RuSSIR Music Hackathon 2013: notes of the organizer
In continuation of the previous post, we will look behind the scenes of RuSSIR Music Hackathon 2013. In this text I present to you the analysis of the event from the point of view of the organizer. I hope this story will be useful to the organizers of future similar events.
The idea of ​​hackathon was born, first of all, thanks to the school RuSSIR . In my subjective assessment, the previous schools showed that its serious problem was the lack of intensive practice. The free and competitive format of the hackathon seemed to be the most convenient for students of the school to use the acquired skills in solving real problems. In addition, I personally am a big fan of music and music services / applications. Thus, the main theme of the school - audio search - was transformed into the musical theme of the hackathon.
We collected feedback from the participants after the event, so some items will be illustrated with statistics from the questionnaire.
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Hackathon took place in the 24-hour mode (from Friday evening to Saturday evening). Since our Kazan team had never arranged hackathons before, the main source of the best carrying out practices for us was HackDay Manifesto , and also we relied on consultations with our more experienced partners. Almost at the very beginning, it was decided to position our event as open and free: we were glad to see among the participants people who had nothing to do with RuSSIR school. Since the school’s audience included foreign participants from Europe, initially all materials in the preparation process were created and maintained for two languages ​​- English and Russian.
Intentionally, we provided complete freedom in the choice of technologies for implementation. The involvement of an independent team of trainers (our partners from Dream Industries) was helpful. Obviously, not all hackathons follow this practice, which, generally speaking, is quite useful, especially for young developers. In our case, it was just necessary: ​​the trainers also advised the participants on the use of a specific API. According to the questionnaire, up to a third of the participants benefited from the help of trainers, and everyone was pleased with the results.
As for the prizes, in the end - there were two types of prizes: one project was selected on the basis of wisdom of crowds (participants could vote for any project other than their own), and the other was chosen collectively by a team of coaches. By the way, according to the questionnaire, a third of the participants supported the idea of ​​choosing a project by independent experts.
The choice of venue - one of the cornerstones of the organization of any event. The specificity of the 24-hour hakaton, obviously, lies in the fact that it is necessary to especially consider the convenience of the venue. Unfortunately, we were not able to agree on holding an event both with the head of one of the local co-working centers, and with representatives of the central site of the main events in the IT sphere in Kazan - the IT park. As a result, we stopped at the auditoriums of the building of the Higher School of Information Technologies and Information Systems of the Kazan Federal University. Organizing a night event at the university is not an easy task, in principle. To our luck, the management went forward and provided all the necessary permissions. Understanding perfectly that it is almost impossible to provide the necessary comfort in classrooms, we came up with the idea of ​​a peculiar know-how - we rented a 16-bed room for a night in a hostel located 10 minutes away, so that the participants who needed it could go for a rest and take a shower. The overwhelming majority of the participants (even those who did not use it) liked this idea.
We were lucky that the NLR ROMIP - the organization for holding the RuSSIR school - became the basic organization of the hackathon (this saved us from the necessary legal efforts to prepare sponsorship contracts, funds, etc.). It was also important that from the very beginning our event was supported by one of the RuSSIR school partners - Dream Industries company, developing Zvooq, a popular music streaming service.
To disseminate information about the hackathon, we used various online channels: the main page with the registration form on Timepad (we also used mailings), the information channels of the RuSSIR school, the Facebook page, the texts on Codeforces and, of course, on Habré . In addition, our partners helped us announce an event on Theories & Practices. We also distributed the flyer offline among Kazan citizens. It is not surprising that, according to statistics, the lion’s share of participants came through the school’s information channels, and a significant proportion of the participants identified friends / colleagues as a source of first information about the school.
Supporting support resources could also be considered as an important part of preparing for an event. So, we used the Hacker League , a popular platform to accompany the hackathons, to describe ideas and form teams. It’s no secret that the hackathon culture is just beginning to take root in Russia, so the preparation of a special FAQ , which covered both the general and private aspects of our event, was the key point. Useful for quick start was also a document on recommended resources , which participants could read in advance. In addition, during the hackathon, all the relevant information was displayed on a special page of the TweetWally resource configured for the hashtag #russir. According to the questionnaire, the list of the most useful resources turned out to be the following: the page on the Hacker League (29%), the main page on the Timepad (21%) and the recommended resources (16%).
