The ndoch-2016 from code4sac

Provide Pre-Event Resources

Don't wait until the day of the event to provide your participants with resources! Hackathons may have challenge components, but that doesn’t mean everyone absolutely has to start from scratch.

Create a resource list ahead of time to prepare participants for the event. Examples include user stories, data sets, problem statements, and contact information from SME's who have agreed to participate.
Make these resources accessible to registrants on your event website, via email, or both.

Order Food

Hackers must be fed!

Order a light breakfast, lunch, and dinner (if applicable) for each day of the event
Check if caterer provides water and refreshment options. If not, purchase separately
Remember to have vegetarian options available (make this an option when attendees sign up so you have a rough head count)
Consider having snacks on hand for in between meals

Setup Chairs and Tables

Make sure to set up chairs and tables how you want them prior to the event. (Confirm with the venue if you need to return them to their original state after the event as well.)

Jupyter Notebook plotting Promise Zone shapefile

Hey all. I was hoping to attend today, but I am unable to due to a sick kid.

Last night I did setup a Jupyter notebook for mapping the Promise Zone shapefile. I didn't get too far, but could be a kickstarter for someone else working with the data. You can find it up at:

https://github.com/hkeeler/sac-civic-hack-2016

Happy hacking!

Develop an Agenda

Your agenda will vary depending on the goal of your hackathon and it’s something that you should determine early on in your planning.

There’s a temptation to have hackathons become two day sprints with participants getting little to no sleep. However, if the goal of the hackathon is to develop prototypes versus fully working apps, you may not need really need to make a coffee run at 2 in the morning.

One Day Hackathon Example

7:00am Event organizers arrive to help set up
7:30am Food/Coffee/Water arrives
8:00am Breakfast
8:30am Welcome (“Hi, welcome! Here’s the wifi password, the bathrooms are over there.”)
8:45am Education (“Here’s what we’ve done so far, here are some resources”) [You can also cover this in a pre-event email]
9:00am Problem Set (“Here’s the problem I’m facing in the day-to-day”) [You can also cover this in a pre-event email]
10:00am Q & A (“Would this be helpful?” “How does this activity work?”)
10:15am Break out to form teams and hack! (If using Hackshop format for attendees, begin facilitation of Hackshop format alongside the attendee guide at http://hackshop.waffle.io)
12:00pm Lunch served
4:00pm Hacking ends, judging begins (if applicable)
4:30pm Project winners announced (If applicable)

Variations on this include having the talking portion of the event happen on a Friday night. (This is particularly helpful if you’re trying to have working prototypes by the end of the event.) This allows for a full day (or full two days) of hack time.

Two Day Hackshop Example

See The Hackshop Playbook for more information and resources.

Day One

6:00 pm - Welcome Dinner & Networking
6:30 pm - Introductions to organizers and specialists from the field
6:45 pm - Overview of event goals
7:00 pm - Problem Pitching - What Problem do you want to Solve?
7:30 pm - Team Formation
8:00 pm - Getting Started with Waffle & GitHub
8:30 pm - Lean Canvas & Hackshop introduction
9:00 pm - Team Sprint 1 (Customer/Problem/Promise) (45 minutes)
9:45 pm - Wrap up

Day Two

8:30 am - Breakfast, Hackshop intervention: Lean Canvas Review
9:00 am - Team Sprint 2 (problem/solution) (1 hr)
10:00 am - Customer Advisor/Feedback Panel
10:45 am - Hackshop Lesson: Iterate/Pivot/Persevere
11:00 am - Team Sprint 3 - Adjust Canvas (30 minutes)
11:30 pm - Hackshop Lesson: Running Lightweight Experiments
12:00 pm - Lunch
12:00 pm - Team Sprint 4 begins (1 hr)
1:00 pm - Hackshop intervention: Review team experiments
1:30 pm - Team Sprint 5 (build) (2 hrs)
3:00 pm - Hackshop lesson: How to build your pitch
3:30 pm - 30 Minute warning/tech test
4:00 pm - Pitches Begin
4:30 pm - Judging & Prizes

unConference Example

7:00am Event organizers arrive to help set up.
7:30am Food/Coffee/Water arrives
8:00am Breakfast
8:30am Welcome (“Hi, welcome! Here’s the wifi password, the bathrooms are over there.”)
8:45am unConference 101 (“Here’s how unconferences work”)
9:00am Icebreaker (“Everyone is going to form a line based on a statement. If you agree head to the right, disagree head to the left. OK, the weather is too cold!”)
9:30am Throw session ideas on the board, vote, assign rooms
10:00am First Session
11:00am Second Session
12:00pm Lunch served (Throw out and vote on afternoon sessions)
1:00pm Third Session
2:00pm Forth Session
3:00pm Group Returns & Report backs (Here’s what we talked about)

** These are just general examples and in the course of running the event you may find yourself running a bit behind. We always assume that things are going to run over by about 15 mins and just prepare accordingly. (You can use the lunch hour to make up for time.)

Put Signs Out

Put signs out

The day of the event you'll want to put signs out showing where the event is, where the restrooms are, wifi codes, social media hashtags, and other information.

First, Focus on the Problem

Focus on the Problem

Hackathons work best when focused on a specific problem set. Want to do a hackathon about crime? Better call the police department. Want to do something around housing? Recruit somebody from the local housing authority or somebody who runs a shelter. When trying to think about the needs and challenges of the front line, there’s no substitute for somebody who actually works in that space to speak at your event and to help you identify the right problems to be solved.

