My PechaKucha Speech

On July 9, I was honored to be invited to speak at the all new PechaKucha Bangkok. Yeah, I know, I think it’s a weird name too, but it’s a pretty cool concept. Basically, it started in Japan as a forum for designers and creative people to get together and share their ideas and concepts. Since then, it’s expanded to most major cities around the world, and a friend took it upon himself to organize one here. It works like this – a handful of presenters has to do a presentation using only 20 PowerPoint slides, each one for only 20 seconds. It’s a great format for a presentation, because every speaker has exactly the same amount of time, and it encourages presenters to be quick and punchy in their presentation style. When I was asked to present, I chose my favorite hobby (besides nerding out online) – riding my bike in Bangkok.

I decided to talk about how technology has enhanced my riding experience in Bangkok, a huge, confusing city criscrossed with highways, roads, lanes, alleys and tiny little gaps between buildings, all of which combine to provide a huge and interesting canvas to explore by bicycle. It took me about a week but I managed to put together a presentation where I compare how I used to ride to how I ride now, with an explanation of how I use Google Maps and my iPhone’s GPS to plan trips around the city.

The actual presentation went okay, I guess. To be honest I wasn’t at all happy with the venue, Nest. Although it’s a beautiful space that’s fun to go to at any other time (my wife and I considered having our wedding reception there), they simply aren’t set up for presentations. Indeed, it took them almost an hour to figure out how to get their mic to work, and even then only to a low volume. It forced the speakers to yell to be heard, and caused us to start an hour later than planned. The projector also projected the slides too large, causing the top 1/4 of the screen to be cut off on their awkwardly-shaped screen. But other than that, the presentations were all interesting, and done by people passionate about their particular cause. Here’s a video I put together of my presentation, with re-recorded audio for clarity.