1. Home
  2. Blog
  3. Recent Blog Posts
  4. Celebrating International PechaKucha Day at PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 36!!

Celebrating International PechaKucha Day at PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 36!!

Blog Date
Author(s)
Stuart O. Smith, Jr.
Tags
Cleveland
PechaKucha
Art
The City Club
Browns

PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 36
Enlarge Image

February 20th, 2020, marked PechaKucha 20x20's (@PechaKucha) first annual International PechaKucha Day. I was VERY fortunate to celebrate by attending Cleveland's own PechaKucha Night Cleveland (@PKNCLE) at the Music Box Supper Club (@MusicBoxCLE)!!

I always enjoy attending PechaKucha Night Cleveland and PechaKucha Night Akron (@PKAkron) events (please see my PechaKucha blog posts here), but this night ended up being special. I arrived at Music Box Supper Club after a very busy afternoon that left my energy low on this Thursday night. I ended up leaving PechaKucha Night Cleveland with a natural high. The creativity of the presenters energized me and made my week!

What follows are photos and video shared via my @sos_jr tweets and retweets. They don't begin to fully capture what these creatives presented, so I encourage you to do a Google search on all of them to learn more. You should plan on attending future events with friends with whom you want to share the experience that is PechaKucha Night Cleveland!

 

 

Pre-Event Excitement

 

 

International PechaKucha Day! #ipk2020!!!

2020 International PechaKucha Day! #ipk2020
Enlarge Image

Celebrating PechaKucha 20x20 on the 20th day of February 2020.

On this first International PechaKucha Day, I think it would be helpful to know what PechaKucha is about:

PechaKucha (Japanese for "chit chat") is the world's fastest-growing storytelling platform, used by millions around the globe.

PechaKucha is what "Show and Tell" always dreamed of becoming.

20 slides. 20 seconds of commentary per slide. That's it. Simple. Engaging. Spurring authentic connections.

PechaKucha is the ideal tool to share passions and drop some knowledge.

Global innovators use the PechaKucha platform to create powerful, visually-compelling stories that move audiences in less than 7 minutes.

. . .

PechaKucha Origins

PechaKucha began because, well, because people talk too much!

In 2003, yearning for "More show. Less tell" architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo's Klein Dytham architecture invented PechaKucha. The initial purpose: to streamline long design presentations. Sessions soon morphed into happenings: PechaKucha Nights -- first in Tokyo, then around the world. Today, more than 50,000 people present at 1,100+ global PechaKucha Nights every year. And the number keeps exploding. Today schools and business use PechaKucha to creatively and effectively engage students and employees on a range of subject matters.

 

 

February 20, 2020 - PechaKucha Cleveland Volume 36 at Music Box Supper Club

 

 

Cleveland at the Tokyo Creative Games

Exciting Announcement!!! Cleveland is Participating in BIG International PechaKucha Event in Japan!!

This summer from August 15th - August 22nd, between the Olympics and the Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan, the world will bear witness to the "Creative Games"! This eight-day celebration of creativity is going to feature speakers from around the world; all utilizing the PechaKucha Night (PKN) format. If we can raise the funds requested, we will be sending someone from Cleveland to Present at the Creative Games in Tokyo and represent the Cleveland creative community on a global stage!

. . .

Our 100% volunteer group has been hosting PKN here in Cleveland for over ten years. Since day one it has been purposefully free because we see this event as an important opportunity to bring people together and NEVER want a ticket price to be the barrier to a connection.

Having watched over ten years of presentations from Cleveland PKN presenters, we can tell you that the world could benefit from a little more of the passion that drives Cleveland forward. Our creative community deserves to be represented on the world stage and we hope you'll consider helping us make this happen.

Learn more details on the PechaKucha Cleveland GoFundMe web page at: GoFundMe.com/f/Cleveland-at-Tokyo-CreativeGames

After making a donation, you can also nominate the perfect person to represent the creative Cleveland community on the GLOBAL stage at the Creative Games.

 

 

THANK YOU, PechaKucha Night Cleveland Friends and Leadership

 

 

A Note of Thanks from PechaKucha Night Cleveland

I appreciate being acknowledged!

 

 

Let the Presentations Begin!

