I love this idea. Sign me up!
@Mike_AutomaticN
You always have great and creative ideas! I think you should run with this idea! I think it would be cool if all the builds were happening during the same timeframe, so we could potentially watch all the builds happening live.
- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant
This is a cool idea, @Mike_AutomaticN 😍 Would love to see what the appetite is from the community and we can go from there!
Definitely sounds fun @Mike_AutomaticN, count me in 😎👍
Hey!!! Thanks for the support @ScottWorld @DisraeliGears01 @GCheung @drnemer @BillH!!!
Let’s give it a shot and get signups using this form. Details to follow :D
Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation
YouTube Channel
Love this!! I am a home grown Airtable user/builder and have found myself recommending and subsequentially implementing the tool at the last 3 companies I’ve worked for - and I work in marketing/commercialization, lol. All to say, I am not a power builder but would love the opportunity to represent the “business side” when it comes to innovative builds. Is this the kind of hackathon that can use that type of insight?
I've been absent from this community for a while, and just happened to stumble across this when looking to see if the outage was listed here. A hackathon sounds fun.
Some thoughts…
Would you have individual builders or would there be teams?
What prizes would there be in addition to bragging rights?
Would there be sponsors?
How would the finished entries be published?
I like the idea of a theme and a limited time frame to give structure to the hackathon. I think the first hackathon should not be specific to any particular industry or vertical--too many people might think it is not for them. I like the idea of a low barrier to entry.
I think it would be nice to have an online meeting open the event and another online meeting to close the event. The theme could be announced at the opening meeting. Awards could be announced at the closing meeting, with demos of the winning entries. Then demos of all the entries could be published after the closing meeting.
Love this!! I am a home grown Airtable user/builder and have found myself recommending and subsequentially implementing the tool at the last 3 companies I’ve worked for - and I work in marketing/commercialization, lol. All to say, I am not a power builder but would love the opportunity to represent the “business side” when it comes to innovative builds. Is this the kind of hackathon that can use that type of insight?
Hey @carrie_on914,
This is amazing. Thanks for the support, and thanks for signing up already. We’d love to have you onboard and be a part of it all. I really appreciate your enthusiasm 💪💪💪 :D
Oh, and make sure to spread the word!!! The more the merrier!
Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation
YouTube Channel
Great idea! Would love to participate!
Hey @kuovonne,
Given your involvement in the community (even if it has been some time) your support and input really means a lot!! Thanks!
I’m a big fan of your long detailed answers lol.
Re: Would you have individual builders or would there be teams?
I would be open to both, if that lowers the barrier to entry. Right?
Re: Would there be sponsors?
Would be very nice, specially to help with prices and promotion of the event. However, I would also want to make sure that this is still community led and owned rather than “owned” by sponsors. Also, as it would be Airtable focused wouldn’t it be tough to find sponsors? Do you think complementary software companies could be interested (Fillout, Make, Softr, etc)? What do you have in mind? I guess whether they could be interested or not will depend on the approach. But again, having sponsors onboard would make it way more fun and interesting.
Re: What prizes would there be in addition to bragging rights?
In line with the above, might depend on whether we go with or without sponsors. Hopefully AT might be interested to pitch in with some fun prizes. Wink, wink Airtable ;)
Re: How would the finished entries be published?
Access to full bases and systems doesn’t seem possible/ideal (for multiple reasons such as paid seats depending on the features, convenience, multiple tools). I would suggest having recorded videos from all participants, and having these videos published online.
Re: I like the idea of a theme and a limited time frame to give structure to the hackathon. I think the first hackathon should not be specific to any particular industry or vertical--too many people might think it is not for them. I like the idea of a low barrier to entry.
You absolutely have my attention. What are you thinking in terms of Themes vs. Industries/Verticals?
Meaning, what do you mean by themes then?
Re: I think it would be nice to have an online meeting open the event and another online meeting to close the event. The theme could be announced at the opening meeting. Awards could be announced at the closing meeting, with demos of the winning entries. Then demos of all the entries could be published after the closing meeting.
Structure:
5hs long live building timeframe, given how fast it is to build with Airtable, or the traditional offline 24-48hs schedule? The nice thing about the 24-48hs schedule though is that we do not need participants to stick to a fixed agenda/time frame if they are not available (and multiple time zones issue).
The nice thing about the 5hs long live building would be the live aspect of it, and its energy. We could kick-off with a zoom meeting, split into breakout rooms for building, and then close with an additional “Thank you and next steps” meeting.
Regardless, of the time frame discussion, submission: Every participant should submit a recorded 8 min demo.
Evaluation: We can have a panel of juries/evaluators, or else we can have all demo videos online and get the community to upvote demos. The former is more “objective”. The latter is more community driven, generates engagement and promotion, and seems more fun. Right?
@kuovonne I’d really love to get your feedback and thoughts. As well as those of any other member!
@ScottWorld, @Andres_at_Conne, @DisraeliGears01, @carrie_on914, @drnemer. Thoughts?
Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation
YouTube Channel
I like the idea of high level themes - I think it gives people a place to sit and think. Groups/individuals could pick a theme and go from there. Things like… data visualization/storytelling, marketing ops, nonprofit impact, education/learning, supply chain, public dashboards (collaborative data), etc.
