Online Hackathon: PROs & CONs
A few months ago few would go near online events, and even less would take on a challenge of organizing an online hackathon. These days it has become the new normal, given the current context.
Intro
On March 15th, that is a month ago around the same time I’m writing this, we would wrap up the 9th edition of Startup Weekend Cluj. A 3-days business hackathon, focused on validating ideas and drafting the first business model canvases, has gathered around 30 participants this year.
About a week prior to the event, the ticket sales have dropped (when usually it was the time for huge last-minute tickets purchases) and people started wondering if we’ll go through with the event. This was around the time the local municipality has held an international startups dedicated event, and the covid cases in Romania were just beginning to show in the country’s capital, Bucharest.
Cluj was still safe, with zero confirmed cases, and we decided to stick to the plan, with additional “improvements”, such as extra health-related precautions (lots of them). Just a couple of days prior to the event, we cancelled all the external mentors and reached out to Cluj-based experts and entrepreneurs instead.
Around the same time we managed to drop about 40% of the catering orders and printed materials. Turned out we still had too much food, which wasn’t a problem at all, because it was too tasty, so people got a lot of extras.
On Friday morning, March 13th, we did take into account the possibility of switching to an online event, and although the Saturday and Sunday agenda would have probably worked, Friday evening was close to impossible to change. What we did instead was ask the participants the same night if they would feel better to work from home the next 2 days, and almost everyone voted to keep coming to the event location.
And it was worth it. The smallest event we’ve ever had at #SWCluj (during a normal edition we would have around 100 participants) turned out to be a cozy, really friendly one, and the last offline startup event to happen in Romania, before the state of emergency was declared (starting March 16th).
On March 19th, just days after #SWCluj, I joined the team organizing the Belgium online Hack the Crisis hackathon. In just a week, and with lots of help from the initiators of the Hack the Crisis community, we managed to set up an online event, that hosted over 500 people.
Having experienced both ways in less than a month, I’ve got some ideas to share. Following here is a series of pros & cons for organizing an online hackathon, the way I experienced it.
Pros
- The most obvious pro for an online hackathon is the ability to set up a 500+ people event (or any amount, really) in less than a week;
There’s already some resources available online as to how to make it happen, with all the guidelines, list of tools, etc. One example is the Hack the Crisis community, who have made their knowledge available for free, for everyone.
While 500+ people online event might not sound that impressive (Hack the Crisis Germany had 40.000+ participants and almost 3.000 mentors), it would require a crazy amount of time and resources to pull if off in “real” life. An offline hackathon with up to 200 people involved is still manageable, above that though, things start to crumble.
- No geographical limitations (unless you specifically want them) for participants, mentors, even the organizing team;
While we always have international mentors at #SWCluj (around 6–7), it’s also a matter of costs (for the organizing team) and availability from the mentors’ side, to commit to a full “working” weekend away from home.
In the Hack the Crisis Belgium edition we had over 90 mentors, coming from 10+ countries. Also the participants were “coming” in from a lot of countries! The online medium gives the perfect
- Low logistics costs for setup & delivery of the event;
There’s no need to book a venue, order catering, buy plane tickets & book accommodation for mentors, all the printed materials can be skipped, etc, and this can save a loooot! of money.
Although there will still be some marketing costs for running ads (for example), or the costs involving some online tools, these will probably come at a fraction of what an offline event would cost.
- Talking of online tools, the technology is on our side;
There are so many great tools to use that help turn an online hacktahon into a great experience. All the way from the kick-off webinars, workplaces and calling tools, to the online boards, roadmaps and planning tools, etc.
Here’s a Facilitator’s choice of top online collaboration tools that can be used during an online event. It has suggestions for video conferencing, project management, and also whiteboards, scheduling, mind-mapping, etc.
- No dress-code, no venue opening/closing times, more flexibility, both for the organizers and the other people involved;
We’re slowly changing our habits to adapt to the new context. With human interaction happening between screens, a lot of the usual social habits are going through a transformation, which means less worrying about appearance and more focus on actual work.
An online hackathon allows people to make their own schedules and also increases involvement. In the Hack the Crisis Belgium, we had teams starting calls at 11PM on Friday evening, to set things up, make plans and share responsibilities. In the morning they were already up and working by 9AM, all the way trough late at night.
While this year’s edition of #SWCluj was a special one and we tried to minimize the time spent at the event location (people left at around 9PM), usually we would close the venue at 11PM and everyone would go home, so no more work for the evening.
