A JAPANESE woman floats naked in a bath of feathers suspended from the ceiling. She is talking about Heaven. A half-naked Prince William cavorts with the Duchess of Cornwall. Gigantic warships bedecked in dazzling geometric camouflage steam towards us while the Pyramids flash by. Welcome to Pecha Kucha.

It may sound like a lost Inca city but Pecha Kucha is London’s latest happening. A grown-up show-and-tell for those in, or interested in, the “creative industries”. Like everything that’s cool (or trying to be) it comes from Japan. It translates roughly as “chitchat”. “Sixteen speakers show 20 slides for 20 seconds each,” explains Mark Dytham, of the Tokyo-based architects Klein Dytham and the creator of Pecha Kucha. “You’re only on for six minutes and 40 seconds, but that can seem like a very long time.” There is no pausing or retreating — all 320 slides are programmed in a mercilessly advancing PowerPoint presentation.

There are a number of intimate new gatherings like Pecha Kucha for those wanting to “brain up” (as opposed to dumb down). There are supper clubs designed to get various creative communities around the same table.

Avril Mair, former editor of I-D magazine, and others hold court at the Society Supper Club at the Café Royal. The members’ club Adam Street is the venue for the monthly Mandrake Club run by the Channel 4 chairman, Luke Johnson, and David Ross, Carphone Warehouse tycoon.

Dytham held the first Pecha Kucha in SuperDeluxe, a sweaty basement club below his Tokyo offices. “Architects can talk for ever and say very little,” he admits. “Creatives generally go on too much. This format forces you to communicate visually and quickly.”

A microclimate of studied but unselfconscious interestingness is vital for the survival of Pecha Kucha. So only capitals of cool can do it: Prague, LA and Berlin. And now it’s here, courtesy of Marcus Fairs, the editor of ICON magazine, and Max Fraser, the author of the design directory Design UK. “It’s about showcasing and networking,” says Fairs, who stumbled on Pecha Kucha during a trip to Tokyo Design Week with Fraser. “London doesn ’t really have anywhere for creative people to get together.”

“It’s sort of like speed-dating,” says Iram Quraishi, the ICA Club director and co-organiser. “But we bring together ideas, not bodies.”

“People share their inspirations, aspirations and frustrations,” says Fraser. “Or they can just talk us through their holiday snaps.” And some do.

It is the pilot night, and it’s sold out. Nearly 200 people-in-the-know have paid £7 to hear 18 people-they-want-to-know talk about who knows what. A bargain. It’s a Who’s Who of design and architecture. There is Mark Dytham, the inventor of Pecha Kucha, Ilse Crawford, founder editor of Elle Deco, Gareth Williams, star curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Alison Jackson, of celebrity doppelgänger fame. It’s almost more show-off than show and tell.

“Next time we’ll mix big names and unknowns,” Fairs promises. “And people from other places like film and publishing.”

The theatre fills. As with any first night there are nerves. No one knows what to expect. Boys with mullets nervously polish their thick-framed black spectacles. Clever-but-pretty girls prepare to take notes. The lights go down.

First up is Dytham. As he tells the Pecha Kucha story, his slides overtake him. Next is Natalie Hunter from the achingly hip design firm Airside. Her slides have shrunk but she battles on, introducing the Stitches, a range of odd-looking knitted pets put up for adoption by her firm.

Further technical difficulties ensue — slides slide by too fast or too slow. Some are too big. Others too small. The organisers look nervous. But the audience loves this: it is unpredictable and funny. It shouldn’t be slick.

The German-born designer Thorsten Van Elten talks about “Lufthansa lust”, his new-found passion for some German things, such as Trabant cars. He’s lived in Britain for 15 years and can now look back fondly at his Teutonic period. He’s hilarious. But is it more than that? Should it be?

There is only one interval. I find myself reaching for a reject button as one speaker quotes The Little Prince. Attention deficit disorder kicks in as another recites train routes. But soon there is someone more interesting. Gareth Williams proves he needs a holiday by spending most of his slot talking about pieces of furniture that made him anxious — such as aggressive-looking chairs made from splinters of wood. Hit and miss, as I said.

Pecha Kucha is perfect for cultural grazers with ever-shortening attention spans. “We’re having fewer speakers so everyone can catch the last Tube home,” Quraishi says. In London, even inspiration is a slave to transport.

• Pecha Kucha, supported by Creative London, is at the ICA, SW1, on Aug 31 and Oct 26 (020-7930 3647)