This document provides tips for preparing for and participating in a hackathon. It recommends that participants:
1) Research the hackathon sponsors and previous winners to understand what types of projects might do well.
2) Use social media to connect with other participants in advance and find potential team members.
3) Bring multiple project ideas and be flexible about which one to pursue based on available teammates and APIs.
4) Get all necessary hardware, software, food and other supplies ready beforehand so you can focus on coding during the event.
This document provides an overview of how to create effective videos for small businesses. It discusses identifying story ideas, following a three-step production process of pre-production, production, and post-production. Pre-production is emphasized as the most important step, involving mapping out the story, scenes, equipment and logistics. Tips are provided for smooth shooting and editing. The goal is to publish the video and promote it online through sites like YouTube.
This document provides tips and recommendations for using smartphones and mobile technology effectively. It discusses popular smartphone options and their features. It emphasizes integrating technology in a way that allows you to be productive while maintaining a work-life balance. Tools like calendars, tasks lists, and cloud storage are recommended for organization and access from any device. Lastly, it provides contact information for the author.
The Art of Persuasive Design: Building Apps that StickDolce Design
What does it take to attract new users and get them to fall in love with your app? How do you keep them coming back for more? How do you become the preferred app for a specific task? Let’s go beyond gamification to explore more enduring ways of gaining and keeping fans. Learn how to build persuasive design into your app right from the start to increase traction and magnify your success as you grow. See working examples of design that delivers more than just a pretty skin.
Building a Mobile, Social, Location-Based Game in 5 WeeksJennie Lees
A 5-week experiment to practice Lean methods in game development by testing and iterating concepts around mobile, location-based social gaming and apps. Presented at GDC 2011.
This document provides an overview of topics and events for a Games Based Learning MOOC, including modding, machinima, Minecraft, hackathons, and social media. Upcoming events include a Minecraft-themed hackathon in April, a Maker-themed hackathon in June, and a conference on Minecraft, MMOs, and more in December. Participants are encouraged to play Minecraft, participate in online discussions, and consider attending local hackathons or makerspaces to learn more about game-based learning tools and concepts.
This document provides information about the IBM Hackathon at ZendCon 2014, including ground rules, available tools, the selection process for the top 12 projects, and prizes. Developers are invited to build a PHP application using Zend Server 7 and Bluemix that can be accessed online and tweeted about to be considered for the top 12 spots, which will present their projects and be judged by a panel for prizes. The hackathon runs from 8pm on Tuesday to 4pm on Wednesday.
This document provides an overview of how to create effective videos for small businesses. It discusses identifying story ideas, following a three-step production process of pre-production, production, and post-production. Pre-production is emphasized as the most important step, involving mapping out the story, scenes, equipment and logistics. Tips are provided for smooth shooting and editing. The goal is to publish the video and promote it online through sites like YouTube.
This document provides tips and recommendations for using smartphones and mobile technology effectively. It discusses popular smartphone options and their features. It emphasizes integrating technology in a way that allows you to be productive while maintaining a work-life balance. Tools like calendars, tasks lists, and cloud storage are recommended for organization and access from any device. Lastly, it provides contact information for the author.
The Art of Persuasive Design: Building Apps that StickDolce Design
What does it take to attract new users and get them to fall in love with your app? How do you keep them coming back for more? How do you become the preferred app for a specific task? Let’s go beyond gamification to explore more enduring ways of gaining and keeping fans. Learn how to build persuasive design into your app right from the start to increase traction and magnify your success as you grow. See working examples of design that delivers more than just a pretty skin.
Building a Mobile, Social, Location-Based Game in 5 WeeksJennie Lees
A 5-week experiment to practice Lean methods in game development by testing and iterating concepts around mobile, location-based social gaming and apps. Presented at GDC 2011.
This document provides an overview of topics and events for a Games Based Learning MOOC, including modding, machinima, Minecraft, hackathons, and social media. Upcoming events include a Minecraft-themed hackathon in April, a Maker-themed hackathon in June, and a conference on Minecraft, MMOs, and more in December. Participants are encouraged to play Minecraft, participate in online discussions, and consider attending local hackathons or makerspaces to learn more about game-based learning tools and concepts.
