Tips for Day-of Success
These tips are for the organizers, try to discuss them with your team during one of your prep meetings before the event.
You are the Hackathon — This is an idea the event organizers must take to heart and pass on to the participants. Be attentive, listen, and anticipate opportunities to lend a helping hand. Spread that mindset.
Quality products are crucial to the hackathons success — The success of these hackathons is measured by the quality and subsequent success of the products being built. Keys to quality products:
Exercising important fundamental skills
Great team dynamics
Hands-on support from industry experts
Have fun — People show up on the first day because they like what you have to say, they stay for the rest of the weekend because they're having a good time and building relationships. This event is exhausting so having fun with it keeps up everyone's stamina. Look to the MC to organize stretch breaks, icebreakers, and to generally keep the mood light hearted. Manage perception. If you look like you’re in a bad mood, attendees will be in a bad mood.
Leave no trace — Do not provide water bottles. We learned this the hard way. Set the expectation upfront and lead the troops in daily sweeps. Have fun with it. Leave the venue better than you found it.
Focus products around real, tangible problems — a social good hackathon is a forum for anyone to step up and work on any idea they think will help organizations and organizers doing this work to tackle institutional issues. But it’s also important that we solve meaningful and relevant problems. To that end, these hackathons should be able to help participants connect with not just the issues at the event, but the issues in this space in general, inspiring them to take action beyond the weekend.
Set an objective — At our hackathons we asked participants to "find a barrier their organization experiences in doing their work and build something to fix it." This language was repeated over and over again and was useful with the press too.
In Slack we trust — Slack (or a similar collaboration chat tool) is a Hackathon’s secret weapon. Some suggested channel conventions that can help keep things organized:
Participants are added to a #general local channel (e.g., #nyc) automatically.
Anyone that wants to get more involved should be invited to #organizers, a private channel. They can also be added to other channels as necessary.
Product channels are “top level.” In other words, an idea like #abortionmap requires no special prefix. This is to reduce complexity and encourage participation. It is crucial that these channels have the purpose set.
There are also general channels for engineers, designers, brainstorming ideas, etc. These are all prefixed with #_ to keep it clear that they’re not products.
Some ideas get merged into others and some ideas are abandoned. Unique ideas with merit can snooze by adding #zzz_ to the front. Otherwise, they should be archived.
Profile pictures make a huge difference. Whenever you see someone without one, politely explain that a profile picture makes it easier to put a face to a name and makes the whole group more friendly.
Add your own tips for success based on the experiences your volunteers bring to this event. Have more we should add? Reach out and let us know.
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