 

Here are the 10 presenters of the evening. They each talked for 20 seconds on each of their 20 slides:

 

 

1) Arabella Proffer - #RestroomsOfCleveland

I really appreciated that after Arabella Proffer (@VendettaBella) made her "Restrooms Of Cleveland" presentation, she made a point to find me during the break to introduce herself. As is often the case today with social media, we followed each other, but had not met in person.

She let me know of her work with Pandata (@OHpandata), since she knew of my interest in them. I had written a blog post about their great work developing a new interactive visualization system with the Cleveland Museum of Art (read blog post here). I have also written about being invited by Pandata the to attend the OHTec 2019 Annual Cleveland Best of Tech Awards (read blog post here.)

Please note that there is a typo in the hashtag in some of my tweets/retweets -- it should be #RestroomsOfCleveland

 

 

2) David Biro - Inventor and Installation Artist

 

 

3) Nicole Kusold-Matheou - Cleveland Kurentovanje

I know Nicole, since we both work on the Cleveland GiveCamp Steering Committee. It was great to learn about her work to create Cleveland Kurentovanje as a great new cultural event.

(To learn more about Cleveland GiveCamp, please visit the ClevelandGiveCamp.org website. Also, please read my Cleveland GiveCamp blog posts here.)

 

 

4) Matt Ashton - Coffee's Global Impact

 

 

5) Stephen Tomasko - Lessons From the Muni Lot

 

 

Break Time

 

 

The Great PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 36 Presenters and Organizers!!

I was asked to take a photo of the presenters and organizers during the break.

 

 

6) David Wilson - Making Rust Belt Arcana

 

 

7) Loree Vick - Don't Waste That Pain

 

 

8) Scott Colosimo - Cleveland Cyclewerks

 

 

9) Derek Brennan - Artist

 

 

10) Dan Moulthrop - Helping Democracy Thrive

The evening ended with a talk by Dan Moulthrop, which was very moving to me, about how we need to work to keep our democracy. He also shared information about the work of The City Club, of which he is the Chief Executive Officer. Over the years, I have written many blog posts about The City Club which you can read here.

 

 

Thanks to all the presenters for a fabulous evening on #ipk2020!!!

 

 

Go Fund Me

 

 

I'm energized by the excitement that is PechaKucha Night Cleveland

 

 

Visiting Brite Winter #Brite2020 Staging Area

Like last year, when PechaKucha Night Cleveland (@PKNCLE) was also at the Music Box Supper Club (@MusicBoxCLE), I took time after the event to look around the Cleveland Flats to see where they were setting up for Brite Winter 2020 (@Britewinter - #Brite2020). Learn more in my Brite Winter blog posts from 2014 to present.

 

 

Cleveland Metroparks "Cleveland Foundation Centennial Trail Lake Link"

While I was in the Cleveland Flats, I also looked at the Cleveland Metroparks' (@CleveMetroparks) nighttime lighting along the Cleveland Foundation (@CleveFoundation) Centennial Lake Link Trail. Learn more about the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Lake Link Trail in my blog posts:

 

 

12:35 am - A Great Evening Comes to a Close

 

 

More . . .

 

 

Do you like living in a democracy? If so, we need to work to keep it!!

The day after PechaKucha Night Cleveland, we are still tweeting about the importance of democracy.

 

 

Cleveland GiveCamp

While at PechaKucha Night Cleveland, I was introduced to a person who is interested in Cleveland GiveCamp (@CleGiveCamp). After I followed up with him, he is now interested in having his company become a Cleveland GiveCamp 2020 sponsor!!! (Please see sponsorship opportunities here.)

 

 

 

Related Blog Posts

I have now written fourteen blog posts about the great PechaKucha events (click here to view) in Cleveland (@PKNCLE) and also in Akron (@PKAkron).

If you are interested in learning more about PechaKucha Night Cleveland, please see these nine blog posts:

In 2016, the PechaKucha Night Cleveland leadership team (@PKNCLE) asked me to do a special PechaKucha Talk at the first-time-ever PechaKucha Night Cleveland Past Presenters Happy Hour. See my PechaKucha slides, video of my talk, and read more in our blog post: A PechaKucha Talk by Stuart O. Smith, Jr., about PechaKucha Night Cleveland

I really appreciate the PechaKucha Night Cleveland leadership team, presenters, and sponsors, and want to thank them for all these great events.