This document provides information about the IBM Hackathon at ZendCon 2014, including ground rules, available tools, the selection process for the top 12 projects, and prizes. Developers are invited to build a PHP application using Zend Server 7 and Bluemix that can be accessed online and tweeted about to be considered for the top 12 spots, which will present their projects and be judged by a panel for prizes. The hackathon runs from 8pm on Tuesday to 4pm on Wednesday.
The document provides a timeline and checklist for organizing a hackathon over a 3 month period. It outlines key tasks 1-3 months before such as choosing partners, location, and website development. 2 months before focuses on securing sponsors and judges. 1 month before finalizes sponsors and schedules technical talks. The weeks and days leading up finalize food, shirts, and ensure internet connectivity. During the event social media is handled, hacks are documented, and issues are addressed. After awards are given, demos are shared, and feedback is collected to improve future hackathons.
How to Run a Successful Hackathon for Your Open APIsCA API Management
Hackathons are exploding in popularity and open API publishers are quickly realizing the power they have to attract developers. For API publishers, hackathons represent one of the most powerful means for growing an API’s profile and engaging directly with talented developers.
This Webinar, hosted API management vendor Layer 7 Technologies and guest API evangelist Kin Lane, will deliver the advice an organization needs in order to throw hackathons that contribute to the real-world success of an API publishing program.
Zen and the Art of the Hackathon: Organizing Hackathons in the Philippines. My presentation at Geeks on a Beach, Sept 27, 2013, Boracay Island, Philippines.
S3 Server, a Scality product, was born after a hackathon in Paris, France in 2015. What better way to continue with our philosophy of innovation than to host a hackathon of our own?
On October 21st, coders joined us for a weekend of coding, developing new solutions for storage, integrations for S3 and much more!
This event was sponsored by Seagate and hosted at Holberton School.
Jeff MacDonald, Creative Technologist at The Martin Agency, gave this presentation at "Ambidexterity," the VCU Brandcenter's executive education program for account planning, on July 16th, 2013 at the VCU Brandcenter in Richmond.
The document provides tips for presenting at a hackathon competition. It advises speakers to understand their audience of judges, clearly define their project and intended users, and focus on what they accomplished rather than failures. Presenters should know how they will be judged, deliver valuable information to the audience, and anticipate questions or objections in order to effectively communicate their project.
How to Organize a Great Hackathon with the Hackathon CanvasMichel Duchateau
The Hackathon Canvas is a visual and strategic tool for hackathon organizers.
It's used as a dashboard during the organization process to start, design, prepare, communicate and debrief easily.
#####################################################################
DOWNLOAD : http://hackathoncanvas.co
#####################################################################
The 7 blocks help you to cover the main topics to organize your hackathon and avoid typical pitfalls. Each block contains the right questions and real examples to guide you.
This is a guideline on How to use the Hackathon Canvas.
1. The document provides tips for surviving a hackathon and beyond. It recommends focusing on minimum viable products with core features, using existing frameworks and libraries instead of reinventing the wheel, thinking in components, using version control, commenting code, getting feedback from potential users, continuously learning, being part of a community, and having fun.
2. The tips are organized into sections for before, during, and after a hackathon, as well as general practices to always follow, such as continuous learning and being part of a community.
3. The document emphasizes trimming ideas down to minimum viable products in order to deliver functional products quickly, and suggests spending time researching existing solutions before writing new code to avoid duplicating
This document provides a summary of an event focused on marketing and communication apps and tools for 2018. It includes:
- An overview of various Google tools for searching, sharing, and collaborating including Google Scholar, Google Trends, Google Alerts, Google Translate, Google Forms, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Ad Grants.
- A discussion of social media management platforms like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Crowdfire that allow scheduling and organizing social media posts.