Bonus points, on Saturday evening I took a half an hour break to relax in some hot water. Minutes after I was back in the game, which is totally not possible for a real life event (unless it’s happening inside a spa resort…)
Cons
- Being alone in the room, even with a whole world on the other side of the screen, will feel lonely at times;
Even in the actual context, people attending Startup Weekend Cluj had a lot of fun, were connecting to each other not only inside their own teams, but actually interacting as a community, sharing ideas and impressions, helping each other.
During Hack the Crisis Belgium I had this moment when I realized I am actually alone, while being virtually “connected” to 500+ people in the same situation. #inthistogether
- Given the new circumstances, the initial pitching part is not doable and the team formation can turn into a mess very fast;
Although one can mimic a “real” event and try to have the initial pitches online, it’s better to gather the ideas beforehand and give the participants time to browse through them at least hours, or days before the actual opening.
With all the guidelines and measures we took concerning this aspect, it was still quite hard for some people to find teams. The same goes for the mentoring part. We’re still in the beginning of figuring out human interaction in online contexts.
- Regarding social interaction: it’s even harder to control or guide group dynamics in an online environment;
Imagine a room with 500 people in it, that need to speak with each other in order to form teams and work together. There are rules in place, of course, explaining how to do that, the problem is that everyone is blindfolded. You tell them there are round-tables grouped by topics of interest, only the tables themselves are behind some curtains.
For the Hack the Crisis Belgium we used a Slack workspace as the main communication channel. There is a structure in place, there are groups and channels, challenges and topics, guidelines for participants and mentors, etc, that in theory work perfect, only we failed to take into account the metaphorical “blindfolds”.
To better understand the issue, check the Team-building and information flow and optimizing cooperation in online hackathons research papers, by Fabio Balli, Lead Civil Society for the EUvsVirus Pan-european hackathon.
- Pitches can become quite impersonal, the Q&A session from the jury will probably be skipped, and not every team will get to be in the spotlight;
To avoid technical issues during the final closing webinar, and to streamline the process as much as possible, teams are asked to provide video pitches during the final day, instead of the usual final pitches. As there are usually a lot of teams working during the weekend in an online hackathon (given the high number of participants), only a few of them will get to be broadcasted.
It’s quite a tough job on the jury members too. Their duty is to watch dozens of video pitches, with only some information available (short descriptions, websites maybe), and make decisions based on that, without any additional option for Q&A. And that is while being on a strict deadline.
- There’s no more beer night and no event pictures;
The bonding element of every hackathon, either on Friday evening - to get to know each other, on Saturday - to relax after a full work-day, or on Sunday to celebrate, is gone. Teams can choose to have “online” drinks and to network, yet the focus is more on the work aspect, instead of the human side (which for me personally is one of the main reasons for organizing Startup Weekend Cluj).
On the marketing side of things, the promotion part is more or less the same (except for the pre-events and meetups, which could also be moved online). Because the event has no real space, there are no pictures available to showcase later.
Even if we encouraged the use of a fun channel where people could share selfies and memes, and other funny things that would put a smile on our faces and have everyone take a break from time to time, there’s still not much “evidence” left of what happened, except for a few statistics and post-event articles (maybe).
Conclusions
During #SWCluj2020 we had some of the mentors joining online, which turned out quite great. Mentors had their own Hangout links that teams would join at certain times, according to a schedule. The process was smooth, and both mentors and participants had fun and found the experience enjoyable.
In the Hack the Crisis Belgium there was the role of team-mentor: dedicated people to work close with the teams. Other mentors could be reached by request, anytime someone would be in need of a particular expertize, or had a specific question. The only scheduled things were team check-ins, when the team-mentors would have calls with the teams they were assigned to, at certain hours announced beforehand, to follow teams’ progress.
While the online factor was present in both cases, there was a huge difference in the way things worked, mainly due to the context and the size of events.
Historically speaking, events have evolved from the small recurring gatherings people had in order to share news, exchange information and insights, and learn from each other.
A strongly underrated (and often overlooked) result was the bonding effect of these meetings. Building trust and connecting with each other are harder to achieve in the absence of human interaction.
There’s clearly some strong PROs for online hackathons related to scale and impact, some of the processes, and also budget related. However, I would personally choose a real-life event whenever possible, with some of the online tools and improvements added, to bring together both worlds.
Do you have something to add to the list of Pros & Cons? Or have a strong preference for one way, or another? Would be great to expand my knowledge with your experience.
