When someone says, “Hackathon” what comes to mind? What used to be a 48 hour, caffeine-infused, weekend sprint of small groups has now rose to a mainstream, proven arena for recruiting, networking and expanding brand exposure. Regardless the size of your organization, you can benefit from these events one way or another. We’ve outlined the best ways to make the most out of Hackathon’s for you.
Fun Fact: Facebook has used Hackathons since 2007 to drive innovation within the company. Features such as Facebook chat, Facebook Social Calendar, Timeline, Video Upload, Tagging, and even Facebooks iconic “Like” button were by products of Facebooks regular Hackathons.
What is a Hackathon?
If you are new to the term Hackathon, don’t worry! The events have been around for years but are just now getting mainstream media coverage. The original Hackathon use to be informal weekend meetups dedicated to intense “blitz” sessions around tech problem-solving and creation. Nowadays Hackathon’s carry a more structured, well-tuned environment. The events also span across industries and are no longer exclusively reserved for coders and programmers.
The benefits of Hackathon are far and wide. Innovation, collaboration, creativity and problem-solving are all on top display at these events. If you want to brush elbows with “game changers” before they become media headline individuals, you’re looking in the right space. Keep reading to find out how you and your organization can leverage every angle of a Hackathon.
Attend –
Unsure of how a Hackathon works? Maybe you are a bit uncomfortable trying to leverage the advantages of the event right from the start. No worries. Simply attending a Hackathon can benefit you and your team. Walking the aisles, taking in the environment, chatting with fellow attendees will all put you in a higher business state. You’ll get the “feel” of how these events work, and likely be “charged” by the energy the environments create.
Bonus tip, share your experience on your blog or via your company newsletter. You’ll expose others in your circle to all the amazing possibilities and help your cause for leveraging similar events in the future.
Exhibiting at a Hackathon –
Alright, so you’ve got an amazing piece of technology. You’ve built a company or brand that is perfect for showcasing. What now? Hackathons can be a prime example of Pareto’s 80/20 law at work. Exhibiting at a Hackathon can put your company front and center with the appropriate audience. What would take months of advertising or soliciting can be achieved in one weekend at the appropriate Hackathon. The key is to find which event is right for your brand and product.
Not all Hackathon’s are put on for the stereotypical techie attendee. Nowadays you can find Hackathon’s for just about any industry. A quick scan of Hacker Leagues event calendar shows events in the music industry, social goods industry, and even women innovation events. Niche down and Hackathon’s are a great avenue to showcase what your company has to offer.
Volunteering –
If your company is on a shoestring budget, or just wants an unconventional way of getting involved, try volunteering. Most Hackathon’s need readily available people to help organize, direct and run the overall event. Being a volunteer can be one of the best ways to brush up against top tier talent.
Volunteering will actually make you a “go-to” person of authority at the event. Every time a participant, sponsor, vendor or viewer needs something, you’ll know how to make it happen or who to direct them to. Positioning yourself this way is a great way to build one on one rapport. Typically, you’ll even gain the necessary credentials to work your way into the higher tier mixers and side events.
The fact that you are helping other brands get what they want (like the event host), will also create relationships for you that allow long-term leverage opportunities. You’ll be surprised how often the best conversations spring about while finding a participant an extra laptop charger, or walking someone to their VIP suite.
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Sponsoring –
If you’ve got a marketing budget that allows it, sponsoring a Hackathon event definitely can yield results. The cost varies on an event to event basis. Obviously the bigger and more popular events fetch a greater price. However, local events and new events can yield nice exposure (at the event, on the mailing list, and even on the website) at a much lower cost.
The benefits of sponsoring offers huge upside advantage. For starters, your brand is at the forefront of participant, audience, fellow sponsors and media attention. You’re fetching a lot of eyeballs in an arena that positions you as an authority. According to a piece in the St. Louis Post – Dispatch, TopOPPS was able to demonstrate exactly the benefits of sponsoring a Hackathon. According to founder Jim Eberlin, his company shelled out $50,000 for the grand prize and an additional $10,000 for a side prize at the event.
The results? TopOPPS was able to recruit and hire ten new employees, including their head of engineering. As Eberlin put it, TopOPPS was able to leverage the event and recruit talent in a manner that would have otherwise taken him six to eight months longer and inevitably delay their launch.
Speaking –
Speaking is a powerful way of increasing both your personal brand and your company. Hackathons are constantly looking to bring interesting speakers to the stage. If you have a great message, or can educate the crowd, reach out to specific Hackathon events and throw your name in the hat as a speaker. Doing this, you’ll control the conversation on stage. You can creatively work in your industry and brand while also enlightening the audience in an informative manner. The best part, who doesn’t like talking to the speaker?
Chances are if you deliver the value, you’ll see the rewards in introductions, handshakes, conversation and other avenues you might not be able to imagine (both during and after the event). If you are looking to speak at an event be sure to approach the opportunity seriously and creatively. Show the event organizers from the start that putting you on stage is a benefit to them, and you won’t disappoint the crowd.
Hiring –
Hackathons are breeding grounds for recruitment. You are trolling an event that has already recruited the best and brightest talent. You don’t have to worry about a job post response. You don’t have to arrange for introduction phone calls. You don’t even have to tell HR all the items on your wish list for the position you are looking to fill.
Hackathons allow you a window of viewing the actual skill set and makeup of potential hires. Imagine being able to pull in 100 top level prospects and simulating real-world task to see how they would handle it…What would that cost you? What logistical nightmare would that create? How much time would you spend doing that? Leveraging the Hackathon environment allows you to create that exact scenario. You can invest as little as a weekend and by doing so sort through hundreds of potential hires to find that perfect fit for your company.
The best part is most Hackathon’s are selling specific passes to foster these opportunities. Developer Week, one of San Francisco’s largest Hackathon events (estimated over 4,000 attendees), sells a $295 hiring manager pass. This pass allows exclusive access to their hiring mixer.
Hosting an Event –
Hosting the event is the “Alpha Omega” in leveraging Hackathons. You and your brand are front and center. Not only are you in prime position to showcase what it is you do, you’ve also got more touch points than anyone else at the event. You’ve got a list of volunteers (and their contact information) that are heavily invested in the industry and/or the community. You’ve got a list of attendees that you can now contact in the future. You’ve got a front row seat to the show, allowing you to see precisely which relationships you want to foster. You’ve got a hand in the direction of the event, how you want to steer it is all up to you. You’ve got a VIP card when it comes to recruiting and talking to the talented participants at the event. You’ve got every opportunity to use your creative juices to benefit from it all.
If you are interested in hosting, there are a few options. The first is setting up your event using your framework. This might be a bit challenging but lean on the experience of others. Do your research and find similar structures and events that you can replicate efficiently. Doing your research, speaking to others who have hosted will allow you to avoid costly mistakes and include the best of the best ideas. The second option is leveraging another Hackathon brand to create a partner event. Developer Week allows interested individuals to leverage their network and framework to create a Hackathon event of your own. It’s a sure fire way to get a boost from the start and enhances the odds of putting on one amazing event!
Regardless of what you do, put Hackathon’s on your company’s radar. The brightest companies are those that think unconventional. Using Hackathon’s as a way to further your company is a smart play in 2015.
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