Daniel Pink at Wired discusses (and demonstrates) Phecha-Kucha, a performance-art/presentation technique that involves 20 slides each displayed for 20 seconds (640 seconds total). Although invented by two Tokyo architects as more of a performance and competition, the whole thing cries out to be made a rule the majority of slide-based presentations.

People slam PowerPoint as if it were some irresistible force that turned the most eloquent speaker into a droning bore. But while PowerPoint certainly creates a framework for presentations that can easily become boring, I can't see any real correlation between "Boring Talks" and "PowerPoint" in my experience. I've seen a huge number of boring talks using PowerPoint, but also a much huger number of boring talks using 35 mm slide projectors, chalk boards, whiteboards, and just idiots flapping their arms around. (Invariably, in fact, I'm that idiot.) But I'm all in favor of people trying to do something interesting with their time, even if it's just imposing a new framework like Pecha-Kucha on their presentations.

Pink's demo at YouTube, btw, is a great discursion on how signs work.

[via Wired]