We signed a contract with the nearest cafe, which organized 4 meals a day for the participants (two dinners, breakfast, lunch). In addition, there was one coffee break, two pizza deliveries as overnight food, and, of course, energy, tea, coffee, juice, snacks, available throughout the hackathon. Everyone liked the pizza (I will not advertise the restaurant from the federal network, but you can contact me in person if interested). The choice of drinks is a matter of taste. However, 28% of respondents noted juices as the favorite drink, followed by tea (25%), coffee (23%) and energy (18%).
The speed of the wireless Internet was not quite comfortable (of course, the key thing in organizing). Only 43% of participants were satisfied with the quality of the Internet connection. Unfortunately, the wired Internet was incorrectly configured, and participants were not able to offload the network by transferring to another channel.
My personal failure in organization was a failure in partnership negotiations with local and federal music stores. Following the precepts and practices of Steve Jobs, illustrated, for example, in a recent eponymous film, I seem to have phoned all potentially interesting store representations, convincing them of the expediency of support (of course, having a full-fledged newsletter ready). By the way, as this experience has shown, such negotiations need to be started in advance (even not in a month), since many do not fully understand the benefits of their investments (advertising on a certain market segment - the intersection of IT audience and musicians), even if relatively small. That is, in principle, having more time, one would have time to reach concrete agreements with one or two stores. But sometimes it was ridiculous: some even admitted that advertising was useless - they got used to work quietly.
Another mistake - failed to attract a musical audience (or IT-Schnick musicians) for a variety of events. Of course, it is always important to maintain a balance with these kinds of things. However, it seemed that the idea of ​​the jam session looked quite adequate to the event, but was not supported by the participants.
The general consensus of all people involved in the hackathon - the event was a success. The fact that there is interest in future events of such a plan outside this audience also shows at least a survey from the previous post on Habré (up to 3/4 of those who voted by this time show interest in the hackathon). From my point of view, the idea of ​​having a music hackathon next year in Kazan or Moscow with the participation of leading music streaming services - Zvooq, Yandex.Music, Google Music and, probably, Spotify (should come to Russia next year) looks quite realistic.
Objectives of the event
The idea of ​​hackathon was born, first of all, thanks to the school RuSSIR . In my subjective assessment, the previous schools showed that its serious problem was the lack of intensive practice. The free and competitive format of the hackathon seemed to be the most convenient for students of the school to use the acquired skills in solving real problems. In addition, I personally am a big fan of music and music services / applications. Thus, the main theme of the school - audio search - was transformed into the musical theme of the hackathon.
Member Profile
We collected feedback from the participants after the event, so some items will be illustrated with statistics from the questionnaire.
')
Principles of organization
Hackathon took place in the 24-hour mode (from Friday evening to Saturday evening). Since our Kazan team had never arranged hackathons before, the main source of the best carrying out practices for us was HackDay Manifesto , and also we relied on consultations with our more experienced partners. Almost at the very beginning, it was decided to position our event as open and free: we were glad to see among the participants people who had nothing to do with RuSSIR school. Since the school’s audience included foreign participants from Europe, initially all materials in the preparation process were created and maintained for two languages ​​- English and Russian.
Intentionally, we provided complete freedom in the choice of technologies for implementation. The involvement of an independent team of trainers (our partners from Dream Industries) was helpful. Obviously, not all hackathons follow this practice, which, generally speaking, is quite useful, especially for young developers. In our case, it was just necessary: ​​the trainers also advised the participants on the use of a specific API. According to the questionnaire, up to a third of the participants benefited from the help of trainers, and everyone was pleased with the results.
As for the prizes, in the end - there were two types of prizes: one project was selected on the basis of wisdom of crowds (participants could vote for any project other than their own), and the other was chosen collectively by a team of coaches. By the way, according to the questionnaire, a third of the participants supported the idea of ​​choosing a project by independent experts.