Decide on one or two themes for your event
Identify potential problem areas within these themes to set a "problem context"
Once identified, move on to recruiting SME's/Stakeholders to help you better understand the problems within the themes/problem context (#4)

Blog About the Event

Blog about the event

After the event, you should blog about the event so your community (and those outside your city) can see what you did.

Give Security a List of Names

If your venue has security, they'll need a list of names so they can let people in. Don't forget to include your own name!

Thank You Notes

After the event, be sure to send thank you notes to:

Speakers
Sponsors
The venue
Your attendees! (A thank you email with a feedback survey is great for this.)

Recruit Participants

Once you have an agenda, it’s time to Recruit! Recruit! Recruit! In order to get people to your event, you’ll need to start early.

Additionally, you’ll also want to make sure you have a diverse skill set at your event. The best teams at hackathons are comprised of a mix of skillsets including developers, user interface designers, data scientists, and subject matter experts.

Choose a Way for Participants to Register

There’s a few ways that you can do registration for the event. For events run by existing groups or meetups, Meetup.com is great because it allows discussions on the event page and helps to carry the movement on afterwards (since you’ll have people joining your meetup group when they register for the event.) Eventbrite.com is also a great option. Both options have the ability to schedule pre and post event emails for keeping in communication with your registrants and attendees.

Decide on hosting registration at meetup.com, eventbrite.com, or elsewhere

Spread the Word!

Identify and contact any current, relevant email lists, contacts with local universities, company contacts, and news media contacts to help spread the word
Identify organizations or groups you can contact to promote an inclusive and diverse audience for your event
Recruit a variety of skill sets including developers, UI designers, data scientists, and SME's through Meetup groups, web development schools/bootcamps, and universities
Ask any groups with similar interests to cross-post your event to their audience, or to attend their next event in person to spread the word

Reach Out to the Press

Reaching out to the Press

Reaching out to the press can be a great way to attract people to the event and to help tell your story after the event.

Code for America Brigade organizers should refer to the Brigade Organizer playbook for tips on interacting with the press, or reach out in Slack!

Shapefiles

@joelrip are you creating the shapefiles yourself or pulling them from somewhere? I'm asking because it would be really helpful to get the non-PZ Priority Neighborhoods from this file:

https://github.com/roughani/sac_neighborhoods/blob/master/neigh_hd.geojson

I don't know how to do that, though. Meadowview, Valley Hi, etc.

Take Pictures and Tweet!

Take pictures and tweet!

Tweeting during your event and taking pictures will help document the event. This will come in handy when you blog about the event. It'll also let the community know what you're up to.

Find a Venue

Venues can make or break an event. A good venue will help you to ensure that the event runs smoothly, while a bad one will cause you to bounce around like a pinball trying to fix last minute everythings.

What to Look for in a Venue

Easy to find location, ideally near mass transit
Proper venue size for expected attendance
ADA Accessible
Wifi network that can handle a hundred people at once (not always easy)
Plenty of places to plug in or the ability to place more power strips out
Access to projectors and screens
A staff member that can be there during the event

Items to Have on Hand (if venue does not provide)

Recruit Sponsors

There are a number of costs that are associated with running a hackathon including food, supplies, venue, and volunteers' time. Finding sponsors to help offset these costs (and to engage in your event) is important and should be started early.

Reach out to local businesses, community foundations, and startup groups
Look for in-kind donations such as venue, food, and use of software platforms or hosted space

Optional, but helpful:

Create a sponsorship packet describing your event with different levels of sponsorship, including options for in-kind donations
If your event costs are particularly high, dedicate a single person to pursuing sponsorship for the event

Check AV

Check A/V

Audio and visual equipment can be a bit temperamental. It's best to check the A/V equipment the day before and get familiar with it so you can use be better prepared to use it. Keep in mind, nobody carries around the adapters to make things work with their specific computer and so you may want to check to see if they have at least a VGA, HDMI, Mini-HDMI adapters.

It may also be useful to have a spare USB. This way, you can at least be sure that your computer works and can transfer slides over if needed.

Get a Good Night's Rest

Get a good night's rest

It's going to be a busy day, try not to stay up too late the night before.

Send Reminders to Attendees

Reminder email should include directions to event, what to bring, and wifi codes.

Setup your Social Media

Set up your social media hashtag at least a few weeks prior to your event and make the hashtag known on your registration page.

For CodeAcross, we use the #codeacross hashtag
For National Day of Civic Hacking we use #hackforchange.
If you have your own hashtag that you use for your regular Brigade Meetups, use that too.

Tweeting and posting throughout the day will help encourage other people in the community as well as help set up a timeline of events. This will make it easier to blog about your event later.

Designate someone to craft promotional tweets leading up to the event
Designate someone to live tweet throughout the event using the relevant hashtags (assign this person to #18)

Recruit Stakeholders

Now that we've decided what problem(s) to focus on (#1), it's time to recruit stakeholders and SME's to help us better understand the problem context.

Find and recruit 2-3 subject matter experts who deal with your problem context on a daily basis
Invite these SME's to be a part of crafting problem statements in advance or adding context to your problem set
Invite SME's to participate in the event, either through speaking, joining teams, judging, or giving feedback

Prepare Name Tags

Print out name tags from registration website. (At minimum, have sharpies and blank name tags for registrants.)

Optional:

Provide color-coded stickers for attendees to self identify their skill set (developer, designer, SME)

code4sac / ndoch-2016 Goto Github PK

ndoch-2016's Introduction

National Day of Civic Hacking 2016

The Theme: Revitalizing Priority Neighborhoods

The Opportunity

The Challenges

The Resources

Geographies

General Datasets

Health

Housing

Environment

ndoch-2016's People

Contributors

Stargazers

Watchers

Forkers

ndoch-2016's Issues