Or you could even go higher-level than that and have themes like impact (does the solution help “improve the world” in some esoteric way?), automation/AI (creative uses of these features), collaboration (helps teams/companies work better together), play/experimentation (unusual or random uses of AT), etc.
That’s my 2 cents on themes!
As for prizes I think it would be cool to win 1:1 time with experts or get a subscription to an integration tool.
Hey @carrie_on914!
Re: Themes
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. What do you mean by “Groups/individuals could pick a theme”? Are you suggesting having multiple themes out of which participants could freely choose which one to go with?
Re: 1:1 time with experts.
Lol. I didn’t even think that was something we could put out there. I can only speak for myself, but I’d love to pitch in with a couple of hours! -either for winners, or under some sort of draw/raffle.
Re: Subscription to an integration tool.
This might fall under the “sponsorship” discussion.
Should we schedule a brief call and discuss further? I’d love to!
Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation
YouTube Channel
Hey hey!
We are moving forward 💪.
We now have a landing page for the event found on this post. :D Feel free to provide feedback on it!!
My latest thoughts:
- Time frame for building: 48hs (as to make it as asynchronous as possible -again lower barriers to entry as suggested by @kuovonne)
- Submissions, video or link to video via form.
- Review and winners. What are your thoughts on having all videos posted on YT -if permission is granted- (we can create a specific channel), and have winners be those with more likes? YT seems to be the easiest, to avoid having to build some sort of portal to this effect. But I’m open to ideas.
@ScottWorld @kuovonne @Andres_at_Conne @carrie_on914 @DisraeliGears01 @drnemer
Mike
Signed up!
YouTube sounds appropriate to me.
As for themes or topics, personally I like some specificity to design towards rather than the big broad conceptual themes. For some reason my brain keeps coming back to a paragraph length word problem (almost like an AI prompt lol) but I also have two or three projects in my back pocket that I could build out on, so I’m good with whatever.
Lol you are always ready @DisraeliGears01 😂
What specific “themes” are you thinking about? Just to name a few examples.
Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation
YouTube Channel
The 48 hour window sounds perfect. Long enough so that people in different time zones can participate. Not so long that people get intimidated thinking they need to build something big. Short enough to set aside dedicated time instead of procrastinating.
I like the idea of a video demo as part of the submission. Your suggestion of 8 minutes sounds fine, but I think that should be the maximum length, with the understanding that shorter videos are okay.
For a theme, I was thinking something kinda abstract like “first” or “trick or treat”. Something to spark the imagination without being too prescriptive.
Another option is to have everyone start with the same simple starter base with a few tables, some data, and a background story. Then people can decide how they want to flesh out the base and what additional features they want to add.
For prizes, I like the idea of a raffle/drawing in addition to other prizes. Everyone has a chance of winning something, even if they are unsure of their building skills.
Uploading videos to YouTube and having a “Fan Favorite” as one of the prizes based on likes is okay. However, I think there should also be some other prize that is based on criteria set by Airtable experts.
Why not use an Airtable interface for the contest “portal”? Read-only interface users are free. People could submit entries using forms for free, and you could even require them to be logged into Airtable when submitting the form. You could also have people vote for fan favorite in the interface using prefilled forms.
Other ideas for prizes
Sponsoring agencies that are interested in hiring new developers could promise that a human would look at the resumes of winning contestants. This would encourage people interested in becoming developers to submit an entry.
You could ask BuiltOnAir if they would be willing to have a winning entry be a guest on the podcast.
You could ask DareTable if they would be willing to give away a ticket to the next conference as a prize.
I also think you need to have clearly defined rules for 3rd party integrations. Are 3rd party integrations allowed, and if so how much of the build must be in Airtable? Should there be different categories for entries with 3rd party integrations versus only native Airtable?
Hey hey!
@kuovonne
1. Let’s go with 48hs!
2. Lol, agreed. 8 min might even be too long. At the same time, if the system is complex, they might want to take their time to show off :D
3. What about having “trigger” themes or ideas? Something that is not mandatory to follow, but will help for those in need of inspiration. I had a call with Cole Fortman this week, and he also suggested more “weird” challenges under a Mr. Beast approach. I thought that was also fun (although way less useful lol). So I (ChatGPT) came up with a few ones. We could include additional themes as those suggested by you, and just have a library with themes/ideas to kick-off inspiration maybe.
4. Re: Prizes & Winners. Airtable has given us their official support (shoutout to @GCheung!!)
We’ll have 3 categories:
- Airtable's Official Award — AI Focused: Alex McDonnell, Director of Product Marketing at Airtable, will be picking the base that best shows off Airtable's AI superpowers.
- Basefluencer Award: For the builder who make everyone go "wait, you built that in Airtable?!" The most liked, submission takes it.
- Grand Jury Award: Top Airtable Agencies/devs will join forces to crown the community's best overall build. [Suggestions on who should be part of this jury?]
Prizes: Airtable Swag, get featured in Airtable’s Make Changers spotlight, free consultation sessions (not sure winners would need this though, so maybe raffle is the best for it). Shippment of swag is subject to location.
5. I absolutely like the “portal” idea.
6. Other Prizes. Would love that. To be further discussed.
7. Third party integrations. I’d say we keep it simple, keep as much as possible in Airtable leverage third party tools when really needed. Judges should keep this in mind.