Event venue
The choice of venue - one of the cornerstones of the organization of any event. The specificity of the 24-hour hakaton, obviously, lies in the fact that it is necessary to especially consider the convenience of the venue. Unfortunately, we were not able to agree on holding an event both with the head of one of the local co-working centers, and with representatives of the central site of the main events in the IT sphere in Kazan - the IT park. As a result, we stopped at the auditoriums of the building of the Higher School of Information Technologies and Information Systems of the Kazan Federal University. Organizing a night event at the university is not an easy task, in principle. To our luck, the management went forward and provided all the necessary permissions. Understanding perfectly that it is almost impossible to provide the necessary comfort in classrooms, we came up with the idea of ​​a peculiar know-how - we rented a 16-bed room for a night in a hostel located 10 minutes away, so that the participants who needed it could go for a rest and take a shower. The overwhelming majority of the participants (even those who did not use it) liked this idea.
Search for partners / sponsors
We were lucky that the NLR ROMIP - the organization for holding the RuSSIR school - became the basic organization of the hackathon (this saved us from the necessary legal efforts to prepare sponsorship contracts, funds, etc.). It was also important that from the very beginning our event was supported by one of the RuSSIR school partners - Dream Industries company, developing Zvooq, a popular music streaming service.
Promotion of the event
To disseminate information about the hackathon, we used various online channels: the main page with the registration form on Timepad (we also used mailings), the information channels of the RuSSIR school, the Facebook page, the texts on Codeforces and, of course, on Habré . In addition, our partners helped us announce an event on Theories & Practices. We also distributed the flyer offline among Kazan citizens. It is not surprising that, according to statistics, the lion’s share of participants came through the school’s information channels, and a significant proportion of the participants identified friends / colleagues as a source of first information about the school.
Inforesources
Supporting support resources could also be considered as an important part of preparing for an event. So, we used the Hacker League , a popular platform to accompany the hackathons, to describe ideas and form teams. It’s no secret that the hackathon culture is just beginning to take root in Russia, so the preparation of a special FAQ , which covered both the general and private aspects of our event, was the key point. Useful for quick start was also a document on recommended resources , which participants could read in advance. In addition, during the hackathon, all the relevant information was displayed on a special page of the TweetWally resource configured for the hashtag #russir. According to the questionnaire, the list of the most useful resources turned out to be the following: the page on the Hacker League (29%), the main page on the Timepad (21%) and the recommended resources (16%).
Nutrition
We signed a contract with the nearest cafe, which organized 4 meals a day for the participants (two dinners, breakfast, lunch). In addition, there was one coffee break, two pizza deliveries as overnight food, and, of course, energy, tea, coffee, juice, snacks, available throughout the hackathon. Everyone liked the pizza (I will not advertise the restaurant from the federal network, but you can contact me in person if interested). The choice of drinks is a matter of taste. However, 28% of respondents noted juices as the favorite drink, followed by tea (25%), coffee (23%) and energy (18%).
Organizational slips
The speed of the wireless Internet was not quite comfortable (of course, the key thing in organizing). Only 43% of participants were satisfied with the quality of the Internet connection. Unfortunately, the wired Internet was incorrectly configured, and participants were not able to offload the network by transferring to another channel.
My personal failure in organization was a failure in partnership negotiations with local and federal music stores. Following the precepts and practices of Steve Jobs, illustrated, for example, in a recent eponymous film, I seem to have phoned all potentially interesting store representations, convincing them of the expediency of support (of course, having a full-fledged newsletter ready). By the way, as this experience has shown, such negotiations need to be started in advance (even not in a month), since many do not fully understand the benefits of their investments (advertising on a certain market segment - the intersection of IT audience and musicians), even if relatively small. That is, in principle, having more time, one would have time to reach concrete agreements with one or two stores. But sometimes it was ridiculous: some even admitted that advertising was useless - they got used to work quietly.
Another mistake - failed to attract a musical audience (or IT-Schnick musicians) for a variety of events. Of course, it is always important to maintain a balance with these kinds of things. However, it seemed that the idea of ​​the jam session looked quite adequate to the event, but was not supported by the participants.
Conclusions and future plans
The general consensus of all people involved in the hackathon - the event was a success. The fact that there is interest in future events of such a plan outside this audience also shows at least a survey from the previous post on Habré (up to 3/4 of those who voted by this time show interest in the hackathon). From my point of view, the idea of ​​having a music hackathon next year in Kazan or Moscow with the participation of leading music streaming services - Zvooq, Yandex.Music, Google Music and, probably, Spotify (should come to Russia next year) looks quite realistic.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/196532/
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