How do we carve out a democratic future in these highly uncertain times? My partner on the Purple State project wrote a brilliant analysis of where we are now. As we’ve traveled the country screening our little movie that could, we’ve found audiences are desperate for some viable ways to work together across our political/religious/cultural divides. With television’s talking heads continuing to turn up the volume (Tea parties! Swine flu!, etc.), where can we find both sanity and creativity?

 A bright student of mine, John Lui, sent me this practical suggestion: try Pecha Kucha—an onomonopoetic Japanese word for good old fashioned “chit chat.”

Have you ever suffered through a PowerPoint presentation that felt as if it would never end? Maybe even in one of my classes?! Two Tokyo-based architects came up with a refreshing alternative. They offered a microphone and a projector to creative types with particular restraints. Presenters were allowed to show 20 powerpoint slides for 20 seconds each—just six minutes and forty seconds to make your point, state your case, and dazzle your audience. But this is more than an accommodation to audiences with shorter attention spans.  It is a dynamic way to pack lots of ideas into a compact space and place.   Topics range from “Social Change through Creation with Prison Inmate” to “Kafkanistan.” It may include fashion designers, filmmakers or skateboarders.  But the event is low-fi throwback to the days of magic lanterns and putting on a slide show.

Since its modest beginnings in 2003, Pecha Kucha evenings, featuring 10 or 12 or at most 20 presentations, have now spread to almost two hundred cities–including Beijing, Beirut, Bangalore, Buenos Aires and Chattanooga. This is a grassroots movement rooted in the exchange of ideas. It merges the gallery with the village square—a creative approach to democracy in action. Pecha Kucha is happening almost every day of the year in some corner of the globe.

Don’t be intimidated by the high hipster quotient amongst the presenters/attendees. These designers, architects, and artists are simply trying to forge a more sustainable and imaginative world. So find a Pecha Kucha conversation near you. Or even better, launch one!  As a gathering in Kampala proved, all you need is a projector, a lap top and a bedsheet.  Or if you want to get more creative, go 3-D like Chicago....