To survive today’s business climate and its exponential rate of change, organizations can no longer practice the disastrous (and all-to-common) practice of placing big bets on a small number of ideas. It’s lazy and comfortable and risky. Innovation leaders must learn the art of rapid decision making. In the game of rapid decision making, only […]
Finally – An Idea Platform That Isn’t Terrible
Back in 2012, we noticed a lot of corporations were deploying idea platforms. Curious about their effectiveness, we studied dozens of attempts to launch idea crowdsourcing platforms and uncovered many reasons why a majority of idea platforms fail to produce expected results. Since most idea platforms launch with great fanfare and then are quietly forgotten […]
Day-Of Hackathon Blocking, Tackling & Facilitation
Welcome to Part 5 of our series on throwing impactful corporate hackathons. In Part 4 we talked about promoting your event and recruiting talented hackers to attend. In this post, we focus on day-of activities and event facilitation strategies. It’s the day of your hackathon. You didn’t sleep well, lying in bed searching the back of […]
Hyping your Hackathon
Welcome to Part 4 of our series on corporate hackathons. In Part 3 we supplied the ultimate hackathon budget template, Part 2 tackled planning and success criteria, and Part 1 defined corporate hackathons and described their benefits. In this post we focus on getting talented, and targeted, hackers to attend. Other than the Wi-Fi going […]
The Ultimate Hackathon Budget Template
Welcome to Part 3 of our series on corporate hackathons. In Part 2 we tackled planning and success criteria. In this post we’ll do a deep-dive into the nitty-gritty of budgeting. Here is the template – keep reading for instructions. Hackathon, eh? So … how much will it cost? $36,476.89. Wasn’t that easy? Of course […]
How we use hackathons to accelerate corporate innovation & attract talent
What do you picture when you think about a “hackathon”? A conference room full of empty pizza boxes? A scene from the movie The Social Network? Black t-shirts and Macbook Airs? Many of our corporate clients ask us for advice about planning and running hackathons. How much should we budget? How do we handle IP? How […]