So after hearing the concept of a Yahoo Hack Day mentioned in a recent podcast, I’m intrigued. It sounds like a lot of fun, a lot of work certainly (both to organize and participate in), but also a pretty neat way to break down barriers, and get some great ideas out on the table. I don’t know about you, but I’m often at meetings where people mention interesting solutions and ideas in passing, but there is never any follow-up. Many of these ideas, of course, wouldn’t really work out, but I’m sure there are some good ones in there — and you really don’t know which is which unless you let ‘em run a little. The main problem is that the idea makers never move further because its “not in their area,” they don’t have the right resources, their boss world never support, it’ll never get funding, etc. I know here at Yale we’ve got a lot of smart, creative people — let’s rip the lid off for a day and see what they can come up with!
Yahoo has had a a couple of regional “Hack Days”, which are day long
events where engineers stop everything they are doing and just build
stuff that they think is cool. The idea was first popularized by Jot
last year, and a number of companies have picked up on the idea as a
great way to stoke innovation and creativity in a semi-organized way.
The goal? Take something from idea to prototype in 24 hours.
Yahoo Hack Day: Pure Innovation
Yahoo Hack Day Today
What the heck is a hackathon?
It’s a day-long event where our engineers each crank on something:
- valuable to the company
- but not what they’re “supposed” to be working on and
- that can be taken from idea to working prototype in one day
JotBlog » Jotspot Inaugural Hackathon
Anyone have an idea of how to start something like this?
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RodeWorks » Blog Archive » Innovation motivation on Feb 16 10 at 5:24 am[...] short we need an technology innovation barn-raising/quilting bee/ideas forum. Modeled after the Hack Day concept, here is how it might work as a motivator for development of new, untried ideas across the [...]
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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