There has been a number of Hack Days popping up in Australia over the past few weeks. Govhack was hosted at ANU in Canberra, Melbourne Hack Day was hosted at Lonely Planet in Melbourne (following our pre-briefing session), and the Open Australia Hackfest in Sydney. Matthew Cashmore has run 8 of these days now so I asked him a few questions about what they are and how to run one.
The structure:
Generally the structure is that you come in on the first day, there is a bunch of talks in the morning that are supposed to be inspirational and educational so you can learn how to get at the data. Then around lunch time on the first day you start the 24 hours of hacking and you hack right the way through the night, right the way through bacon sandwiches in the morning and right through to 1-2pm on the second day – and then you present your ideas to your peers. You get feedback from your peers and then hopefully there are some prizes. It is as simple as that, so anyone can organise one.
The tips:
Try and help developers not have to worry about anything other than the coding, and give then a little bit of distraction (like laser skirmish!) Make sure people are well fed. Make sure there is enough food and enough beer. What you are trying to do is take away that base level of distraction – food, shelter, warmth, and let developers operate around a slightly higher plane.
By Ross Hill - November 8th, 2009 at 12:20pm with 646 views - anu lonely planet matthew cashmore