- A review of tools for creating graphics, videos, and presentations including Canva, Animoto, Tagxedo, and Prezi.
- A mention of analytics platforms like Google Analytics and Social
Inbound Marketing Conference 2016 SummaryJimmy Smith
Inbound 2016 was an excellent digital marketing conference. A summary of some of the best speakers and sessions follows. I selected sessions based on personal preference and what I thought would be of value to my company. With few exceptions, I got many ideas and great value out of each session.
If you are just starting a new job and need to learn a bunch of new tools, or are trying to pitch a company and want to show that you have the skills it takes to work there, these slides are for you.
This document provides an overview and instructions for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. Examples of past student projects include magazines, posters, CD/DVD cases, t-shirt designs, video game assets, and more. The process involves initial planning, research on similar existing products and the intended audience, production experiments, a formal proposal, pre-production tasks like style sheets and layout plans, the production stage, and concluding tasks like peer feedback and evaluation. Detailed instructions are provided for each stage to guide students through the project.
This document provides an overview and instructions for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. Examples of past student projects include magazines, posters, CD/DVD cases, t-shirt designs, video game assets, and more. The process involves initial planning, research on similar existing products and the intended audience, production experiments, a formal proposal, pre-production tasks like style sheets and layout plans, the production stage, and concluding tasks like peer feedback and evaluation. Detailed instructions are provided for each stage to guide students through the project.
This document provides guidance for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept, such as for a fake band. Products could include posters, t-shirts, CD covers. The process involves initial planning, research on similar existing products, audience research through surveys and interviews, production experiments, a written proposal, pre-production including style guides and layout plans, the production stage, and concluding with peer feedback and evaluation. Key deliverables at each stage are outlined, such as mind maps, mood boards, annotated research catalogs, and daily production reflections.
This document provides an overview of the Lean Startup methodology. It discusses key concepts like Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the Build-Measure-Learn loop, and Customer Development. Examples are given of startups like Dropbox and Peernuts that used Lean Startup principles to test ideas quickly and iteratively before building full products. The document warns against common startup failures like building too many features without customer feedback. It advocates starting simply to test assumptions and get feedback early in the development process.
Hackathons bring people together to solve problems through coding, collaboration, and innovation. They motivate employees and allow teams to break organizational constraints. Effective hackathons focus on real customer or business problems, provide clear information for participants, and encourage pitching and judging of ideas to take to market. Proper planning of the event format, tools, and agenda can result in new solutions and a continued culture of driving change within an organization.
This document provides guidance for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. They will go through stages of planning, research, experimentation, production and evaluation. Initial requirements include creating mind maps and mood boards to develop project ideas. Students will then research similar existing products, conduct audience research through surveys and interviews, and experiment in their chosen medium. Further stages involve formalizing a proposal, pre-production planning, the production process with daily reflections, gathering peer feedback, and a final evaluation. The goal is for students to independently design and create an original package of multimedia products.
This document provides guidance for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. They will go through stages of planning, research, experimentation, production and evaluation. Initial requirements include creating mind maps and mood boards to develop project ideas. Students will then research similar existing products, conduct audience research through surveys and interviews, and experiment in their chosen medium. Further stages involve formalizing a proposal, pre-production planning, the production process with daily reflections, gathering peer feedback, and a final evaluation. The goal is for students to independently design and create an original package of multimedia products.
The document provides an overview of various digital marketing and productivity tools for non-profits. It discusses tools from Google like Google Scholar, Google Trends, Google Alerts, and Google Ad Grants. It also covers social media management tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and ShortStack. Other sections discuss tools for content creation and sharing like Animoto, Canva, and SlideShare. Customer feedback tools mentioned include Survey Monkey, Polls Everywhere, and reviewing customer feedback on sites like Yelp.
The document provides a timeline and checklist for organizing a hackathon over a 3 month period. It outlines key tasks 1-3 months before such as choosing partners, location, and website development. 2 months before focuses on securing sponsors and judges. 1 month before finalizes sponsors and schedules technical talks. The weeks and days leading up finalize food, shirts, and ensure internet connectivity. During the event social media is handled, hacks are documented, and issues are addressed. After awards are given, demos are shared, and feedback is collected to improve future hackathons.
