GETTING SH*T DONE IN 46 HOURS
A FIRST TIMER’S GUIDE TO A HACKTHON
It was a Friday night and I was shutting down my computer when I received a call from a friend.
D: Suzie, come across the street to Fishburner, there’s a hackathon called GovHack and I know you’ll like it. It’s all things tech.
S: What’s a Hackathon?
D: Hackathon is a collaborative event that lasts for a weekend and at the end you make an app or something similar. There’s beer and pizza too.
I ummed and ahhed and what won me over was the FREE beer and pizza. Still, I’m glad I went, for the next 46 hours I became immersed in this hack-thing.
Now running for 5 years, GovHack has grown from a small data mashup get-together to an international event-based competition. This year over 1800 people, across from Australia and New Zealand, got together to innovate, collaborate and apply their creative expertise to the open government data.
Basically, GovHack is an opportunity to turn various dried up collection of datasets into something awesome. The general response when one sees a spreadsheet is a brain freeze. Yet, what isn’t shown are the layers upon layers of rich information. A goal of GovHack was to bring these datasets to life by designing them with better user experience. Make it accessible.
My team, Potato Heads, quickly got into action — we started with three ideas and through a democratic process of elimination, we decided to go with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) dataset. In the end, we took 8500 lines of data from ABC’s Local Photo Stories, overlaid it with metadata and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) stats and converted them into 2900+ viable photo stories. We went through a whole cleansing process, having a clean set data makes our hack-product almost seamless.
D: You know what.. We’re going register and
upload TRUE STORIES to the Chrome web store.
The next day on Saturday, at exactly 11.30PM (and 27 hours after our idea was initiated), team Potato Heads and I did a little celebratory dance around a table. We created a nifty Google Chrome extension and submitted True Stories to the Chrome store.
From the deep and dark recesses within the interweb, True Stories turns them into appealing canvas, in which readers will engage them as living artworks.
One of the cool things about the nifty little extension is that it recycles old content and makes it alive. Stories are brought back to life and given the chance to shine again. Every time you open a new Chrome tab browser, it reveals a photograph drawn from the ABC archives. The ABC has an amazing archive however they remain lost or forgotten after going through the news cycle. True Stories curates the hidden stories and keep them alive by translating them into ‘living’ artwork.
Within 46 hours…
We created True Stories, uploaded it for public release, talked to various stakeholders including the ABC and ABS, developed the back end and front end design and moved on to the second phase of the project by designing a website. While the last 24 hours, we split the team into two: developers and storytellers. The latter was spent in an energetic blur (in this very order), discuss the format of the story (ie storyboard), write a script, record the audio and video and finalise with an edit. And this is what our journey/story looks like:
Here’s a first timer’s guide on getting a hack-project done in 46 hours:
- Get an idea and move
Everyone has awesome ideas, it’s how we execute them that is important. In a collaborative environment, a huge advantage is having a pool of resources to tap into. Being united in an idea or a decision with a team can be difficult, however once it has been settled, it then converges to a unified team relay race to the end. Having a united vision drives the group to achieve it and when that happens — a unbelievable sense of euphoria and satisfaction washes over you.
So, get an idea then effectively move forward.
2. Know your baseline product
Time is always an issue, especially in the constraints of a hackathon, you and your team can only achieve so much. As the event progresses, many are easily side tracked with ambitious aspiration (which is fine) but first things first, get the base product done! If a new suggestion comes on board, tell your teammate/users this: “Cool idea, lets add that to the wish list.”
3. Tap into the minds of the mentors
Mentors are a BIG help; they have the resources and answers all in their heads. Asking the right questions will help trigger opportunities to resolve the problem and/or finalise the design of the app. Keep asking them questions!
4. Team dynamics is key to success
With Govhack, I particularly like how they classified people into four predominant types: designer, storyteller, data scientist and developer. Understanding the key strengths and weakness allows you to know what is achievable. Still, one can make the most of supporting each other and doing the best that we can.
TIP: Assign someone to be a taskmaster aka the project manager, their main role is to keep track of time and priorities tasks.
A great part of a hack is an opportunity to meet new people. Sometimes, a team are full of strangers but at the end you may become best of buddies. Still, when a team is made, trust them to do their jobs well.
5. Tell a story
Telling a story is the best way to convey the message of the product and keep the language consistent across all your content (ie application, website, video). Before any project, I like to create a basic outline of the following:
- who is in the team and what role do they play
- what product are we making
- what problem does it solve/why is it important to make this
- how does the product work
- who would love to use your product
- call to action: where can they get the product
Deliver a consistent message and it saves you time. Like a storyboard allowed us to visualised what shots or voice overs need to be done.
5. Have fun
This is my first hackathon and an important value that I’ve gained from the whole experience is to enjoy it. I had so much fun learning about datasets and I also got to watch it progress from a mere data to completion. I made new friends while creating something awesome. Thanks to beer and pizza, I had a memorable weekend being creative. Remember to have fun!
Keep Real Australian Stories Alive.
If you haven’t had the chance; Keep the Australian stories alive and download it — Get True Stories. We’d love to get your feedback, come say hi and reach out on @GetTrueStories.
Goodbye boring plain background.
Hello real Australian Stories.
Get True Stories.
