The Future of Student Affairs in 6 Minutes and 40 Seconds… The Future of Higher Education in 6 Minutes and 40 Seconds… The Future of Anything in 6 minutes and 40 seconds…
The “Future Series” is something I first conceived of back in the Summer of 2012. The Future series entails a diverse group of colleagues coming together to present mini-presentations on their prognostications for the future. These presentations use a PechaKucha style, a format that entails a presenter speaking over 20 slides, each set to advance every 20 seconds, producing a talk of exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
For a session during the 2103 ACPA National Convention, I rallied some colleagues together to present a series of these PechaKuchas under the title, “The Future of Student Affairs in 6 Minutes and Forty Seconds.” The session was so successful, it ended up drawing a standing-room-only crowd of over 400 people. (!!!) To my knowledge, this was the first use of the PechaKucha presentation style at any education, higher education or student affairs conference.
Since then, the Future Series has proven to be a hit, with a second presentation focusing on Higher Education occurring at the ASHE National Conference in the Fall of 2013. Others have also taken to the PechaKucha presentation style. Kristen Renn organized a session of Ignite talks (a variation on PechaKucha) for the 2013 American Educational Research Association National Conference and ACPA adopted an entire evening session dedicated to the mini-presentations for their 2014 National Convention.
The Future Series has been so warmly received, I’d like to share it with you so you can organize your own session. Feel free to reuse the resources below. The only thing I ask in return is that contact me to let me know you’re going to use them and include an attribution back to my website and Twitter account. Let me know if you need any help. Thanks!
What is PechaKucha?
PechaKucha is a presentation style that entails a presenter speaking over 20 slides, each set to advance every 20 seconds, producing a talk of exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Speaking over automatically timed slides requires impeccable timing and good presentation skills. A variation on PechaKucha is Ignite, which is similar to PechaKucha, but the 20 slides are each set to advance every 15 seconds, producing a talk of 5 minutes in length.
My blog posts about PechaKucha and Ignite presentation styles:
- PechaKucha is Coming to the #ACPA13 Convention
- The Futre of Student Affairs in Six Minutes and Forty Seconds
- The Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat: Presenting PechaKucha style at #ACPA13
- Ignite!-ing AERA
- Heading to St. LouASHE: The Future in 6:40 Revisited
Generic Title and Abstract Text:
The Future of XXX in Six Minutes and Forty Seconds
[Number of presenters] presenters at various stages in their careers were given the task of pondering “the future of XXX.” Addressing this theme through (number of presentations) short PechaKucha-style presentations, presenters will each speak over a series of 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds. The topics include: X, X, … and X.
(The above is written if the PechaKucha format is used. You can modify this to fit an Ignite or other presentation format.)
Reusable Introductory Slidedeck:
(Again, the above is formatted for a PechaKucha format. If you’re using the Ignite or other format, let me know and I can send you something with a few quick edits.)
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