The dive locker, episode nine. In this episode you’ll learn a strategy for giving great presentations called PechaKucha.  You’ll also meet Scuba Queen USA Rachel Cushman.

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business, I’m your host Tec Clark. Thanks for being here today, everyone.

In today’s episode, I am going to share a technique that will absolutely hone any dive pros, presentation skills, especially as it relates to using a digital slide deck like PowerPoint or Keynote. It’s called PechaKucha. I know it’s a mouthful and you’ll see why you must be doing this in your divemaster and your instructor classes, but even in your dive centers, in staff meetings. Also, did you know that there is a Scuba Queen U S A and that she is competing at the Miss Scuba International competition next month? I had no idea, but you will get to meet Rachel Cushman and you will see how cool she is.

But first special thanks to our episode sponsor, the DEMA Show. DEMA Show 2019 is taking place this November 13th through 16th in Orlando, Florida. It is the world’s only international trade only event. for dive, travel, and action watersports professionals. This year’s expo floor will feature more than 600 leading dive equipment manufacturers, travel destinations, apparel wholesalers, and services providers. Register today to create stronger partnerships and uncover the latest and most innovative new products and services. Learn more at DEMAShow.com. So here we go. Let’s dive. Dive, dive.

PechaKucha – A Strategy for Great Presentations

Okay, so by a show of hands, who likes sitting through PowerPoint presentations? Okay, let’s see exactly none of you! But yet we must right? Slide decks like Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple’s Keynote are everywhere and we’re faced with them because training agencies create them so that we can go through knowledge reviews and presentations for our different classes. The thing is, is that do our students like them? Now wait, so if none of you like sitting through PowerPoint slides, why do your students would too? Kind of goes hand in hand. So are we doing a disservice by going through PowerPoint after PowerPoint, reading from the slides, et cetera, et cetera. You know, there’s a lot, a lot of argument that says, “Hey, there is a better way to teach.” And again, if you don’t like it, chances are your students don’t like it.

So here’s the deal. What if we shared information in a different way? What if we presented in a story fashion, something less technical but more passionate and emotional. So how would you do that? Well, one way is PechaKucha I know, it’s a mouthful, right? Well, here’s the deal. In 2003 Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of an architecture firm in Tokyo created this thing called PechaKucha, which in Japanese means chit chat. And so what it was, was an event to get other architects together, these young designers to meet and show their work, but to exchange their ideas in a very short format presentation. That short format was 20 slides for 20 seconds per slide. Now that comes out to six minutes and 40 seconds of learning that takes place. So 20 slides for 20 seconds.

Now here is the thing, this caught on like crazy. And then all kinds of cities throughout Europe began doing PechaKucha nights. And then got to the United States. Well, more than 3 million people worldwide have done these PechaKucha nights. And when it came to the U S they even started a new one. There’s Ignite, there’s Lightning Talk, there’s Speed Geeking. And all of these are pretty much the same thing, but they boiled down to, you know, some of them changed to be like 20 slides in five minutes. Some of them are unlimited slides, but you only have five minutes, right? So they’re all similar. But my favorite of all of them is the original PechaKucha with it’s 20 slides for 20 seconds. Now how is this done and why is this good? What’s it all about? So first of all, here’s the structure and the format.

I’ve already stated that it is, that you’re creating 20 slides and those slides are gonna be for 20 seconds each. Now what this is, is it’s part of auto timing. Now auto timing can be set up for any slide in any type of digital slide deck like PowerPoint or Keynote. And it’s an automatic slide change that takes place after 20 seconds. And that is kind of the main structure of it, but there’s another piece of the structure that I find that is super compelling and that is, it’s supposed to be photos, only images. What we’ve heard that you know, an image can be a thousand words or whatever, you know that kind of stuff. The deal is that holds a lot of truth. No one wants to see a slide with a ton of words on it, and then the presenter reads the words, “Oh my gosh, shoot me now.” Right? You all feel that same way? We’ve got to stop doing that as dive professionals.

