Take a look at my post on Pecha Kucha http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/presentation-skills/pecha-kucha-presentation/

As you’ll see I disagree that the Pecha Kucha format automatically leads to a scatter gun or random approach – although it is easy to fall into that trap. Working on your theme and outline before you design your slides is critical to avoid this.

All the best for your presentation.
Olivia

This is a very interesting subject, and will make me look again when I am presenting.
One quick question – I am doing a “Pecha Kucha” session (google it!) which is 20 slide for 20 seconds each, so somewhat scatter gun/random approach – any ideas for that!

All good wishes and thank you so much for all your insight and debate

Chantal

I’ve now published that post – written just for you .
http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/content/memorable-key-message-10-minutes/
Olivia

A little bit of kudos to me , but more importantly it sounds like the blog post might be super tailored to me (and people in my situation!)

I love that phrase “topic commitment issues” – can I use that in the blog post I’m writing to address some of the issues you’ve raised?

Olivia

Look forward to your next posts!

I’ve been mulling this over in context of a presentation I gave a few months back, which is when I first stumbled on your excellent site & guide.

After lots of mindmap brainstorming, and even starting to write using your guide, that’s when I had the Eureka moment of the key message for that particular presentation. Then all previous thoughts, notes and parts of the presentation were easy to classify in terms of how relevant they were, and which step they fell into (if any).

I would say that I normally have a eureka moment at some point when when designing a presentation (sometimes late in the process!!)

So to answer your question, I would say yes, I’m sure I could come up with a key message. Just wondering if I still may have a change of heart half way through….

Seems I have topic commitment issues…!

Thank you for both your comments. They’ve got me thinking and I will make it a topic for a blog post.

I normally work with people in the context of a course of 6-12 people. We lead them through our step-by-step process of designing a presentation. We always start with working out the key message. It can be a bit of a struggle at first, but within 5 to 10 minutes every person has their key message. It may not be the final version and may need a bit of refining, but they’ve got something to work with. So what I’m wondering is whether, if you weren’t given any choice but to come up with a key message in 5 minutes, you would be able to do it?

Olivia

I usually end up with something like your picture….but seem to require that to determine the “clever” key message.

I notice that your key message “..superannuation..” is not within the mindmap…so where does it come from?

I seem to need the topic info in front of me to determine a quirky/interesting/clever/catchy key message. Do you?