Last night was Edmonton’s ninth Pecha Kucha Night, a completely sold out event held at the Royal Alberta Museum. It was the first time in Edmonton that Pecha Kucha has been sold out in advance of the doors opening. Last night was also the first PKN in Edmonton to be live-streamed, thanks to the Edmonton Journal. You can check out their video archive here. Edmonton Next Gen also recorded the event, and will be posting video to YouTube in the near future.
In order of appearance, these were the presenters at PKN9:
- Mack Male, Edmonton Blogger
- Bryce Croucher, Print Designer
- Dr. Kim Raine, Co-Director & Professor
- Kevin Kossowan, Food Writer
- Joseph Ahorro, Researcher and Ph D Candidate
- Duncan Kinney, Sustainability Nerd
- Jennifer Hoyer, Librarian
- Jennifer Livermore, Architectural Technology Student, Closet Activist, Renovator
- Nadine Riopel, Philanthropy Enthusiast
- Sean Healy, Software Developer & Man About Town and Adam Rozenhart, Digital Strategist & Man About Town
Our hosts for the evening were Ryan Stark and Next Gen’s new Community Co-Chair, Tegan Martin-Drysdale. They once again used iPad’s during their introduction to the evening, which was very obviously scripted. I kind of wish they had gone a bit more free-form and had some fun with it. Their job really was to keep things on track however, and they did just that.
Overall I thought last night’s presentations were pretty good. Most people even decided to leave the cue cards and other notes behind! The evening had its usual up and down feel as topics varied from serious to funny and presenters brought different levels of energy to the stage. I was up first, so I did my best to set the bar high! I felt like my talk went well, but I’ll be writing more about that later.
Without a doubt my favorite talk of the evening was Sean and Adam’s finale. They did such a great job of presenting a topic that is of great interest to nextgenners in a completely accessible and fun way. Who knew you could talk about curbing suburban growth and the importance of public transportation in that way?! Their six minutes and forty seconds were filled with laughter, cheers, and some light-hearted jabs at Councillor Iveson and Mayor Mandel. Sean and Adam absolutely nailed it – great job guys!
Kevin’s talk on his family’s food system was another favorite of mine. He did a great job of talking about something personal without sounding self-interested. He was authentic, funny, and got his story across very effectively. If you haven’t already checked out his blog, do it now. I also really enjoyed Nadine’s talk on philanthropy. I thought she gave us food for thought and I loved her ignore-the-images-and-just-talk approach. It doesn’t always work, but for Nadine it did. Aside from myself, Nadine was the only other presenter who had spoken at PKN before, and I’m glad she was able to put PKN5 behind her. Duncan’s talk on energy was really great as well – I especially enjoyed his graph on the percentage of Albertans that are awesome.
Joseph, Kim, and Jennifer L. had the more serious talks of the evening. Jennifer H. delivered a really interesting talk on storytelling, and Bryce was perhaps the most memorable of all the presenters last night. He broke all the rules and basically went on a high-energy rant for 7 or 8 minutes!
Twitter was busy as always, this time with the hashtag #pkn9. Since midnight on March 4, there have been 974 related tweets posted here in Edmonton. Here are your top ten #pkn9 tweeters:
Here’s a word cloud of #pkn9 tweets from that same time period (with #pkn9, #yeg, and RT removed):
If you’d like to read through the stream, you can do so here. I archived it (seemed appropriate given my topic).
Some other thoughts on the evening:
- Edmonton Next Gen consistently has creative and interesting marketing materials for PKN, and this time was no different. The fridge magnet design by Graphos even made the Pecha Kucha Daily blog.
- I thought it was great to have the after-party at the same venue, but I wish the space had been a little bigger. It definitely felt cramped before and after the presentations.
- The theatre itself worked really well, minus the inability for the presenters to walk around freely.
- I love that Next Gen got Molson and Copper Moon to donate the evening’s alcohol proceeds to the Hope Mission.
- Be sure to check out Brittney’s recap here and Sarah’s recap here.
- There are some great photos up on Flickr, courtesy of Fish Griwkowsky. There is also a nice gallery from the Edmonton Journal here.
The next Pecha Kucha Night in Edmonton, known as PKNX, is scheduled to take place in June at the Alberta Aviation Museum. Thanks to Edmonton Next Gen for another great event, to all of the volunteers for making it happen, and to everyone who attended or watched online! Stay tuned to @EdmNextGen for updates.
MasterMaq's Blog 
2 thoughts on “Pecha Kucha Night: Edmonton #9”