Authenticity is the new Cool and other lessons from my Pecha Kucha Session at ASAE 2008

What\'s Your Learning Story? (ASAE & The Center 2008 San Diego)

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Jeff De Cagna and I conducted a session at ASAE using the Japanese presentation format Pecha Kucha, where the entire presentation is done using 20 slides (images only, minimal or no text) for a maximum of 20 seconds each (totaling 6 minutes and 40 seconds). Our question was, "What's your learning story?" and we hit each of our slides one by one for a few seconds each, going back and forth starting with me and ending with Jeff's last slide. We each said, "I learned that..." and went on to describe a moment, or theme, or statistic or whatever idea of something that we had learned throughout the annual meeting. We then asked the attendees at each table to come up with their own, and finally opened up the floor so everyone could share their learning stories.

I can only comment here on my slides, so perhaps Jeff will do the same for some of his in the comments or on his blog, but I thought I would expand on a few just for the benefit of those who were not in the session.

[UPDATE - Jeff's slide commentary is here.]

Slide 3 - self explanatory. San Diego - wow. 'Nuff said!

Slides 5 (and 6) - breaking the code - these were about diversity, building on comments from Patti Digh in the opening general session. How you have to see the code before you can break it, you have to change the structure of the land.

Slide 7 - the rise of Twitter and mobile technology as vehicles for engaging the groundswell.

Slide 9 - the proof is in the pictures... YAP is off the charts. And I'm not just saying that 'cause it was my party... : )

Slide 11 and 17 - these were mindblowing statistics I heard, about China and India. The differences in scale just puts everything into perspective (or it should!)

Slide 13 - this was about the fact that there are still people who don't know the difference between a blog and a wiki (hopefully no-one reading this...!), as we discovered at the bloggercon. As someone who is claiming to help people understand these things, I have to remember that and make sure I can speak to people at every level from "toe-dipping" to full dive.

Slide 15 - the power of social media is not only that it can create a session of 200+ attendees out of thin air, but that it can move its location... twice!

Slide 19 - one of my favorites - a reference to YAP again, this is about how you can be open to everyone but still make people feel that they are part of something special.

Slide 21 - it's all about trust, but it is NOT the association itself that is trusted - members trust other members. Associations have to enable that trust, have to create a space where trust can grow.

We got really fantastic audience participation, and I promised to type the learning stories up and share them, so here they are:

I learned that…

- Segways make you think differently.

- You can create user-generated sessions (example from Podcamp, a conference on social media)

- It’s all about member engagement.

- Control is an illusion.

- Volunteers are not being treated well enough!

- Trust your volunteers!

- You have to repeat, repeat, repeat…

- You can get to know someone 140 characters at a time.

- Twitter can build community.

- Diversity is tough. What can I do to make a difference?

- Authenticity is the new Cool.

- We can meet people online before we do in real life.

- There are too many tactics in this conference, not enough real strategy.

- Social media breaks down artificial barriers between people, like age differences – levels the playing field.

- “Social media is my dancefloor”!

- Don’t be afraid to get to know people – everyone is unique.

- Associations must stop defining for others what we think is important.

- Networking works!

- Think ahead, act now.

- Entertainment value is underrated for learning.

- Ideas are free, it’s only the scale that differs – you can modify for small staff associations

- Gen Y’s lack of fear about privacy issues could be our salvation with regards to diversity.

- Listening is powerful.

- Green is good but takes time and diligence.

- There is always more to learn.

And finally…

- Ticketing sessions does not work.

How's that for some awesome learning stories!!! You could write a novel for each of those!

I heard from several people afterwards that they really loved this format. Here's a good post from Sue Pelletier, not from this conference but another one where she attended a Pecha Kucha session, which sums up very nicely how this can be used in many different ways. Personally, despite the self-induced stress of having to come up with the whole slideshow about 2 hours before the actual presentation and then just do it unrehearsed (hello diving into the deep end for me, as a newbie presenter!), I thought this was a perfect way to get more visual. (Of course, had we actually had the two lavaliere mikes we asked for, I would have been dancing around the room as well, instead of being tethered to Jeff... but you can't win 'em all!) I HATE traditional powerpoint presentations, almost as much as I hate handouts that are just a printout of those crappy slides, so it was truly enlightening to be able to experiment with pictures and to find that people actually got a lot out of it. And, being able to sit down and take discussion after only 6 minutes was an added bonus!

Thanks to everyone who attended - I definitely plan to use this format again.