The next event that FIT atten­ded was This Happened at Shored­itch Town Hall, Fri­day 25th Septem­ber 2009. The concept of this event was to high­light stor­ies behind inter­ac­tion design, open­ing up meth­ods and ideas behind the cre­at­ive pro­cesses. As usual FIT arrived late, after being dis­trac­ted by the Mov­ing Brands open stu­dio held a stones throw from the Town Hall. This means we missed two present­a­tions out of a total of four.
Nick: I always find present­a­tions very dif­fi­cult. What’s your opin­ion on this?

Kana: Present­a­tions get bet­ter every time you do them. I think care­fully defined struc­ture is vital to present­a­tions, not just the per­form­ance. Present­a­tions often may not be the most favour­ite part for cre­at­ive people. How­ever bril­liant ideas can’t just be spon­tan­eously recog­nised by poten­tial investors.

Nick: There are mil­lions of great ideas, but usu­ally it’s only those thought about in great details that suc­ceed. There are also a mul­ti­tude of ways to present these ideas, but the com­mon thread among every suc­cess­ful present­a­tions is con­cise and cor­rect structure.

Kana: Yes I think that’s right.

Nick: Being pre­cise is an import­ant factor. Without this your present­a­tion can have no impact.

Kana: Pecha Kucha Night, first star­ted in Tokyo by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, has a clever way of con­trolling cre­at­ive present­a­tions by only allow­ing 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This means the presenter is given 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. I think it helps keep present­a­tions con­cise, without los­ing the interest of the audi­ences. This method also increases the num­ber of presenters per night. Though I have never atten­ded this event, it’s become very pop­u­lar among cre­at­ives world­wide. Without these strict rules I ima­gine it would never have been able to deliver the impact it has achieved.

Nick: When con­sid­er­ing each minute of a present­a­tion, it becomes much easier to be pre­cise. It’s not often neces­sary to include every piece of inform­a­tion about the pro­ject, merely the most import­ant.

Kana: There are things we need to think about, such the audi­ence and how to appeal to them. How­ever what becomes the most import­ant ele­ment is the mes­sage deliv­ery. Every present­a­tion has dif­fer­ent pur­pose, whatever the goal is, it needs to be achieved, oth­er­wise it becomes a failure.

Nick: Whether it be busi­ness or per­sonal, failed present­a­tions can harm your cre­at­ive spirit. No one wants to fail, good pre­par­a­tion can pre­vent this.

Kana: This reminds me of Dragon’s Den. Suc­cess­ful cre­at­ives can also be cre­at­ive in the busi­ness aspect of a pro­ject. No one wants a Duncan Ban­natyne to say “I’m out!”.