So think about this. If your slide deck consists of photos, now that could be one to three more photos on one slide, you could do kind of like a montage, you know? There’s not a rule on how many photos go on a slide, but the deal is is that if it’s photos only, or maybe there’s one word that goes with each slide or something like that, all of a sudden it’s up to the presenter to move the story along. And so what happens is is that the individual that’s doing these presentations has to do two things. They have to rehearse and refine, rehearse and refine. You see the message is that first of all, if we’re talking 20 slides at 20 seconds a slide, that means that you really have to rehearse because that next slide is coming and you know what? You actually need to know what the next slide is. It has to flow, right? So, we’ve been taught that in, in our leadership classes.

These presentations and our content have to flow seamlessly one to the next one to the next. So that means you need to know what the next slide is coming up in a few seconds. Rehearsing helps that. And then the other thing that is so key here is refining. Now the refining means that you’ve got to get to the heart of your message. So let’s say you’re doing a presentation and you only have six minutes and 40 seconds to tell that presentation, or that story, or that knowledge review area, whatever it is. If you only have six minutes and 40 seconds, that means you have to distill what you are talking about down so that there’s not fluff. It’s got to get done in that time frame and it’s got to flow with the 20 slides. So refining gets to the heart of the message and it’s actually really good cause it trims the fat and it makes you a better communicator and it makes your students, your audience enjoy it so much better.

So we’ve done this before in my dive program. We’ve spread it to others, and every place that puts this on in a dive center or an a dive operation has absolutely loved it because there’s so much that takes place. First of all, you should try it. Let’s say you got a divemaster course going on. You could have your students do a presentation on dive sites, just one dive site or multiple dive sites or whatever it is. And they will then do those 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide talking about dive sites and it will go one to the other. Then for instructor courses, try features and benefits of a dive cylinder, right? Whenever we’re going through instructor training and we’re training new instructors, we’ve got presentations that they’ve got to do that are content based, right from slide decks and from knowledge reviews and so forth from the different agencies.

Well, give this to them just to try the features and benefits of a dive cylinder or any other piece of equipment. Let them do that in 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide, six minutes and 40 seconds. Watch how good that actually will be. And then for your staff meetings, I challenge you this, do something with all of your staff members, right? Hey, look, the front desk staff has to greet people, they have to sell equipment, they’re selling classes and trips. They have to have great communication skills as well. So do the PechaKucha with your staff. It’s awesome. So have your staff give a presentation on customer service, on dive trips, or how to sell a regulator package. Whatever the case is, give them this so that they can get their message refined, rehearsed, and just be clear about it.

Now, here’s the other cool part. On the opposite end, whoever is the spectator or the student of this watch too, you see how they respond or if you’re on the opposite end, wait to see how you respond. You’re actually going to lean in. Your attention is going to be held strong. You’re going to be totally engaged in this content because it flies. It’s good, it’s not boring at all, and it is such a cool thing to witness. At the end of the six minutes and 40 seconds, you just kind of sit back and take a breath and applaud and go, “That was awesome. Really good job.” And look, this is also an opportunity that if people are using their crutch words there, uh’s um’s, okay’s that kind of thing. Hey, it’s a perfect teachable moment to tell people how they can do better, right? So this has such great, great talent behind it and such great discovery behind it that I think that this is something that everyone should be doing as a dive professional to help groom themselves at their own presentations and help groom others that they are teaching about giving presentations.

It could be a dive briefing, right? Whatever it is from the lowest of the hardest things, it doesn’t matter. I’m telling you, PechaKucha is one of the coolest things you can do for effective presentation formatting in your leadership development. Now, here’s something interesting to consider. What if you took this to your next level of actually doing this within your knowledge reviews or your presentation slide deck. So instead of using the agency’s prescripted one that has all the words and verbiage on it and everything like that, what if you actually just did one photo or two or three photos on a slide to go along with each topic or content area that you wanted to discuss? Now it does mean rehearsing and it does mean that maybe one or a couple of catch words are on that slide, but that’s it. It’s not a sentence. It’s nothing more than just one word or two at the most.