How to Run a Successful Hackathon for Your Open APIsCA API Management
Hackathons are exploding in popularity and open API publishers are quickly realizing the power they have to attract developers. For API publishers, hackathons represent one of the most powerful means for growing an API’s profile and engaging directly with talented developers.
This Webinar, hosted API management vendor Layer 7 Technologies and guest API evangelist Kin Lane, will deliver the advice an organization needs in order to throw hackathons that contribute to the real-world success of an API publishing program.
Zen and the Art of the Hackathon: Organizing Hackathons in the Philippines. My presentation at Geeks on a Beach, Sept 27, 2013, Boracay Island, Philippines.
S3 Server, a Scality product, was born after a hackathon in Paris, France in 2015. What better way to continue with our philosophy of innovation than to host a hackathon of our own?
On October 21st, coders joined us for a weekend of coding, developing new solutions for storage, integrations for S3 and much more!
This event was sponsored by Seagate and hosted at Holberton School.
Jeff MacDonald, Creative Technologist at The Martin Agency, gave this presentation at "Ambidexterity," the VCU Brandcenter's executive education program for account planning, on July 16th, 2013 at the VCU Brandcenter in Richmond.
The document provides tips for presenting at a hackathon competition. It advises speakers to understand their audience of judges, clearly define their project and intended users, and focus on what they accomplished rather than failures. Presenters should know how they will be judged, deliver valuable information to the audience, and anticipate questions or objections in order to effectively communicate their project.
How to Organize a Great Hackathon with the Hackathon CanvasMichel Duchateau
The Hackathon Canvas is a visual and strategic tool for hackathon organizers.
It's used as a dashboard during the organization process to start, design, prepare, communicate and debrief easily.
#####################################################################
DOWNLOAD : http://hackathoncanvas.co
#####################################################################
The 7 blocks help you to cover the main topics to organize your hackathon and avoid typical pitfalls. Each block contains the right questions and real examples to guide you.
This is a guideline on How to use the Hackathon Canvas.
1. The document provides tips for surviving a hackathon and beyond. It recommends focusing on minimum viable products with core features, using existing frameworks and libraries instead of reinventing the wheel, thinking in components, using version control, commenting code, getting feedback from potential users, continuously learning, being part of a community, and having fun.
2. The tips are organized into sections for before, during, and after a hackathon, as well as general practices to always follow, such as continuous learning and being part of a community.
3. The document emphasizes trimming ideas down to minimum viable products in order to deliver functional products quickly, and suggests spending time researching existing solutions before writing new code to avoid duplicating
This document provides a summary of an event focused on marketing and communication apps and tools for 2018. It includes:
- An overview of various Google tools for searching, sharing, and collaborating including Google Scholar, Google Trends, Google Alerts, Google Translate, Google Forms, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Ad Grants.
- A discussion of social media management platforms like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Crowdfire that allow scheduling and organizing social media posts.
- A review of tools for creating graphics, videos, and presentations including Canva, Animoto, Tagxedo, and Prezi.
- A mention of analytics platforms like Google Analytics and Social
Inbound Marketing Conference 2016 SummaryJimmy Smith
Inbound 2016 was an excellent digital marketing conference. A summary of some of the best speakers and sessions follows. I selected sessions based on personal preference and what I thought would be of value to my company. With few exceptions, I got many ideas and great value out of each session.
If you are just starting a new job and need to learn a bunch of new tools, or are trying to pitch a company and want to show that you have the skills it takes to work there, these slides are for you.
This document provides an overview and instructions for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. Examples of past student projects include magazines, posters, CD/DVD cases, t-shirt designs, video game assets, and more. The process involves initial planning, research on similar existing products and the intended audience, production experiments, a formal proposal, pre-production tasks like style sheets and layout plans, the production stage, and concluding tasks like peer feedback and evaluation. Detailed instructions are provided for each stage to guide students through the project.
