Until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of Pecha Kucha. It’s sort of like speed-dating—where you have just a few minutes to make a connection before moving on to the next person—brought to business. It’s apparently big in Japan. Anyway, next month I’ll have my first chance to see it in action. On June 24, the Portland Ad Federation’s Portland Collaborative Agency Network (otherwise known as PdxCAN) is hosting a Pecha Kucha night, where 15 people will get :90 seconds and three slides to tell their story. Slides will advance automatically every :30 seconds, so everyone has to keep their pitch short and to the point. Refreshing, right?

PdxCAN is new to the scene, too. It grew out of a recent session hosted by the PAF about the power of local creative agencies working together. The idea behind PdxCAN is to tap into the tremendous pool of talent we have here and build a network that can better compete with full-service agencies and big name shops in NYC, Chicago and San Fran.

The cool thing about PdxCAN is what it isn’t—i.e., it’s not about sub-contracting pieces of a project to someone else. It’s about bringing together diverse expertise—advertising, design, interactive, writing, animation and so on—to deliver an integrated solution. It sounds good in theory, but it presents all sorts of questions. Like, how do you get all those people around the same table? How do you build relationships with others who, at times, may be your competitor? And once you get around the table, what are the rules of engagement? How do you pitch a collaborative team to the client? There aren’t any easy answers, but they’re the sorts of issues PdxCAN is working on.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing—or just want to meet some new people—come to the PdxCAN Pecha Kucha night. It’s scheduled from 5:00-6:30 on June 24th at The Screening Room, 925 NW 19TH Ave. Check out the www.portlandadfed.com for more information. Hope to see you there.