That is just enough to keep you on track. Now this is a really cool thing because that one image can convey so much to the students and then with you talking through that one image, now all of a sudden you’ve got a more engaging and compelling way for your students to sit through your presentations. Think about this, so give it a shot. Try it out when you do your next classes. I do this for my rescue classes and I love it and the students love it. I’ll just shoot up one image and one image I will talk through as it relates to a knowledge or view question and we still go over the same answer. We still hit the same outcomes, but it’s just being done in a different way and students love it.

So check it out.  There’s really not much to go look at about it. There’s events that are going on and you could go to one. But look, you can just set this up right on your own by telling your staff, “Hey, you’re doing a presentation on X, Y, Z, and you have 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide. Make it auto timed and you’re going to do it at next Monday’s meeting,” Right? Whatever it is. And you’ll see everyone is gonna love it. So there you go my friends, Pecha Kucha.

Who is Scuba Queen USA?

Tec Clark:              Okay. So like I talked about, there is a title out there called Scuba Queen USA. And I didn’t know this thing existed, so I thought I would reach out to Rachel Cushman and reach out to her and say, “Hey, what is this thing that’s called Scuba Queen USA?” So welcome to the show, Rachel. It’s great to have here.

Rachel Cushman:              Hi. Thank you so much. I’m so honored to be on it.

Tec Clark:              Well, thanks. First. Hey look, you and I met a year ago, I was speaking at DEMA and, you know, I think when people talk about titles and pageants and everything, you know, immediately there’s this whole modelesque and it’s the whole model world and you know, “are these really people of substance?” and that kind of thing that often happens. Well, I’m here to tell you at, what was it last year’s DEMA show? Yeah last year’s DEMA show, I’m speaking, giving a presentation there and you asked some of the best questions in all of the audience and you came up to me at the end of the presentation. You still asked more questions and we got into this great discussion and you know, I found out that you’re the assistant dive safety officer at the Aquarium of the Pacific back then, I was just like, Whoa.

Tec Clark:              You know, and so this was a really cool thing and then I’ve been following you and now I see that you’ve got the title of Miss Scuba USA, and you’re even going on to that. So I’m so excited. I want to hear more about this because I didn’t know such a thing existed in our industry. And the more that I’ve kind of done some research about it, all of a sudden I’ve realized, “Hey, there’s some really cool attributes to this title, especially in ocean conservation.” So first, Rachel, tell us about you. How’d you get here?

Rachel Cushman:              Well, yeah, thanks. So, yeah, my name is Rachel. I, grew up and have lived in California my whole life. I am the daughter of a lifeguard chief. He’s lifeguard chief at 36 years. So I basically grew up on the ocean. I like to say I took my first steps in the sand on the beach and I was really lucky to have an opportunity to start going to Catalina and snorkeling when I was just four years old with my family. And I just immediately fell in love with it. You know, the ocean is amazing, I mean I didn’t love the cold water, never have, but what you get to see, you know, with the kelp forests and in the blue water, it just, it absolutely took all of my interest in ever since I’ve been pretty much pretty much into it.

Rachel Cushman:              I took my first breath of air underwater I think when I was about 10 years old.  One of my dad’s friends came along with us and I was just totally hooked from that point on. I read books about Jacques Cousteau, every book report that I could give about scuba diving I did. On my, for my birthday, dad gave me the PADI open water book I think for my 10^th or my 11th birthday actually. Yes, they gave me the book and so that I could start preparing to actually get certified, when I turned 12. And so I’ve been super into it since I was a little kid and I always tried to get my friends into it, even started a scuba snorkel club at my high school. And I had about 30 people show up for the first, cause everyone thought I could certify them and I’m like, “you guys, I’m 14 years old, you know.”

Rachel Cushman:              But,  unfortunately that number kind of dwindled down a little bit. Since then I,  I went on and I got my advanced and rescue certification when I was a senior in high school.  I actually quit the cheerleading squad after four years just so that I could, spend the time to go do it so I could get my Marine science pathway cord and then started high school, or excuse me, started college. I went to Cal State Long Beach and I got my degree in Marine Biology and  yeah, just get kept diving. And ever since then and while I was going to school there, I got the job at the Aquarium of the Pacific, which was like the best day ever because I always knew that even though I was getting my degree in Marine Biology, scuba diving was really my passion.

