Comments on: Why I don’t write about Architecture

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:57:31 +0000

Semantics aside I really liked the article on Pecha Kucha. For a while we’ve been trying to speed up presentations by fanatically boring members of staff more interested in the podium than the information. It gave us a reason to focus on information, not waffle.

On PC Pro writers being “hacks”, frankly one would hope you’ve enough professional respect in your own ability to not be bothered by such comments!

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 13:39:08 +0000

Come on David, you must have come across the idea of the Irregular Verb! The classic example is “I am firm but fair, you micromanaage, he is a tyrant” (all referring to the same behaviour).

The journalistic equivalent is “I am a senior award winning figure; you are a part-time enthusiast; he is a hack”…

It’s all a matter of where you stand!

By: David Wright

David Wright — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:21:40 +0000

Oops, that should have been “you guys aren’t hacks…”

Damned laptop! I’ll be glad when I’m back home and have a real keyboard to work with!

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:32:00 +0000

In retrospect, the reference to Keynote was confusing. I don’t think it’s even needed for a lack of temptation: I think they just use it in the circumstances Barry mentioned as a way of stopping people inserting rule-breakers in the material – but the crucial point is, Keynote was always only ever used by a small group of event runners, to open & show Powerpoint presentations written by entrants, on their PCs.

So the whole trail of references are a bit like talking to people who think you’re not allowed to take a right-hand-drive car to Europe.

By: David Wright

David Wright — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:41:56 +0000

Pecha Kucha is a methodolgy for producing short and sweet (or is that sweaty) presentations. It started off with slideshows of architecture and holiday photos, ISTR.

They had presentation evenings, where 10 or so presenters were lined up and they each had to do a Pecha Kucha presentation. It meant that they had to really think about their messages and chose the images for the slides very carefully. The evenings have been a great success and visitors and presenters for the original evenings, in Tokyo, are on very long waiting lists, I believe.

A lot more thought has to go into PK, because you have to get your message across in such a short space of time.

That said, Keynote does not “support” Pecha Kucha, it is just that many of the people who are open to the idea use Macs. There is nothing to stop them using PowerPoint on the Mac or PowerPoint for Windows.

It is probably more of a fact that Keynote concentrates more on the basics, so you are less tempted to fiddle with word art, crappy slide change animations and swooping lines circling around their place before landing

Don’t worry, you guys are hacks, at least not most of the time ;.)