Culture Vultures asked @PenColes what she made of the last BettaKultcha and why she thinks it’s so popular. Her comment at the end had nothing at all to do with the copious amounts of Pinot that flowed all evening . . .
“Loved it, loved it, loved it,” was just one of the many genuine and passionate reviews of Bettakultcha VI. There is no doubt we were spoiled that evening. Not only by the amazing venue @dockstmarket, the delicious fish supper from @nofishybusiness and the shared sense that this was going to be good. But mainly from co-founders Richard Michie and Ivor Tymchak and the 14 fabulous, brave, inspired and passionate speakers from whom we learned stuff we may have never needed to know about but were very glad we did.
Bettakultcha is an evening of people presenting the punchiest ever presentations – 20 slides of just 15 seconds a shot – on their passions or hobbyhorses. Not a dry corporate affair, far from it, Bettakultcha is held in brilliant venues, where pretty much anything goes – except pitching for business!
First up was Richard Michie who got the ball rolling in a splendid stand-up comic style sharing his irrational hatreds on everything from cute cats to Turkish Delight and tofu. And then the sky was the limit. (Apologies here for not mentioning everyone, I was battling with a camera at the time).What can I say, the ladies did us proud! We heard how Alexandra Folkie (@sewhipfolkie) discovered a million research boxes for a fascinating presentation on High Royds Hospital, from Katie Bolton (@LeedsGrub) on how Morris Dancing is still alive and kicking in Leeds, from Kristal Ireland (@kristalsmile) on why vampires have lost their bite, and from Kathryn Grace on how design should be all about participation.
And the lads were as good as ever. The joy of joystick action (@IdleSi) headlined the show, we heard about the extraordinary powers of Tin Tin and how he should inspire us in real life from @jimmoran, and the delights of freely available software from Dave Naylor aka @caramboo. Four extremely brave people (@HaydenCohen, @seaneeboy, @LeeJackson and @bullensview,) even got up for the random challenges – completely ad-libbing previously unseen presentations. All were accompanied by genuine interest, hoots of laughter and clapping from a very well oiled audience, courtesy of the much appreciated (at the time anyway, less so the day after) bring your own bottle policy.
For me this Bettakultcha was a much different affair to my first in October when I had slipped quietly and alone into the beautiful but cavernous room at Left Bank Leeds. New to Twitter I was intrigued about this underground culture and its cool sounding albeit miss-spelt `do’. Unbeknown to me at the time I already shared something with the presenters – fear! Public speaking tops people’s greatest fears list, closely followed by walking into a room of strangers, and above death . . . yes death – which ranks third! It is that scary! Of course the organisers have taken this into account. Apart from the magic of Bettakultcha which transforms people into great public speakers, Ivor always reassures the “Bettakultcha Virgins” at the start of the show and all events are accompanied by a chorus of supportive tweets. Confidence building workshops for would-be speakers are now also being run. I left my first Bettakultcha early, not because I hadn’t been bitten by the bug, but because it was a cold and rainy evening and I’d got soaked dashing out for a bottle. But it made a massive impression. Creativity was alive and kicking and it was all happening in Leeds!
It does make me think though. Just how many Phil Kirby’s are there? He’d rescued me after a day of self-indulgent ranting in a Mike Chitty workshop at the Leeds Digital Festival (apologies Mike), and subsequently introduced me to a load of folk, many of whom were at Bettakultcha VI, and including organisers Ivor and Richard. Exciting things appear to be afoot for Bettakultcha and there is no doubt it is a runaway success. Ivor Tymchak has tweeted; “In case you missed it, #bettakultcha came of age last night. We’ve grown up and we’re ready to do great things.” So what’s the best next step in your view Leeds digital people? Are we to rely on there being many more interested people like myself sneaking in through the doors? Can the organisers rely on the friends and family of their current supporters by extending support through Facebook? Or should they really take the plunge and go out to the more mainstream press?
Super review Penny, thank you. As to your question at the end, I believe Bettakultcha is at a critical point in its evolution. The ‘underground’ feel to the event was created through necessity – we had to beg, borrow, stea.. (actually, we stopped short of stealing) most of the equipment and use inexpensive venues.
What’s happened since, is that Bettakultcha’s popularity has been noticed by outside agencies and in some cases commented and reported on. This is how we secured the Leeds Corn Exchange as the next venue for BKVII. They approached us, and sensibly, respecting the independent reputation of the event, they offered it unconditionally.
Everything else about Bettakultcha remains the same, so it will be interesting to see how people respond to the new, ‘posh’ venue. Personally, I am confident that the new venue will make little difference – apart from comfort and convenience – to the vibe of the event. The one big difference that I hope it does make, is to demonstrate that a group of motivated people can achieve a great deal within a community without any sponsorship or grant funding from official sources. This is why I admire the people around Temple Works and CultureVultures so much, they’re making things happen.
Together we can make Leeds a crucible of creativity, a place where people want to live.
Great review, Penny.
I’d love to know what people think the wider impact of events like Betta Kultcha are. Mike Chitty and I have been talking to anyone who will listen (including Government) about the growing portfolio of self-directed initiatives and events (of which Betta Kultcha is one) which have emerged in Leeds over the last few years, and which we think are important parts of the local business support infrastructure, demonstrating a big shift from the “outside expert” model to self-directed peer learning.
These ways of working are much more difficult to quantify and evaluate than the previous methods. Mike and I think that Betta Kultcha is an important business development tool, but, can we identify exactly what it does for local business? Some starters:
– it’s a variation on the old business networking theme, and maybe will attract people to come along who wouldn’t turn out for a boring drinks and nibbles session at the Chamber of Commerce;
– it allows people to showcase their talent (despite the “no pitching” rule);
– it develops people’s confidence in public speaking which can be used to business advantage in other scenarios;
– it draws wider attention to a certain sector of the “Creative and Digital”(?) industries.
