ATL FTW @ATV - AKA, Sears Hackathon was great
Last week as I was making final preparations for my business trip to Atlanta, I noticed there was a Hack-a-thon happening. I've never done a hack-a-thon and really this was more of a build-a-thon than a hack-a-thon. I decided while I was down there I would try it out. Fortunately there were others on the team that though they'd like to join with me.
While we drove down we went through probably 6 different concepts that might work. Not knowing what kind of things Sears has tried in the past, or what their real interests were it was really the blind leading the blind.
Our Applications
Our original winner was a simplified Appliance finder application that used the Sears API's to make finding an appliance an easier process. This application while useful was something that Sears actually had tried before (and then killed for lack of use) but we didn't find that out until Saturday night. This is because we were so excited to get coding that we never really talked it over with the Sears team before spending 2 days coding it.
At the last minute with just a half day until the deadline we whipped up a 2nd idea. The second idea was based around those forgetful significant others that we all know. Or worse those that remember but never really seem to get you the right thing(s).
Out of this problem "hinter" was born. The application allows people to log on fill out Sears' categories that they liked, and then submit information about their sizes etc so your significant other could properly find you what you need/want. A cron job runs daily at noon and starts to remind your significant other when the event is 7 days away and starts to drop hints with products matching the categories selected from the Top Sellers XML API.
The idea is similar to a service we've been working on already as a pet project and tacked on a couple extra features we hadn't actually been considering before. All of the code for Hinter was written starting at about 11pm Saturday until 2:59pm Sunday since the deadline was 3pm for all submissions.
All in all I think it show cased the power of Ethode's creative group and ability to be agile in all circumstances.
What did we learn from this?
It's an understatement to say we learned some lessons from this Hack-a-thon. Here are some of those lessons:
- Only teams committed to team work can win. There is no "I" in team, and teams that can't work together will certainly lose together.
- Listen to the judges. Some teams literally made applications that violated everything the judges said they didn't want to see.
- Be agile. This one of our companies Mottos. But our ability to pivot and think on our toes is one of the reason's Ethode is a great company, teams that couldn't didn't stand a chance.
Final Thoughts
This was our first hack-a-thon and won't be our last. Hopefully in 2015 we'll be able to do at least one more and continue to network with larger companies that need the expertise and agility that Ethode offers. I would say that the experience coding in a fast environment as a team was great team building and the time away from the office was good for everyone. I am sort of shocked more teams don't join these hack-a-thons.