This document provides an overview and instructions for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. Examples of past student projects include magazines, posters, CD/DVD cases, t-shirt designs, video game assets, and more. The process involves initial planning, research on similar existing products and the intended audience, production experiments, a formal proposal, pre-production tasks like style sheets and layout plans, the production stage, and concluding tasks like peer feedback and evaluation. Detailed instructions are provided for each stage to guide students through the project.
This document provides guidance for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept, such as for a fake band. Products could include posters, t-shirts, CD covers. The process involves initial planning, research on similar existing products, audience research through surveys and interviews, production experiments, a written proposal, pre-production including style guides and layout plans, the production stage, and concluding with peer feedback and evaluation. Key deliverables at each stage are outlined, such as mind maps, mood boards, annotated research catalogs, and daily production reflections.
This document provides an overview of the Lean Startup methodology. It discusses key concepts like Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the Build-Measure-Learn loop, and Customer Development. Examples are given of startups like Dropbox and Peernuts that used Lean Startup principles to test ideas quickly and iteratively before building full products. The document warns against common startup failures like building too many features without customer feedback. It advocates starting simply to test assumptions and get feedback early in the development process.
Hackathons bring people together to solve problems through coding, collaboration, and innovation. They motivate employees and allow teams to break organizational constraints. Effective hackathons focus on real customer or business problems, provide clear information for participants, and encourage pitching and judging of ideas to take to market. Proper planning of the event format, tools, and agenda can result in new solutions and a continued culture of driving change within an organization.
This document provides guidance for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. They will go through stages of planning, research, experimentation, production and evaluation. Initial requirements include creating mind maps and mood boards to develop project ideas. Students will then research similar existing products, conduct audience research through surveys and interviews, and experiment in their chosen medium. Further stages involve formalizing a proposal, pre-production planning, the production process with daily reflections, gathering peer feedback, and a final evaluation. The goal is for students to independently design and create an original package of multimedia products.
This document provides guidance for a personal production project. Students will create a package of related products based on a consistent concept or theme of their choosing. They will go through stages of planning, research, experimentation, production and evaluation. Initial requirements include creating mind maps and mood boards to develop project ideas. Students will then research similar existing products, conduct audience research through surveys and interviews, and experiment in their chosen medium. Further stages involve formalizing a proposal, pre-production planning, the production process with daily reflections, gathering peer feedback, and a final evaluation. The goal is for students to independently design and create an original package of multimedia products.
The document provides an overview of various digital marketing and productivity tools for non-profits. It discusses tools from Google like Google Scholar, Google Trends, Google Alerts, and Google Ad Grants. It also covers social media management tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and ShortStack. Other sections discuss tools for content creation and sharing like Animoto, Canva, and SlideShare. Customer feedback tools mentioned include Survey Monkey, Polls Everywhere, and reviewing customer feedback on sites like Yelp.
This document provides tips and examples for winning hackathons and startup competitions. It advises having an original, flexible idea and building the minimum viable product. It also stresses the importance of naming the business, assembling the right team, gathering feedback, preparing an effective demonstration, and understanding the audience and goals. Examples are given of past projects started by the author that illustrate both best practices and mistakes to avoid at hackathons. The overall message is that entering these events provides opportunities to create successful new companies.
Actionable Takeaways from Launch Scale 15WeFinance
Are you a founder that's going "up and to the right"? Can you pitch anything? Do you have student loans? Check out WeFinance for Founders (wefinance.co/founders). It's the simplest way to crowdfund a personal loan!
Social Media? Of course! But how? - Kid Parent Power 2012Joi Podgorny
The document provides advice from Joi Podgorny on choosing the right social media channels for a brand, including considering the target audience, goals for each channel, types of content that would be appropriate, and other factors to take into account such as budget, staff needs, and legal issues. Joi discusses various social media options like Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and games and highlights things to consider for each channel in order to determine the best uses and fit for a particular brand.
