Pecha Kucha for Haiti

http://www.pecha-kucha.org/presentations/83

This Pecha Kucha was created to inform the audience about Architecture for Humanity and what they stand for and do. The group is a non profit organization that does charitable work around the world. Their mission is twofold- their primary function is to build structures for communities that can't afford to themselves (this could be schools, medical centers, homes, etc), and their second is to show the locals how to create many of these things on their own. The presentation seems to have been created in response to questions about what the organization was planning to do in Haiti. It goes through an introduction of what they are and what they do, then a list of examples of projects they've already completed, and finally shows what they plan to do in Haiti in particular. Its audience seems to be those who are curious about Haiti relief efforts and are looking to find out more about what's going on and the organizations that are involved.

This presentation makes great use of the Pecha Kucha format. The goal of the slideshow is to show as much about the organization as possible in a short time, and Pecha Kucha's constantly changing slides accomplish this very well. The images are basically all pictures of previous Architecture for Humanity projects. This works well to show the viewer a wide range of buildings that the organization has already completed. This serves to give credibility; the viewer sees that this isn't just one guy talking about his grand plans for charity, but that it's a group that already has numerous accomplishments under their belts. The narration then gives the actual information- what the organization is, what they do, and a little about the projects themselves. The speaker starts off a bit shaky- he seems like he is nervous about speaking, using lots of “um's” and “ah's,” but he gets his feet back under himself after the first few slides. Throughout the whole presentation, he does speak extremely fast- this is probably an artifact of the Pecha Kucha system, since he has a limited time to get all the information in. Overall though, his presentation of the information is very effective, and he gets all of his points across without losing the interest of the viewers.

If I were to use this format, I think it would work well for my argument. The slides would give me a chance to add flavor and keep the audience interested, as well as allow me to put in relevant charts and graphs (useful for the section about budget). The narration would allow me to give my argument in a meaningful and convincing manner. The only place I'd really need to bend the rules is using some figures and graphs in the slides instead of just pictures.