A while ago, Joe and I attended Ignite London. Regular readers of this blog will know that we're big fans of the Pecha Kucha talk format, and given that the Ignite evenings consist of dozens of 5-minute talks with 20 slides each, it was right up our street!

I had volunteered to do a talk about some of Britain's lesser-known historical buildings: sea forts (something I debuted at our second internal Pecha Kucha session last December). You can see my talk in full below (or in a larger format from the Ignite channel on Vimeo).

British Sea Forts by Tristan Roddis from hurryonhome on Vimeo.

Firstly, apologies for the increasingly tenuous and odd Pech-app Cake-cha blog titles. If it's any consolation, I'm more disappointed in them as an author than you as a suffering reader will ever be.

Now, onto the topic at hand: the latest round of Pecha Kucha presentations held over cake, tea and the like brought with them a combination of art, film and technology. For those of who who haven't immediately popped out to the bakery, here's a rundown of what went on at Cogapp's Pecha Kucha 3.0: In his own unique style, Colin kicked off proceedings with his long anticipated 'Sketcha Kucha' (again, really sorry about the dire puns). Having, over the last two weeks, asked us all at varying points to do quick self portraits, Colin displayed these to us with a few musings about his first love: pencils. Re-igniting in us a passion for the importance of designing with our hands rather than mice, Colin displayed the incredible results achieved by using age-old tools over modern techo-easels.

Like a traveling salesman making his rounds, Pech-app Cake-cha rolled back into Cogapp town this week. Hot on the heels of last month's successful Cake Thursday/Pecha Kucha hybrid, we once again sat down in out seats, picked up our forks, opened our ears and readied ourselves for 2400 seconds of joy!

First up to the stand this time around was resident User Experience Consultant Cathy. Giving a presentation on the CERN Common Control Centre and some work she conducted there before she joined Cogapp, Cathy's talk taught us all a little about physics, a lot about user-centred environmental design, some things about Switzerland and a huge amount about how captivating an audience can make them completely forget about the cake in front of them.

No, this isn't the new craze in ballroom dancing, nor is it the first attempt at communication with alien beings. It is something altogether more exciting! Bear with me and I'll reveal all...

Thursdays are always a much anticipated day here at Cogapp HQ. It's nothing to do with their proximity to the weekend, nor are any of us fans enough of Thor as to warrant getting excited by a day named after him. No - the fourth working day of the week heralds the arrival of Cake Thursday for all Cogapp kind. At 4 o'clock on this hallowed day, we all gather together for a bit of time over cake, tea and all manner of other delicacies and discuss what we're all getting up to (in between bites of dessert-y delights of course).

However, whether it be due to anarchy or inspiration, our Technical Director Ben suggested that instead of the normal occurrence of informal chats and exchanges, last week's Cake Thursday (yes... I am going to insist that 'cake' be capitalised in this instance) be dedicated to a brief session of Pecha Kucha presentations, cunningly titled Pechapp Cakecha (... see what we did there).