The document provides an overview of a webinar on how to build products that people love using game thinking techniques. It introduces the speaker, Amy Jo Kim, and her background in game design, entrepreneurship, and coaching startups. The webinar teaches four strategies for better, faster product design: designing for evolution over time; finding the fun in the core loop; connecting with superfans; and using game thinking for roadmapping. It provides examples of how these strategies can be applied and shares success stories from companies that have used Amy Jo Kim's Getting2Alpha methodology.
The document provides an outline for a training session on digital creative planning and processes. It is divided into three modules. Module 1 discusses digital marketing and creative teams, and includes an example work task. Module 2 covers websites, blogs, content strategy, display campaigns, and includes another example work task. Module 3 discusses social media management, technology, and concludes with a final example work task and Q&A. The training aims to provide guidance on conceptualizing and executing various digital creative initiatives and campaigns.
Webinar-Building a Strong Brand For Your Organization -2017-03-07TechSoup
Do the words design and brand guidelines make your toes curl and teeth grind? Does design lingo make you think you need to hire a professional designer or go to design school? This free, 60-minute webinar will introduce you to the basic elements of design brand guidelines.
Join Gopika Prabhu from Elefint, a design studio that works with social impact organizations, to learn about the importance and value of branding your organization and identify core elements of your brand guidelines to help your nonprofit or library create a strong brand. Gopika also developed and designed TechSoup's free Design for Nondesigners 101 course.
Hacktoberfest® is open to everyone in our global community. Whether you’re a developer, student learning to code, event host, or company of any size, you can help drive growth of open source and make positive contributions to an ever-growing community. All backgrounds and skill levels are encouraged to complete the challenge.
Hacktoberfest is a celebration open to everyone in our global community.
Pull requests can be made in any GitHub-hosted repositories/projects.
You can sign up anytime between October 1 and October 31.
1. Hackathon Prep and Survey
Guide
REVISED GUIDE - Oct 2012 – After we made it to the finals!
From a HackathonLoser! Winner!– Lessons Learned
Francisco Guerrero
Founder
ShopInterest
@Guerrero_FJ
@ShopInterest
2. So you want to join a Hackathon…
Why?
Pick one based on your needs
What are you trying to do? Learn something new? Look for a Job? Start a new business? Win an Ipad? Meet angels? Test your
idea?
Make sure you pick the right Hackathon
3. Get Social (part I)
Start by searching Twitter, Eventbriteand Blogs about the Hackathon you plan to
attend, look for names, follow people, Check linked-In, check the participants out, even
ping them before you arrive. You will save TONS of time and save yourself some stress
bythinking in advance people you want to work with
4. Get Smart
Bring two or three ideas (web app, mobile app and game idea)
Most hackathons will also list attending people, so see what the majority of people are strong at (mobile?
Gaming?)
• Research the Hackathon’s sponsors, see previous winners, check out what APIs and What prizes are being
offered.
• Check the Judges, what do they do, what do they invest, watch video of their presos and conferences
• Sponsors are important – Does your idea involve them in any way, shape or form?
5. Get Ready!
Gear
Hardware
Dev Kit
Food
Giveaways
• Your survival Kit should include – Sleeping bag, a change of clothes, comb, mouthwash
and eye drops
• Your Tech Kit – Laptop, extra battery, extra power strips, extra phone chargers, external
monitor, keyboard mouse, projector, extra laptop, devices you need to develop
• Software – GitHub account, Amazon Services, Graphic
Widgets, Wireframes, Photoshop, Hosting, subdomains, APIs you need that are not
provided
• Giveaways – if you have an idea and a domain ready, give stickers, pens, tshirts. Share
your beer!