Have I got the above points right, and are there other benefits?
sounds suspiciously like a sales pitch to me jon, that wouldnt be allowed at bettakultcha
You may have a point. Where’s my hook?
Myself and Ivor started Bettakultcha because what we wanted to go to didn’t exist at the time. With a little encouragement from Susan Williamson at Temple Works we put our first Bettakultcha on. We both said lets see how it goes, if it had failed that would have been the end probably.
As it continued the evenings created collaborations between speakers and audience members, ideas both valid and flippant where aired and it created lots of discussions, not to mention drinking.
From the second event we got local food suppliers involved, Sunshine Bakery, Salsa Mexicana and NoFishyBusiness. We also had a burgeoning film production company help out, Media Squared. Add to that the fact that we’ve moved around and brought audiences to places they would normally have never experienced Temple Works, Left Bank Leeds, Dock Street Market.
If nothing else I hope we’ve shown that there is no limit to what you can do if you put the hard work in. Bettakultcha has never had any financial help at all and frankly that’s the way we like it.
Blimey, when start adding up all the spin off benefits, Bettakultcha really is a force for good.
Those are insightful comments John. Because we started it for, ‘a laugh’, we never imagined that it could become some kind of business phenomenon, which is ironic really, because I have been banging on for years that the only business worth being involved with, is one that you are passionate about.
Thanks Ivor.
Ok, first point of clarification for @Mike Chitty. His “How the Web Changes Everything Workshop” was excellent and I seriously recommend them to everyone, especially old media types. I am not just saying that. It provoked my “self indulgent” rants (just me, not the intention of the workshop at all) because of the subject matter- social democracy and the move to online publishing/marketing. As a traditional print journo and copywriter it is a subject close to my heart.
I absolutely love the democratising process that Twitter and social media gives us all – through freely being able to comment, but was at pains to point out that this is a new form of media, and as such old media shouldnt be disparaged, just because it can’t do what new digital culture does. Encouraging conversations and people to feed back is brilliant and is something that us folk in old media have been trying to do for years, we have just not had the technology (well the lengths of paper really, that the internet gives you) to do it. But some of the old rules do still remain and are very much transferable in this new format.
A direct spin off from Bettakultcha has been the number of people who have been inspired to find their voice, although many have told me they lack the confidence to speak in front of a group of people. In response to this, I am organising a ‘playshop’ for those who want to gain the confidence to speak at Bettakultcha (and then, hopefully, elsewhere).
Details can be found here;
http://www.tymchak.com/?p=523
Review of March 2011 Bettakultcha
Q: What do you get when you cross a large group of urbanites with a lovely venue, a smattering of guest speakers, a projector, a laptop, a screen – and a bring a bottle policy?
A: Bettakultcha at the Corn Exchange in Leeds or, in other words, an excellent night out.
Q: So, what exactly is Bettakultcha?
A: Well, it’s an event where pre-arranged guest speakers come to give a five minute presentation, accompanied with 20 PowerPoint slides, on a topic of their choosing. It’s meant to be something they feel passionate about – and it can’t be a sales pitch. Sounds odd? Well, it is – kind of – until you’ve watched one or two and then it oddly starts to make sense.
You’re not necessarily going to enjoy all the presentations or find them all interesting, amusing or entertaining but the topics and presentation styles are so diverse there really should be something for everyone. Take the last event in Leeds for example: topics ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous via the serious and heartfelt, to the downright brave – the latter being an inspiring speech from the son of the Yorkshire Ripper’s first victim who talked about how his life was torn apart by the murder but how he has overcome that and many other obstacles to become a happy family man and a truly inspirational speaker. (Thank you for sharing.)
More light-hearted topics included ‘Why time travel is bad for you’ and ‘Heterosexual men in bed together in films and on television: a history’, which ended, and rightly so, with Morcambe and Wise.
There’s not much point in this review focussing on the speakers in much depth, as the topics and speakers vary from event to event but, what is more interesting is the concept.
Pech Kucha 20 X 20 first started this presentation style back in 2003, in Tokyo, with the idea of 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide. Since then, their idea has been franchised to other cities across the world, including Huddersfield.
Where Huddersfield’s Media Centre has gone for the Pecha Kucha approach, Leeds and Bradford have opted for Bettakultcha and their five minute presentations. Whatever the reason, Bettakultcha is a growing success, largely thanks to social media such as Twitter. And, while the presentations are not allowed to be marketing pitches, it’s safe to say that being a guest speaker does raise your profile and it virtually guarantees more tweets and hits on their websites than they’ve ever had before. During the last event in Leeds, the volume of tweets about #Bettakultcha made it one of the top five Twitter trends in the UK as it was happening.
In addition to the presentations, there is the Random Slide Challenge, where four audience members are given the opportunity to ‘turn presenter’ and speak for fifteen seconds on the four random slides, trying to link them together in an amusing way. Sounds easy? Well, in that case, why don’t you give it a try?
The Leeds Bettakultcha event for 12th April sold out in a couple of days but there are still tickets available for the next Bettakultcha event in Bradford on 27th April at the Midland Hotel. Tickets £5 and there is a bar. For details go to the website:http://bettakultcha.blogspot.com/ or search #Bettakultcha on Twitter.
Pecha Kucha #4 in Huddersfield is at 7.30pm on 14th April at Café Ollo at the Media Centre – admission free.