Rachel Cushman:              I was doing Marine biology because of scuba. I wasn’t doing scuba cause Marine Biology. So is it my perfect little niche for me. And I started, my job there is to train and onboard all of the new scuba divers. So we’ve got about 150 volunteer divers. We do over 20,000 dives a year. Which is like more than any other aquarium at least that I know of in North America. And so it’s lots of diving all the time. We do about eight to 12 dive shows for the public every single day on Guardian, full face masks. And so, and those are all volunteers. So my job is to not only onboard them and train them, but to also manage them and try to help the performance diving, what I like to call it, be the best it can be between the buoyancy and how to talk underwater and you know, give the best types of presentations to the public that instill a sense of wonder, respect and stewardship for the ocean.

Rachel Cushman:              So I’ve been doing that for about eight years now. And I started doing a little bit of free diving as well. I became a NAUI instructor few years back. And now I’m the assistant dive safety officer.  I get an opportunity to work at the aquarium and I also teach high school students, some advanced diving and even some, I introduced them to some scientific diving stuff as well cause I’m an AAUS diver too. I tried to keep it short and sweet. But really my whole life, you know, I’m only 28 and my whole life has pretty much been surrounded by scuba diving.

Tec Clark:              I think everybody can hear right now just from this,  first part, the interview here that,

you know, you can see why she’s got such a good head on her shoulders and things, thinks a little bit differently out there and just really has a passion but also this technical side. I love that you’re saying, “Hey, when we do this performance diving,” as you kind of call it “that it’s got to be right. It’s got to look good, it’s gotta be sharp.” And I think that intrigued me when we were having our discussions with you. So tell us about what is Scuba Queen USA.

Rachel Cushman:              So Scuba Queen USA is the title for the United States representative for the international pageant for Miss Scuba International,  as Scuba Queen USA. I get the opportunity to,  essentially be an advocate for ocean conservation by using the platform of scuba diving. And so I was crowned this title in May and I have been spending the last six months getting really savvy about what I know about conservation and how to talk about that with, all different people from different backgrounds and how I can relate it back to scuba diving. One thing that I think is so important is,  the power that I think every single scuba diver has that they don’t even know. And that’s the power of stories. I mean, all of the stories that every single diver has, everyone wants to hear those stories.

Rachel Cushman:              I mean, I was a Disney princess. That was an odd job I had once, cause I was picked for parties as the Disney princess. And I say people are much more interested in me wearing a wetsuit than they ever were wearing a princess outfit. And so it’s, the stories that all divers have to share. I just want to encourage as many scuba divers to just tell those stories as often as you can because everyone wants to hear them. And those stories I think help everyone develop a relationship with the ocean. And I think that’s really what my purpose is in life is to try to get people connected.

Tec Clark:              That’s awesome. So tell us about Miss Scuba International. When did that start and when did that come about? And I hear that a what is it, Malaysia or where is it? Tell us about that.

Rachel Cushman:              Yes, so I’m the United States representative of international pageant.  It started in 2011 and it is the only pageant in the world that it has the emphasis on ocean conservation. There are other pageants that have different types of specific emphasis. And then other ones that each representative from each country has their own platform. But this one in particular has, the main focus of ocean conservation. So when I go to Malaysia for this pageant, it’s about two and a half weeks. And during those weeks, I do some scuba diving. We do WWF conservation workshops, as well as charity events mixed in with some catwalk training and wet suit photo shoots and a whole bunch of other type of really fun, and some other performance choreography. And so what really makes mix this together, the meat of ocean conservation in us learning. They teach us how to be better representatives for the ocean and in a professional realm. You know, I think that in, at least in the United States, there’s quite a, I think a misunderstanding of what pageants are. I blame shows like Toddler and Tiaras.

Rachel Cushman:              It’s not just a beauty thing, not at all. The beauty thing is the very last thing that comes into play. Like I was saying, the last six months I have been working really hard on spending my time trying to better my own character. From listening to conservation podcasts going to work instead of listening to music, to changing who I follow on Facebook and Instagram so that I have a better understanding to having kind of difficult – pushing myself into uncomfortable situations and talking about things with random people on boat trips or liveaboards. I’ve had some interesting conversations about things, just so that I can learn how to be a better representative and a better advocate.