• Food – Most places will have it, so just bring snacks, red bulls, extra beer will make you
everyone’s friend if you find a fridge to keep it cold
6. Get Going Fast
• Pitch your idea but listen to others
• Look for team members from the moment you arrive
• Be in touch, get a # to text, commit early
• Be flexible – OK to change from Ruby to PHP based on your team
• Split the workload soon – work in parallel
• Establish milestone deadlines – Priorities might shift depending on team, time, etc…
7. Get Political on your API selection
• Here is the secret to help you win:
– Use as many APIs as you can from the sponsors
– Integrate them to your app somewhere
– The more, the merrier, the likelier to get selected for the next round
– Add their logos to your home page somewhere – they love that
8. Get Tough
• The 3 temptations:
- Go outside for a drink - stay in
- Go home to sleep – sleep in, or set a fixed comeback time if going home is inevitable
- Obsess about the competition – Worry about your ideas
Don’t do this!
9. Get Social (Part II)
• Get your twitter, FB, Posterous, Tumblr, Turntable.fmgoing all night
• Join the hashtags for your event
• Don’t be selfish, give props, be funny
• Take tons of pictures – share in facebook
• Keeps you in the eyes of the judges and organizers
10. Get Slick
• Don’t wait for the last minute for a deck
• Rehearse your pitch and have a 5-6 page deck
• Record a decent demo video – get a digital camera – add music, tell a story
• Have a ‘bulletproof’ nonfunctional demo, (e.g. screenshots of pages)
• Have an account with data ready – avoid ghost-town syndrome
• Share your project with the Tech Blogs – A bit of luck will carry you a long way
11. If you face the Judges – Be confident
• Get the basic answers – what/for who/what’s the pain?/what’s the gain?
• Mention the whole vision of your solution first. Then show what you built (NOT the other
way around)
• Always have an idea on how to make money, doesn’t matter if its accurate, but shows value
• Talk to the judges after the judging – Get more feedback, be ready for the next one
What are you trying to do? Learn something new? Look for a Job? Start a new business? Create a cool mobile app? Win an Ipad? Meet angels and VCs? Test your idea? Make sure you pick the right Hackathon.
Start by searching Twitter and Blogs about the Hackathon you plan to attend, look for names, follow people, Check linked-In profiles, check the participants out, even ping them before you arrive. You will save TONS of time and save yourself some stress by getting a team in place or at least who you have in mind to talk with.
Also, bring two of three ideas (web app, mobile app and game) Most hackathons will also list attending people, so see what the majority of people are strong at (mobile? Gaming?)Research the Hackathon’s sponsors, see previous winners, check out what APIs and What prizes are being offered.Check the Judges, what do they do, what do they invest, watch video of their presos and conferences
Your survival Kit should include – Sleeping bag, a change of clothes, comb, mouthwash and eye dropsYour Tech Kit – Laptop, extra battery, extra power strips, extra phone chargers, external monitor, keyboard mouse, projector, extra laptop, devices you need to developSoftware – GitHub account, Amazon Services, Graphic Widgets, Wireframes, Photoshop, Hosting, subdomains, APIs you need that are not providedGiveaways – if you have an idea and a domain ready, give stickers, pens, tshirts. Share your beer!Food – Most places will have it, so just bring snacks, red bulls, extra beer will make you everyone’s friend if you find a fridget to keep it cold
Pitch your idea but listen to othersLook for team membersBe in touch, get a # to text, commit earlyBe flexibleSplit the workload soon Establish milestone deadlines – Priorities might shift depending on team, time, etc…
Here is the secret:Use as many APIs as you can, depending on the sponsorsIntegrate them to your app somewhereThe more, the merrier, the likelier to get selected for the next round
The 3 temptations:Go outside for a drink - stay inGo home to sleep – sleep in set a comeback time if going home is inevitableObsess about the competition – Worry about your ideasDon’t do this!
Get your twitter, FB, Posterous, Tumblr, Turntable.fm goingJoin the hashtags for your eventDon’t be selfish, give props, be funnyKeeps you in the judges and organizers
Don’t wait for the last minute for a deckRehearse your pitch and have a 5-6 page deckRecord a decent demo video – get a digital cameraHave a ‘bulletproof’ nonfunctional demo, (e.g. screenshots of pages)Have an account with data