Pecha Kucha Night Part 2

The first part of my post about Pecha Kucha Volume 7 in Columbus can be found here.  Soon Part 3 will be posted.

One of the wonderful things about Pecha Kucha Night is the variety in the presenters.  Even people who have the same profession approach similar topics differently.  Some of the presenters seemed more comfortable talking into the microphone and addressing the audience than others.  All appeared to be enthusiastic or passionate about their topics. 

By my estimate, there were at least 100 people in the audience.  It was difficult to determine how many people left after the first set of presenters since many people, myself included, moved to other seats.  All of the presenters provided their slides to the organizers prior to the event to provide cohesiveness and consistency in the presentations.

Kyle Ezell / City Planning / Changing the Culture, Transforming American Cities – Kyle’s written several books on city planning.  His present focus is on turning what is considered trendy or unusual into the norm.  His slides provided visuals for his contrasts between trendy and normal.  In Columbus we practically live in our cars to travel to the other side of town or do our grocery shopping for the week in one day.  One of the points Kyle made was that by walking more often and carrying our things, we’ll increase our lives and the lives of our cities. 

Tom Hubbard / Digital Artist / Carl Jung Quotes and My Art – Tom’s presentation was probably the most unique.  His slides consisted of his artwork with a quote.  Tom provided some commentary for the titles.  It was mostly a silent presentation that offered a moment of contemplation on the artwork.  The room had the ambiance of a quiet art gallery.

Stasia Czech / Interior Designer / Authenticy – Stasia recently read the first Ziba book about authenticity and shared with the audience some of the points from the book.  Authenticity can refer to a philosophy of living.  In this case, authenticity is what makes one company different from another.  Consumers can often recognize when they are being targeted in a marketing campaign – they are a lot more intelligent about marketing than they were 20 years ago.  Her slides consisted of a timeline and companies she felt followed authenticity.

Catherine Mehrl Bennett / Artist / Kimono Collaboration – I had a preconceived notion that this would be slides of photographs of kimonos.  I was wrong and it wasn’t until I googled her that I found her book.  She collaborated with other artists and poets to design art that fit into the shape of a kimono.  Her slides were of the finished products.

Kevin Bickle / Freestyle Bike Rider  Artist / Freestyle Tricks  Art – Kevin’s first career was a freestyle bike rider.  His book took him on many travels across the country.  When he got a little bit older he gave himself over to Christ and went on one of Stephen Baldwin’s tours.  Somewhere along the way he traveled to Africa too.  Kevin’s in his 30’s now and is getting a little too old for the freestyling so he’s taken up art.  His slides consisted of pictures from both careers; you can see many of them for yourself on his site.  Kevin offered to do some of his tricks in the lobby during the intermission with the caveat that he hadn’t really done anything on it in the last two years.

I spent most of the intermission actually conversing with one of the presenters for the second half of the evening before realizing I shouldn’t monopolize all of her time.