I started to Google “Pecha Kucha template”, I started to knit.  My knitted QR code was much more intriguing for me.  I knitted the first square by following a pattern I had BOUGHT (yes, I actually bought a pattern online) that clarified how to create a square and pixelated QR code, what yarn and needles to use.  After I knitted the square, I blocked it (stretched it to be a totally equal sized square) and then excitedly, rushed for my mobile phone.  My heart was pumping.  Was this going to scan to my website?

Well, no it didn’t.  Despite trying multiple times and stretching the knitted block and retrying, it simply wasn’t picking up the code.

So Then What Happened?

I tweeted out in panic for some ideas and even took the knitted block to my knitting group.  As we sat in a cafe on a rainy Sunday afternoon, they deliberated my square and promptly announced that by default, a knitted square can never actually be a total square and the knit stitch itself cannot be like a square pixel.  I had to do use thinner needles and try again.  I unravelled the whole lot and started again.  You can see that unravelling here in this video:

The next attempt was smaller with thinner needles and it came out as a tightly knit square but did it scan? Nope.

Second & smaller knitted QR code is complete. It fails to scan. I’ll block it & try again. Not doing one 3rd time!! pic.twitter.com/kqgKHV0paj

— Helen Blunden (@ActivateLearn) July 18, 2015

So I tossed the knitting aside and it was high time to focus on creating the Pecha Kucha around what I had learned and the experience of working on this “pesky” problem with a group of people around the world as well as my local knitting community using a variety of online resources (both free and paid) to help me and others solve how we were going to get these knitted squares to scan.  Maybe I could do a Pecha Kucha on this experience as it was social learning in action?

So What Did You Do?

I thought about my audience of Change Managers and asked myself that the knitted QR code is too specific for them. They may have considered me too frivolous – and not made the connection between learning and solving workplace problems.  The key message of  extracting learning from the work through working out loud may have been too nebulous.  Maybe I had to use the Pecha Kucha to explain how I got into Social Learning through my knitting groups as a teaser first and then, during my 90 minute session with them later in the day, actually use  different tools and apps on particular workplace problems they have currently so that they can brainstorm some ideas to solve these.

Then What?

I googled Pecha Kucha template and found one online that has the 20 slides and the timing already on each slide.  It’s a Power Point template and all you need to do is to insert the photos in each slide.  Then, in Word, I created a numbered table of 20 rows and 2 colums.  On each slide, I wrote a couple of sentences so that my story could flow.

Some of the photos I had from my own collection (taken by yours truly with a selfie stick) while many others were found from a great photo site called Photos for Class which attribute each of the selected photos.  I trawled through the blogs of my knitting group to find photos of the actual knit camp that I was talking about in my presentation and even contacted the same guest house to get permission to use their photos in my presentation.

I practiced the script a few times over to cut down each slide to 20 seconds and then decided to narrate the whole lot into iMovie and create a video and audio file from it so that I could share it with you.  Obviously, on the day of the conference, I will be speaking to them instead.

All in all, the actual Pecha Kucha template and pulling together the photos and the script didn’t take too long (approximately 6 hours).  However, it took me much longer for the overall process because I wanted to narrate my own personal project and story around the knitting community working on a current problem of the Knitted QR Code to use it as the theme and messages that linked back to organisational learning.

I wouldn’t mind doing these again in the near future and I’m looking forward to presenting this to the conference later this year.  I hope I don’t stuff it up!!

Have you done any Pecha Kuchas and can share your experience? I’d love to know your tips and techniques.  There is a great site called Pecha Kucha that has abundant resources and some fabulous presentations that you can also view.

Photo Attribution:
-Teenage Confusion: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pabak/14188977646
-Tasma House:
Carla Linkous Max Gallery – https://picasaweb.google.com/117581955737217911092/TasmaHouseAndGardens?feat=flashalbum#5528200767389515842
-KW Knitters Guild https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwkg/8366429313
-Ravelry Meetup Stitches West 2008 Photo by Milele
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2207/2289913088_d65b396a3c_z.jpg
-Tangled Yarn Mess by Starshaped
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2208/2322342390_cdae895659_o.jpg
-Yarn Bomb House by Flickriver Larry He’s So Fine
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/491/18382739593_05158e0490.jpg

 

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