Tec Clark:              Fantastic. That’s incredible. What, what happens when you win? I’m not going to say if you win, I’m going to say when. What happens when you win this competition here?

Rachel Cushman:              Well, the winner gets basically just an amazing opportunity. I got to admit, I am not really sure what the full depth of winnings are. All I know is that from all the girls that have won in the past, like for example, the United States has won twice since 2011 and all of the girls tell me that it’s just an opportunity like nothing else that I get to travel the world. Actually the winning, it says online that the winning delicate, will undertake a year of ocean conservation campaigns to educate and inspire  the desire in all of us to do our best to safeguard for our oceans. So this pageant will also offer her a unique and comprehensive platform to launch her career and personally in personal development within the industry. And so this gentleman that founded the organization, Mr. Robert Lo, he provides us an amazing platform just for, for women to learn how to be better representatives and travel to different places.

Rachel Cushman:              Hopefully, I really hope I’ll be able to go to different scuba shows around the whole country. I’ve been to DEMA, Beneath the Sea scuba show. But I love going cause I just love meeting everybody who scuba dives. That’s my world. That’s going to be my world for the rest of my life. And I just love meeting as many people as I can. I get the opportunity to go around the world to different shows and see what scuba looks like globally.  I think I’ll be right exactly where I need to be.

Tec Clark:              That’s awesome. And I saw that you’ve got a GoFundMe campaign launched. What is that for?

Rachel Cushman:              So I go funny. So I am responsible for covering the costs of travel, of getting myself there and back and as well as all of the apparel that they ask us to bring, which at the very end of pageant, there is a big performance night, just like any Miss America that you watched on TV with onstage questions, bathing suits, evening gowns, all of that fun stuff. And so I do have to cover all the costs for all of those, apparel options. And, anyone who has ever brought a prom dress knows that stuff’s not cheap. And so, that’s really to help me get there. I think every scuba instructor knows it’s not the most profitable business financially. You do make more smiles than any other person on earth in my opinion, you know? And so that’s essentially why I started the page to see if I could get a little bit of extra help so that I can eat a full meal when I get home.

Tec Clark:              Yeah, exactly. Well, we will put that on our show notes page. We’ll put the link to your GoFundMe and we’ll do that. I mean, we’re not talking donated wetsuits here everybody. We’re talking you need to put some funds here for this campaign to get her over to Malaysia. That’s awesome. And represent the US that’s so cool. I love this. Well, how else can folks follow you on this journey? Because this is coming up here too, right? It’s real soon. And will we be able to track your progress and kind of what you’re doing there?

Rachel Cushman:              Yes, yes. So I’ll actually be leaving at the end of this week.  The actual pageant itself is on November 16th in Malaysia.  But  I will be posting online,  through my personal Instagram, which you’ll find me at @racheldiving, R A C H E L diving as you know, and also on the Scuba Queen USA organization page,  which is at ScubaQueenUSA both on Instagram and on Facebook. So we’ll be posting there whole bunch.

Tec Clark:              Great. I will put links to all of those social media sources as well so that we can follow you on this journey. Well, we just want to give you the best of luck in this and I think this is so cool. I had no idea about this and then we saw that you were doing it. I thought, wait a minute, there’s going to be something good here and we’re right. This is awesome. So I can’t wait to hear more about it. I can’t wait to follow you and we wish you the absolute best of luck in this because I think you’ll be a fantastic spokesperson for all of the United States and all of ocean conservation worldwide.

Rachel Cushman:              Oh, well thank you so much. I’m so honored and I appreciate the support so much. I can’t wait. Thank you so, so much.

Tec Clark:              You got it. All right, Rachel. Take care. Safe travels to you too.

Rachel Cushman:              All right, talk to you later.

Thanks for Listening!

Well, that will do it for today. Thanks again to the DEMA Show for being our sponsor of this episode and thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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