Eggblogg

Pecha Kucha - just what business presentations need?

Everything Japanese seems to have become ultra cool over the last few years. Karaoke, Hello Kitty, manga, Lost in Translation, bento...recently I came across another Japanese import, Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha nights have taken off around the world.

Basically, it's a new way of presenting with slides, designed to counteract the horror of 'death by powerpoint'.  As they say on the website: Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

I've sat through many awful presentations (although no doubt I've given a few in my time!) and this sounds like the perfect way to eliminate waffle, show-boating, embarassing 'ice breakers', slides overloaded with bullet points and all the other dreadful stuff.

PS I heard about pecha kucha through Garr Reynolds' excellent book Presentation Zen. There's a website too at http://www.presentationzen.com/

Where on earth have I been?

This is my first blog post of November - my only excuse is that I've been distracted with various other projects both aside from work and overlapping with it.

Last week was Bonfire Night, which in my home town of Lewes is bigger than Christmas. Six bonfire societies each spend all year fundraising and preparing for the 5th November, then each process through the streets with flaming torches in elaborate fancy dress, culminating with massive bonfires and what must be some of the best fireworks displays in the world. I spent many hours making my costume and then blogging about it, somewhat after the event but then there's always next year...

Then also last week was the November meeting of First Friday Lewes, and I made my first video about it which is now on the homepage. OK, so it's a bit rough round the edges, but you have to start somewhere!

Also, with a number of presentations coming up, including sessions on 'What makes a good business website' for ProftNet, I'm really enjoying reading Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and through it have just discovered Pecha-Kucha. I feel I'll be talking about this more very soon on this blog!

Interesting stuff I've read lately ...

Another great video from Common Craft, this time explaining all about phishing, in plain English. Fantastic.

Meanwhile, at e-consultancy the subject of what's the best screen resolution for your website has come up. I recently had this conversation with a client after we found that the old idea of designing for 800 x 600 was out of date, and that in fact very few people are still viewing at this resolution.

Over at the Search Engine Guide, Paul Jahn ponders how Twitter can be used for customer service. Funnily enough I've noticed how companies are tracking name checks in Twitter posts. When I recently moaned about how Lastminute.com had been a pain to deal with, suddenly @lastminute was following me. They haven't offered me a free weekend in Talinn yet though.

Part of the problem of brands using Twitter is having the 'broadcast' mentality. In a guest post on Chris Brogan's blog, Keith Burtis explores the alternatives to 'blurting' on Twitter, and if you're going to self-promote how to do it in an appropriate way.

And finally .... John Taylor spotted this example of the perfect ad where context is all. Simple but great, brimming with the 'I wish I'd thought of that!' factor.

What small businesses need to insist on when getting a website

Over two thirds of small businesses are dissatisfied with the performance of their website, according to recent research as reported in the Oct/Nov FSB magazine 'Business Network'.

61% have no actual web strategy.

45% believe the primary goal of their website is to generate leads, 22% think it's brand building, but only half of them actually measure the website's performance against those goals

I suppose this all makes a change from not long ago when we were hearing that a large chunk of the SME market didn't even have a web presence. But it illustrates how far there is still to go.

When I talk to fledgling businesses about making the most of the internet, I always remind them that a website is just a tool, not an end in itself. Getting its web presence right is often a big investment for a new business. Just like everything else you spend time & money on, it makes sense to have a rationale, even if you don't want to call it anything as high-falluting as a strategy.

Not only that, but you need to have control over your own site. For example, the site owner should be able to:

1. install Google Analytics so you can measure visitor activity (NB not just 'traffic')
2. update the content yourself – it shouldn't require any special technical skills
3. optimise the site so it can be found in searches: that means being able to edit the meta tags, especially the page Titles

These are the minimum criteria that will make a site easier to measure, modify and improve over time, without additional cost down the line. Businesses should insist on them.

Speed networking pros and cons

Last night I went to the Sussex Business Scene networking event at East Grinstead and actually enjoyed myself. As someone who can find it a bit daunting to go into a room where I may not know anyone, and make conversation, I wasn't sure whether I would. But I needn't have worried - there were a number of familiar faces there, everyone was very friendly, plus we had what was for many of us our first taste of 'speed networking'.

I'd heard about speed networking before, but couldn't really see how it could be classed as networking. The idea is that you have 30 seconds to tell someone who you are and what your business does, then they do the same, then in the last 30 seconds you have a chance to ask/answer questions. The organisers told us we should say 'what we're looking for', but I certainly found the Q & A was a more natural consequence of the initial 'telling'. After that, you move onto the next person. We did that 20 times.

On the whole it was exhilarating, and there was certainly none of that feeling of time wasting that can creep up at networking events. I could see both pros and cons to it:

Pros:

• It's a great ice breaker and can take the fear out of talking to strangers. Everyone's in the same boat, a bit bemused, ready to 'give it a go'.
• We did all get to speak to more people than we might have ordinarily, especially those of us who shy away from the idea of working a room.
• Although we only had a short time with people, of the twenty I met there were at least 2 or 3 I had some synergy with in terms of business, and they were all interesting.
• With the time limit, it focuses you and you have to be concise.
• ... or put another way, no-one is able to go on at length!

Cons:

• The situation is unnatural, so it may not be easy to relax and be yourself
• Conversation and the the finding of synergies depends on a certain amount of social lubricant - chat that doesn't necessarily involve talking about business - but speed networking doesn't encourage that
• People do business with people they like and trust, and obviously that won't happen in 90 seconds

To be fair though, the facilitators did say that this was just a preliminary, and that the speed networking merely helps you identify the people who you'd like to then have a proper conversation with afterwards.

It is something I would happily do again, and although I was sceptical before I would recommend it now, especially to networking newbies.